The Circus Came to Town!

The Kelly Miller Circus came to town this week and the kids were soooo excited to go!!!  They eagerly anticipated circus day and were thrilled when it finally arrived.  We had went to see the clowns that came to the library a couple of weeks ago that told us about the circus and Ava nearly became a walking circus commercial after that:)  Ava had to go to school, but I wasn't working that day, so I took Blaine out to the circus grounds in the morning to watch them set up the circus.  We saw the animals unload from the trailers, the tents go up and the empty lot transform into circus city.  There was a lady that took all of us that showed up to watch on a little backstage circus tour and told us all about the circus and its history.  Amazing to think - there are 96 people (and all the animals - elephants, tigers, camels, zebras, dogs, llamas, goats) in this circus from Hugo, OK that travel to different towns nearly every day to perform a circus 38 weeks out of the year!  I can't comprehend that life.  All the circus kids have school in the mornings and then practice their acts or learn a skill in the afternoons - an interesting childhood.

 We went inside the tent to watch Lisa, the elephant, help put up the main support poles of the tent.  They connected her harness to a bracket on the bottom of the pole and she pulled it into place.  They kept the pole between the forks on a skidsteer to make sure it didn't slip from side to side - Blaine loved that there was a skidsteer (more exciting than the elephant even I believe).

 As soon as Ava got home from school, she had a quick snack and we left to pick up her friend, Lauren, and head to the circus!  It was HOT inside the circus tent, but it was a very good show and the kids loved it all.  There were tigers, fire eaters, trapeze artists flying from the top of the tent and twirling from their teeth, balancing acts, clowns, elephants, zebras, hula-hooping, trained dogs and goats and llamas and more!  They sold peanuts early in the performance with special prize tickets in some bags.  I agreed to buy some peanuts for the kids and we happened to get a winning ticket!  So the girls went down to pick out a giant circus balloon on a stick as the prize (only 1 prize and 3 kids though!)

 At intermission, we went out to get some fresh air and cool off a bit.  I also let the kids ride a camel and they thought that was pretty cool!  Blaine was the "driver" since the littlest sat in the front - he loves to drive anything and can add a camel to his list now too:)  Ava was thrilled when the lady put her in the "princess seat" in the back - made her feel pretty special.

As I had waited for Blaine to wake from his nap that afternoon, I perused the Kelly Miller Circus website to see where all they had been performing and came across a coloring page that you could print and bring to the circus for a coloring contest.  So I printed pages for the kids.  The girls colored them on the way to the circus since we didn't have any other time (Blaine wasn't into coloring his).  They announced Ava as the coloring contest winner!  Actually, I suspect that there may have only been those 2 entries since no one else seemed to know about the contest.  But she got to pick out an inflatable toy after the show and she loves her new Scooby Doo toy!  A winning peanut ticket and a coloring contest winner - we had a good night!

 All in all, it was a great time and I enjoyed the show as well as the kids.  They did a class act circus performance and it was very interesting to be able to go out early and learn more about the circus.  Not every day the circus comes to a small town like this, but we took advantage of it and it was very worthwhile!