Big Top with no Pee Puddles

Phoebe and I stayed through New Years Eve.  We attended the Ringling Bros. First Night circus at the high school with the Jerotz family.  Despite arriving 30 minutes early, the line to enter wrapped essentially through the entire high school.  I was suspicious that the gym could hold so many people but it turns out that when the record crowd of 57 people attended our basketball game against Harwich in January of 1990, there was apparently room for  a few more.  For me the circus was not quite at the level of last years event, partially because the crazy chair stacking guy was not there and partially because Phoebe did not have a diaper failure on Sarah’s lap as she did last year.  After the circus the kids took naps and Jason came over and joined us for a very yummy hot dog dinner.  We drove down to the kids fireworks which were great and Phoebe thoroughly enjoyed them from my shoulders.  The evening events included naked hallway scootering (for the kids) followed by baths and a couch-based snackathon while viewing curious george.  It has always been hard to live so far from my sister but it is even harder now as Phoebe and Jake are practically inseparable.Above:  We were 0/2 for attempting to have the cousins nap.  A lot of whispering was heard on the monitor but it was not clear exactly what they were conversing about.  Below: Ringling Bros Circus in my old gymnasium.  Our high school basketball coach often told us we looked like a bunch of clowns.  We didn’t take much offense to that as we were just happy that he wasn’t throwing chairs at us in the manner of our middle school basketball coach.  It is funny that at the time we had plotted to give that man a beat down as soon as it was feasible but you find that when you reach that point you just realize what a sad man he was and just stick to targeting his house every Halloween.  Above:  Phoebe considers the circus to be a rather intense experience.  Below:  the post-bath snackathon.  Almost complete silence beyond the strange laugh of curious george and the asynchronous crunching of pretzels.