Our Trip to the Big Apple

So, what did you do today? We went to the circus! Mike's coworker Kevin gave us four tickets to the Big Apple Circus in downtown Boston because his kids have come down with chicken pox. Poor kids, I feel bad for them, I really do... but the circus was fun!! Thanks for the tickets, guys! We had a great time.

Mike took the day off and we drove into town and parked the car in our old neighborhood. Seems like a lifetime ago that we lived down there in the heart of everything. It's also a gorgeous day today - cool and sunny - so the girls were excited and having a great time before we even got there!





The circus was a nice one. Small, without the big exotic animals, but with a good sized tent that allowed us to be close to the ring and see everything well. Perfect for little kids in the city. They're a not-for-profit performing arts organization; the profit from ticket sales goes to fund their community outreach organizations, especially concerning children's health care and programs for disabled or at-risk kids. They are celebrating the return of Bello, "America's Best Clown" according to Time Magazine, who apparently began his career in The Big Apple Circus and is back now with his teenage daughter who did aerial acrobatics in the opening act. The ringleader said that Bello is an 8th generation circus performer and that his family has been in the circus for more than 200 years! Talk about the family business.



Of course we got pink "candy cotton" and popcorn for the show. Both were enthusiastically received by the girls, who love popcorn already but hadn't ever had cotton candy. We only needed about 20 wet wipes and a wad of paper napkins after this and Mike still has cotton candy goo all over his sleeve.

Sticky Face:

Both girls were pretty mesmerized by the circus acts, at least for the first half or so. After that, Kate's favorite part of the circus was wandering around the hallway outside making faces at the food vendors, checking out the souvenir booth, and lurking around the bathroom area.

After Kate maxed out her exploring opportunities and Maggie's popcorn box was empty, we decided we might want to make a break for it a little early. Beat the crowds out of the parking lot, as I'm sure someone's Grandpa used to say. Before we could leave, Maggie's conned us out of a $2 foam clown nose (the cheapest thing at the souvenir booth - and the thing she wanted most). We knew we wouldn't be leaving without some kind of (probably light-up) trinket, so I definitely feel like we got off easy.

As it was a little past lunch time, we headed over to Quincy Market to grab some actual food type lunch. Maggie had a small meltdown over a green balloon and Kate was starting to look like a zombie, so we headed for the car.

Zombie Kate:

Maggie feeling better after drying her tears and wiping her nose:

Kate zonks out:

And if you liked that, here's another photo of Kate asleep on the couch after she nodded off in the car on the way home from the grocery store Tuesday morning. She rarely does this (and Maggie almost never did either), so I had to get a cute picture of her sleeping while I could.