The Circus!

Well the Brannon family had a late night last night. We were livin' it up at the circus! The Shrine Circus was in town this week and since we haven't gone in about 5 years, we decided that it would be a good family night. It started at 7 so we left the house at 5:30 (ran a little late...suprise suprise) to give us time to eat and get to Fort Worth. Or rather get to Fort Worth and then eat.

Half way there my husband asks, "So do you know where we are going?". Ummmm, no. I thought you looked it up when you got the tickets. Nope. He was just going to try to remember how to get there from when we went the last time (note: THAT WAS 5 YEARS AGO!). Needless to say, we got lost. We found the right main street but apparently Fort Worth has an issue with actually posting directional signs on cross streets. We only passed it twice before we figured out where it was.

Since we were running late (and had not eaten yet) we dropped Blake off at Will Call and I went to go try to find a parking space along with half the population of the Metroplex. I was a little nervous about this (lots of cars and not really a great driver in the dark...can't see). So I turned down the main street and was going to circle the block but there were too many cars in the turn lane so I just turned down the street right across from the arena. Figured we could just walk a while. Anyway, about half a block down was a TEENY TINY parking space. Good thing: I don't have an SUV. Bad thing: it was a parallel parking space....the only part of the driving test I flunked and would probably still flunk today. (Memory flash of me and dad in the red station wagon practicing in Meeker's parking lot.) But guess what?!?! I did it. And I only had to go back and forth less than a dozen times! Of course the car parked behind me had no room to get out but since when is that my problem? Kidding....he had room to back up. I wouldn't be that mean. When we got to the arena (less than a two minute walk), with me still on a parking high, all Blake could say was that it took us a while. He just has no appreciation for the joy of the "Good Parking Space".

We got to our seats with time to spare (10 whole minutes). Blake went to go get us something to eat since we still hadn't had dinner. He came back 5 minutes later with a coke. Hmmmmm. Something seems wrong...perhaps the nachos and hot dogs are in his pockets. Try again...the coke was $3 and he "wasn't going to pay those prices". Luckily the kids were not starving. (Before you call CPS on me, I actually had food in my purse...eeeewwww. No really, Andrew likes to eat some breakfast and snacks at my office sometimes and I got tired of the granola bars and fruit snacks in my desk so that morning I had put them in my purse to take home and forgot about them. Good thing.) What a healthy meal for two growing children. I really don't think they minded. They both were too busy staring wide-eyed and slack-jawed at the performers. The tigers were first so that sucked them both right in. It was almost more fun to watch the kids then to watch the circus.

Andrew decided about half way thru that he wanted to go home and that he HATED the clowns. He laughed at what they did at first but during one of the skits there was a loud bang and from then on, he didn't like clowns. They were loud. For those of you who don't know, my little boy hates loud noises, from vacuum cleaners to fire drills, he just can't stand them. Oh, guess what the final act is? The Human Cannonball. That was fun. His head was buried in my chest with both his hands covering his ears and my hands on top of his. But if you ask him today, he will tell you that his favorite part was the clowns. Hmmmm.

Ally liked the "pretty girls" the best. She didn't really care what they did as long as they had the glittery outfits and long hair. Come to think of it, Blake liked them the best too. Wait a second.....

All in all, a pretty good night. Didn't get home til after 11:00 so, needless to say, both kids fell asleep on the drive home.