The Family Circus

We're back! Our big graduation trip that we've been planning for four years is over. We did a seven night cruise to the Eastern Caribbean. We hit Aruba, Bonaire, Grenada, Dominica and St. Thomas. A different beach for every day. It was perfect. I'm not sure it could have gone any better. I'm so glad we did it! And I'm so sad it's over!

I have some big ideas for how I want to blog about it. I hope it won't take me forever to get around to actually getting it done.

Ash and Mel and I are going to exchange pictures this weekend at graduation. They take the kind of marvelous pictures that I only dream about taking, so I'll wait to see what they've got before I commit to any posts.

In the meantime, I thought I'd tell you about our first family excursion since we got back from our cruise. Bobby, Louise (Bobby's mom), and I took the girls to the circus tonight. It comes to K-ville every year and we've only been once before. (Franny and I went with Jill and Alyssa and Brenda and Ellie. Holla!) Admission is kind of pricey for such a small-scale circus. But we had a good time and I thought the girls would love it so we thought, why not?

Well, this year I was a little more impressed because they had lions and tigers. In my opinion, a circus is not a circus without lions and tigers. Franny and Sophie even got to have an elephant ride again. I wanted some pictures, of course, so I ran around the arena like a spaz, bumping into other parents on stepping on the feet of small children just so I could snap a shot of my kids on their $10 elephant ride. Here's one of my best.


Awesome. I had it on the macro setting because I'm a freaking idiot.

It didn't get much better after that.

My favorite is the picture of the elephant's rear end.

Oh yeah, and in case you didn't know, I have the sense of humor of a 12 year old boy. Check this out:

Edited: Sophie is saying, "Elephant's peanuts." I promise, she doesn't know that other word yet. We used to love it when this kid used to ask for a "fork." Once she actually said, "Fork you." I laughed all day along about that one.

Circus Freaks

We had a great time at the circus last night. Our favorite part was definitely the elephant ride! This was Franny's first visit to the circus and she did okay considering it was late for her. She really liked the beginning thanks in large part to Jill and her generosity when she purchased Franny her beloved "blue" (that's what she calls this light-up toy.) She really started to flip out at the end, but it was still a great experience.

Left: Franny before she had the blue; Right: Franny after she got the blue. (Thanks Jill!)

I almost forgot to mention something crazy that happened. When Franny starts to get upset, sometimes she'll just throw whatever she has in her hand on the ground. I had to retrieve her sippie cup at least three times. Well, towards the end of the evening, when she was getting close to hitting her limit, she threw her "blue" and it fell on the ground underneath the bleachers we were sitting on. Jill kindly went to go and find it for me and a circus employee offered to go underneath and retrieve the "blue." Emerging from beneath the bleachers successful with the toy in his hand, he asked Jill, "are these your keys, too?" They were her keys. She didn't even know she was missing them! Well, I soon realized later that I shouldn't have given Franny the toy back, because right after I did she chucked the blue five rows ahead of us and hit a woman in the head! Sorry lady!