From the Stage to the Big Top...

Sunday right after Church we headed to La Grange. Andie had tickets to take Hayden and herself to a play titled "Peter Rabbit" Monday morning. Claude and I were to have Bailey duty. Andie and Hayden needed to be at the play by 9:30am so it seemed easier to go over Sunday and spend the night so we could wake up and play instead of that o'dark thirty AM drive. The kids were very excited to get up from quiet time sunday afternoon and find Ma and Pa in the house. Michael was supposed to have flown to Maryland Monday morning but his flight was cancelled due to the snow dumped on the DC area Sunday during the night. Monday morning Andie and Hayden headed off to see Peter Rabbit. They had a wonderful time. Then they scored a bonus by being able to go into Louisville and have lunch with Michael. Or as Hayden says, "We went to Hyatt Work!" He was one happy little boy. Bailey entertained Claude and I completely for the morning. She played Play-Doh with Claude while I took care of Medicaid affairs for Papa. Then she played coloring with us and read books. She wanted a bubble bath so I carried my Sudoku book up to the bathroom and filled the tub with bubbles. She played for 1/2 hour until she demanded a change with loud voice and sign language. I got her out of the tub to find a "floater", if you get my drift, in the tub. No wonder she was soooo vehement. I don't blame her at all. So Monday was a great success and Claude and I returned to Sadieville after getting grandmonsters down for quiet time. Tuesday morning I awoke at death's door. I was sure I was having my gall bladder attack again but since I had that removed 2 years ago I can safely state it was not that. Maybe somethings I ate. I spent Tuesday in bed under lots of cover with chills and fever (I never run fevers) and a hubby bringing me Tylenol and trying to help where ever possible.

Wednesday was supposed to begin with a session at the Louisville Temple, but I needed to sleep in a little after Tuesday's event. We managed to get to La Grange in time to jump in Andie's mom-mobile which she had on the street, Bailey locked in seat, and car running. We were off to get Hayden from St. John's Pre-school. He didn't know we were coming. Bailey and I entered the room and he was under the table hiding. She found him immediately (I think they have done that routine on previous pick-ups). I bent down to look under the table and saw the best surprised face any gramma could hope to find. He yelled, "Ma!!" and was out from under there like a shot. We met Ms. Joy, his teacher. Renewed our acquaintance with another classmates mom's. Checked out his picture on the wall. Reviewed the pyramid they made of sugar cubes. And then headed off for Pa (Claude) to buy lunch at McDonald's. Other than leaving Hayden's coat at McDonald's, we did fine at lunch. Claude and I stayed with the grandmonsters while Andie went to retrieve the coat and run some errands without children (that is a treasured bit of time when you have kids, even if it is running errands).

Wednesday evening, Claude and I headed to the Kentucky Center in Louisville. We saw Cirque Dreams Jungle Fantasy. This was our 2nd time to see a Cirque production in person. The first was in Las Vegas and was a water show. This one was just delightful. It was our first venture into Louisville's Kentucky Center. We both wished they would put center aisles in these huge theaters. We were in the Grand Balcony Tier in the very center of the 3rd row. We had to walk over all the people to get to them. Now this was after we had been steered to the floor level, row C and walked all the way across the people in that row only to find people in our seat number. Then we realized we should be in the balcony and so we headed up stairs and walked all over those feet. The seats were excellent and the view was grand. A few of the highlights...They had a "Blackbird Hairialist". She is from Bulgaria where twirling from a rope by the hair on your head is an art form. There are only a few people in the world who actually do this art form any more. The rest are bald!!! No, just kidding, but it did look painful to me. Another thing that was really amazing was "Jungle-ibrium". There are two guys, one from the Ukraine and one from Moldova, who stand on a table about 4 feet high with legs that are decorated like orange and green florescent giraffe legs. Their costumes are also orange and green florescent giraffe print. They have a board on top of the table on which they place a metal cylinder. On top of the metal cylinder they place a board on which they both stand and do balancing tricks, trying to keep the board on which they are standing from rolling off the cylinder thereby placing them on the floor on their backsides. They did several tricks with this one can and climbing on each other's shoulders and balancing. Then they added 3 tables the same size as the board on which they were standing and each table had legs about 12 inches tall on it. These were stacked one on top of the other as they slowly managed to climb on top of each table as it was added. Way cool. Then they brought out 5 metal cylinders. They put one on the board directly on top of the giraffe legged table so that the open end was facing the audience. Then they placed cylinder #2 one top of cylinder #1 so that the open end was facing the sides of the stage. Then they placed cylinder #3 on top of cylinder #2 so the open end was facing the audience, and so on until 5 cylinders were resting on top of each other. THEN they put the board the stand on, on top of the 5 cylinders. This was just amazing to watch, they stood up there and did not fall and the cylinders all wiggled against each other but nothing collapsed. Katelyn would have enjoyed the "Soultree Violinist". He is from the USA and began his classical training at age 3. He was playing a 6 string electric violin "Viper" created by Mark Wood Music with special strings that are super sensitive and created especially for Cirque Dreams. This violin had the neck but it split at the base and fit around his neck and the top of his body. Very interesting looking musical instrument and he was great at playing it. There were contorting lizards, aerialists, jugglers of metal geometric frames, 3 very strong men who did lifts and balancing/counter-balancing acts, lots of animal costumes that were over-the-top. The show was done around a 'jungle-boy' (who is from the USA and began his gymnastic training at age 3). He goes on a journey through the jungle and encounters all these fantastic things. Accompanying him and guiding him through the jungle is Mother Nature (a girl from the USA who sang aboard the QEII and Holland America cruise lines). There was a juggler who bounced the balls on a drum set to play the drums. Ellen Henry, a Louisville native and winner of the "Run Away with Cirque Dreams" contest performed the role of the "dancing bird" which was a crowd pleaser. The whole evening was just great fun, full of ooohs & aaahs. We would recommend this show to anyone, even kids.

Saturday we are taking Hayden & Bailey and their parental units to the Ringling Bros. Barnum and Bailey circus in Cincinnati. It should be great fun. It was right at this time of year that we took Katelyn and Paul many years ago when they were about this age to the circus in Maryland. It will be great fun to be under the Big Top at US Bank Arena in Cincinnati.