Circus Fun & Other Things

We've been planning for a few months now to take Joshua to see the circus when it came to visit Hershey. There has been lots of talk about animals and clowns and all things circus leading up to this Saturday, and I think it worked. The first words out of Joshua's mouth when he awoke on Saturday morning were, "Can we go to the circus now?"

We arrived just in time to get parked and have a chance to visit the animals outside in their prep area. Joshua particularly enjoyed the elephants...especially since the handlers were using lawn blowers to blow the dirt and sand off of them in preparation for the show. (Leave it to Josh to spot lawn equipment and lock in on it!)

Inside the arena, they had a very close-up pre show that Joshua seemed to enjoy. It was a bit chaotic for my liking, but we did OK. Jason ended up putting Joshua up on his shoulders for a better look at the one ring where an elephant came out for the kids to see up close.

Joshua did very well during the circus itself. It was about two hours long, and we could tell he was starting to get tired toward the end. He definitely was, as you can see in the picture below. How he managed to fall asleep with all of that music playing (I believe my ears are STILL ringing) and stay asleep while Jason carried him out of the arena with 6 million screaming children, into the hot sun and all the way to our car defies all logic. Unfortunately, my hopes of a nap all the way home were dashed when his eyeballs opened upon sitting him in his car seat. Luckily, I had a cooler with a lunch in it for him that he ate on the way home. And that DVD player once again saved our butts......

I don't believe I've posted about this yet, but Joshua has had a real interest in planting marigolds this year. He saw something about planting flowers on Max & Ruby, and it's stuck. I kept promising him that when the weather got nice, we'd plant flowers together. So Saturday night was the night. We stopped at a little flower stand on our way home from Hershey, and then picked up the dirt that we needed, and got to planting right after dinner. You can see Joshua with his proud marigolds. I thought it was adorable. Jason was a bit concerned about his interest in something slightly non-masculine, like flower planting....but he was mostly interested in digging in the dirt, which I rank in the masculine category mostly.

Ever since our crazy day on Saturday, we've been hanging around the house together. Joshua and I did go to church on Sunday, but since then we've mostly been playing outside. He helped Jason and both of our neighbors cut their grass this morning for well over an hour and a half. He has since boycotted his nap, and I'm sure will turn into a blubbering mess before dinner time is done. The only good part about no nap.........an earlier bedtime.

I'm drafting a post in my head at this point about what my plans were for today (Monday) and what they actually ended up looking like. Hopefully tomorrow that'll make it on here. For now, Jason and Joshua are outside playing and I don't want to miss too much of that.

Happy Memorial Day!