Night at the Circus

Hubby got me tickets to the circus (with him, of course) for Christmas, so tonight we spent a night at the circus.

(Quick note – click on any pictures to see larger images)

It was a cool night, but the sky was clear. The streets bustled with cars and people headed to the show.

They had stands set-up everywhere with crazy toys and goodies.

Everywhere I looked I saw my childhood fave (that I still enjoy quite a bit) – cotton candy…it was on stands at every corner and men walked around with big poles that looked like cotton candy trees that they were using to sell cotton candy to the crowd.

There were tons of those spinny toys and snow cones, too.

Before the show started, we got foot long hot dogs…

…and nachos. The jalapenos were all for hubby. They are way too spicy for me! I only managed to finish half of my hot dog and a handful of chips with cheese. They were quite tasty, though.

The show started with a bang. The ring leader kicked things off with a patriot message and belted out the National Anthem. Then there were lots of dancing, singing, happy people along with lots of lights and what not. They also had a cool act near the beginning with high-jump dogs that were really good at grabbing frisbees right out of the air.

See the blurry thing in the top middle photo? That’s 4 people spinning around some pole thingy near the roof. They were so high up!

One of my favorite parts was seeing the white horses with the turquoise (my fave color!) head pieces. Their trainer wore a bright turquoise outfit, too.

This part really freaked me out. You probably can’t tell, but there are like 4 or 5 dudes in there riding motorcycles. Shortly after this photo, they squeezed 7 in there. I couldn’t believe it! Can you imagine, 7 guys riding motorcycles around each other in a round, steel cage? Craziness!

After that stunt, and some more singing and dancing, it was time for intermission. You know what intermission means for me, right?

Snack time! Cotton candy time, to be exact.

Does any one else love this stuff as much as me?

After our snack break, the show was back on. We saw beautiful tigers doing silly tricks. This reminds me of something I’ve been trying to teach Bailey to do.

Next up, we had the balance and contortionist peeps. These guys were all pretty incredible.

And you can’t have a circus show without trapeze artists. These guys were hard to get photos of with my slow point-and-shoot (I left the Rebel at home). We saw one guy do a triple somersault.

The elephants were surprisingly entertaining. These guys are way more spry than they look!

Then, the show went into a rainforest theme, complete with black light effects. The swirling image to the top-right is actually a guy doing the spinny rope thing…you know, where they put their foot or arm in a loop at the top of a rope and spin around in an elegant position? I don’t know what it’s called…lol.

Then, we had an act I hadn’t seen before…I don’t know what this is either, so I’ll just call them the Crazy Stick Guys. They swung back and forth on these flipping from one to the other…it was pretty crazy, but cool to see.

Here’s the grand finale.

All in all it was a great time. I don’t think I had been to the circus since I was a kid, so it was really cool seeing it as an adult.

Thanks for the Christmas gift, babe, I had a great time and hope you did, too!