Melder Boys Go to the Circus!

Yet another blessing from someone in our community!!  He holds season tickets for the Penguins and I guess they get some bonus events along the way.  He's a single guy and had no interest in going to the circus, so he called Doug and asked if he wanted the tickets.  Well, of course he did!!  I was so excited.  A little bummed that I couldn't go along, but also super psyched for another quiet, low key morning with Penn to continue resting and healing.  After a long week of rain and cold, this was a great opportunity to get the boys out of the house (particularly Koen who is definitely showing signs of extreme cabin fever).  Before the circus fun, Koen and Doug made a yummy breakfast of French toast.  Then we noticed a lot of activity outside.  The trees were being planted!! Yay!!  We are getting 4 crab apple trees right outside our house.  Here are the boys checking out the action.

Around 9:45am, I sent Doug with the boys all bundled, a few smuggled snacks and my camera to the circus.  He did a great job keeping the boys safe, warm, interested and fed while also taking a bunch of pictures.  You and I will just have to enjoy the circus via these pictures...  Doug found out that you could go early and be down at the floor level to see the animals before the show.  He got the boys there in time to take that in and they got to see the elephants up close.

All the children received clown noses.  I cannot believe that Douglas got Tavin to put his on.  Koen would have none of it!

Then the show started.  A little Americana to start...

And the show begins!

Tavin was a little confused, but Doug answered all his "why" questions and Doug said he did just fine.  

The show continued with tightrope walkers (and bikers!).

 I'm not exactly sure what this stunt is, but it looks interesting!

Then it was time for the tigers!

Next they set a man on fire (what?) and shot him out of a catapult.  Classic circus stunt I guess.  Pretty crazy!!  Boys, please DON'T try this at home!

The last act that the boys stayed for (it was getting close to Tav's naptime) was the elephants.  So amazing what these huge animals will do!

When the boys got home they wanted to scroll through the pictures on the camera and show them off to me before heading to nap/rest time.  We were all piled on the loveseat together and Doug snapped a picture of me, Penn and Tav.  Pretty funny!

Doug prompted to get Koen into the picture and as you can see it didn't really work.  K has been so on edge lately.  Not having the picture go right made him freak out for some reason.  You can see that even Tavin was confused by this outrage and Penn is just focused on the red on Tav's shirt (it was so cute he kept leaning forward trying to grab Tav or kiss him or something).  Tav loved it!

Then Doug attempted one more just of Penn and I.  If only I didn't look half asleep.  Oh well, I'm a happy momma even if a little tired and sick.

Well, thanks so much to our generous friend who gave us these circus tickets which made for quite a special morning for Doug and the big boys and a nice quiet time for Penn and I!