The Greatest Show On Earth

last weekend was a special weekend. part of jammers birthday turned out to be tickets to the ringling brothers circus. very, very suprisingly i won tickets to the circus. a contest i entered at work panned out...who knew!!! it was awesome & we got a special 'behind the scenes tour' along with a 'pre-intro to the stars' special to meet & greet the clowns & stars of the circus. jammer & ixxie got to meet clowns, try on outfits, balance on balls, learn to juggle balloons, climb on ropes, you name it they had it for the kids to do. hubby took the program book & got autographs from everyone while the rest of us had fun on the floor. (damn, i hate blogger. i just typed 3 paragraphs that just disappeared. now if i can just remember what all i said.) lets see....i mentioned that one thing i really wanted the kids to get to do was pet some of the animals but they kept insisting that 'no, due to the safety of the kids & tiny feet they couldn't allow that'. how we almost had one girl talked into it until people close to us caught on to what was going on & tried to hone in so she changed her mind. i think when it was just 2 kids we could have gotten in but when another 8 or 9 wanted in she got freaked. and i can see her fear for the animals not being comfortable with a shitload of kids coming at them. we saw clowns, some in little cars, elephants, tigers, dogs, stunts riders, daredevils, tightrope walkers, trapeze artists, horses, zebras, did i mention clowns? big lights, wonderful laser light shows. lots of pretty showgirls very scantily clad that sonny had to be careful & advert his eyes to discourage honey from showing her ass. no matter how impressive those girls are. which i have to admit honey was on her best behavior. she didn't go off once but then how can you really ruin such a great night for your kids especially when those beautiful showgirls are balancing your kid on a big ass ball making him feel like the king of her world?
i can honestly say i've been to alot of circus' but this one really gave me a whole new respect for clowns. those guys are really impressive with all the stunts they do in those big ole floppy shoes they wear. the 'bellobration' was spotlighting BELLO, the main clown & he was a part of some of the most daredevil stunts i've ever seen the clowns involved in. he was actually on the outside of this wheel wearing those big shoes & managed to stay on. this thing was absolutely flying in circles so fast it was hard to see. it was really hard to get a pic of without it being just a blur. something else that fascinated me was the stilts. man, how those guys have improved. used to be it was all they could do to stay up on the 5 or 6 feet sticks that they were. these guys actually danced, skipped & jumped around like it was nothing. they were really good. of course, the whole thing was totally awesome & i can't wait till they come back to town to see them again. here are a few more pics that i thought captured the night. hope you enjoy them as much as we did. next time you get a chance you should take in the barnum & bailey's greatest show on earth. it really was exciting. i'd even pay to go back.
don't you just love the fingers in the mouth? they had a great time... can't you tell. i love my gang.

later