Circus

As I alluded to in the Monster Bad News post, we didn't go to Monster Jam because we had other upcoming plans. Those "plans" translates to tickets to the CIRCUS, which was in town this past week. I don't recall ever having been to the circus before, so it was fun to get a chance to go since the circus is on its last tour and will be done after their shows conclude in May. The circus has been an American staple for generations so we definitely wanted to attend before they "shut their doors", so to speak.

Thomas had a tradition of going to the circus with his Granddad when he was growing up, which is so neat and so memorable for him. We decided to invite Granddad and GranO to come down to Greenville and go to the show with us and his great-grandsons. They both accepted and we were thrilled.

We got tickets for our whole crew as some friends that we were going with - Amanda, Trey and their little boy, Jackson. We are all ready to go. We had decided to get tickets to the 11 AM show on Saturday to avoid afternoon naps, but this made me a little concerned. The reason is because I spent all of last week in Buffalo at a work conference. Last year, I was at the same event and instead of getting home Friday night, there were weather issues and flight cancellations and I didn't get home until Saturday afternoon. I was so worried that the same thing would happen again this year. I really didn't want to have to miss out.

Luckily, all was well with the flights and I got home on Friday night around 8:30. Whew! What I walked into, however, was not great. I knew William had gotten a stomach virus on Thursday and had to come home from school (MaSha to the rescue!!!!!), but what I didn't know was that Stokes had gotten the bug on Friday and had to come home as well. So neither William nor Stokes was in school on Friday. Although William wasn't vomiting any longer, he had to wait the full 24 hours before returning. William's case was pretty mild, but Stokes apparently got it bad on Friday and wasn't keeping anything down. I hate being away from my kids, but it's even worse when they're sick and I'm not there to take care of them, and someone, usually MaSha, has to step in and help out. It was a mess. So although I was so relieved that I made it home and wasn't going to have to miss the circus, as of Friday night, we weren't sure if any of us would be able to go, due to illness. I was crossing my fingers that Ryan wasn't going to get this bug that was going around. Oh and by the way, at last count, there were thirty something kids that got the stomach virus at the boys's school. Yuck. MaSha had offered to stay home with Stokes on Saturday morning if needed if we wanted to take the other 2 if they were well enough. Did I mention that MaSha is a saint?

Oh yeah, and we had heard from Granddad that both he and GranO were fighting colds and weren't going to be able to make the trip down for the show.

Germs, anyone?!?!?!

Our fun circus outing was hanging by a thread and we weren't sure what we were going to do. We knew we'd have to make a final decision on Saturday morning after assessing everyone's health.

Saturday morning came around and the boys all seemed fine. Stokes hadn't thrown up since I'd been home, after not even being able to drink water on Friday afternoon and evening, and everyone's stomachs ate and kept all their breakfast. That was a good sign. I really, really wanted to get everyone out to the circus together, so we decided to go for it. We still had the two extra tickets that Granddad and GranO weren't going to be able to use, so we invited MaSha and our friend Jackson's grandma to come along.  Grandmas are the best!

Trailer out front of the arena

Ryan was LOVING it!

Family pic before the show started

Ryan was clapping and kicking his feet
with pure joy

Camels

Stokes, eating his body weight in popcorn

MaSha with Stokes

The TIGERS!

This part of the show was very impressive. I couldn't
believe what they had the tigers do. It was also a little
bit sad. Poor tigers.

Dancing tiger

The circus was a big hit. Ryan seriously loved it so much. He would clap his hands and his legs were just going, going, going the whole time. That's how you know he really likes something. We ended up passing the boys around between Thomas, MaSha and me, and they rarely sat in their own seats. Hopefully it wasn't too distracting for the people sitting around us. I was a bit worried about the snack situation and varying from the BRAT diet that we'd been doing at home with the stomach bug, knowing that circus concessions proooooobably don't include bananas and rice - HA! We ended up getting popcorn and our most recent sick boy, Stokes, did not seem bothered by it at all. He pretty much ate half of the box all by himself. We did great up until intermission and at intermission, Thomas and I took Stokes and William for potty/snack breaks. After we came back to our seats, Stokes kept saying that he was sleepy and wanted to go home. We reluctantly asked MaSha if she would take Stokes home with her and miss out on the 2nd half and she was thankfully game to do that. Apparently as soon as they left, Stokes was asking to go back to the circus. What a turkey! She made him live with his choice - it's never too early to learn a life lesson, right?!?!? William and Ryan stayed for the whole thing and seemed to really enjoy the show. They took a great afternoon nap after the show, which was a win-win.

I'm so glad that we got to go to the circus before it ends. Although the boys probably won't remember much, if any, of this event, I'm happy that they were there.

Picture of the boys and me on Monday morning before I left for Buffalo

Picture of some co-workers and me from a company hockey game in Buffalo

Lee, me, Stacey, Jeff and RJ