The Heaths: Al-Amin Shriner Circus

Grandma took Lanae, David, their kids, Austin and Liz, their kids and us and our kids to the Al-Amin Shriner Circus. We saw clowns, elephants, a lyger, stunt motorcyclists, aerialists, Sky Man... it was awesome! Sky Man, you ask? Only the world's corniest super hero! The kids were somewhat impressed and... well, let's just say Sky Man lives on among the adults as a sad, silly, inside joke. Some highlight stories go as follows: I intially sat next to a man and his 18-20 year old daughter. The man leaned over and asked, pointing to Clara in my lap, if this was her first circus. Uh, she's four months old. Yep, first circus. He smiled and said it's his daughter's first circus, too and she still likes horses. The poor girl blushed and rolled her eyes, but dad was laughing it up. I smiled at her and said my dad would absolutely do something like that too, and it's totally fine to like horses still. "I'm 26 and I still like horses," I said. She just rolled her eyes, and I ended up moving down to make room for everyone else, so I didn't have anymore interaction. I may or may not have been incredibly excited when I spotted the lyger in the tiger cage. That was a little embarrassing. Derek was constantly saying, "Mom! Look at____!" I had to respond or he would start shaking my shoulder. We laughed when the announce addressed the children and told them to ask their parents to buy the light up wands. Psh, nice try. I think everyone was impressed with the elephants' tricks. When we were watching the motorcycle stunts, I missed a big crash. Don't know how, I was attempting to film it. The stunt guy was ok, he just ended up having to lay his bike down and skid into a safety wall off to the side. No triple bike jump then. I think Sky Man would have been cooler, but he seemed to be having some serious rubber rope malfunction because he spent an awful lot of time on the ground. As it was, we all came out "raving" about Sky Man and just loving how comedic it was. Funky suit, crazy theme song, Spider-Man tricks. Best laugh of the night.

We went to the circus!

The Ring Mistress

This guy sang his song from the back of an elephant. I want to be the lady riding on the trunk.

Forget the tigers - they had a lyger! Check out that massive cat! There's no growth inhibitor in the offspring between a male lion and female tiger, so lygers grow til they die. This was my inner-geek's favorite part.

Chinese acrobats - actually from China. One of the kids had some problems executing some of the flips, but the crowd cheered him on til he got it. Faith in humanity restored.

The artist in me loved photographing the lady aerialists.

So cool!

Another visitor from China - he hand makes these pottery vases and balances them on his head. Here, he was jerking his head to the left and making the vase spin with uninterrupted momentum. He flipped them up with his hands, caught it on his head, launched it off his head and caught it back on his forehead again. Crazy!

The infamous Sky Man

He had some cool tricks, but can't say the same for his theme song

Hmm... Sky Man seems to be a relative of Spider Man

This was an award winning freestyle gymnastics team - basically free standing parcour. They jumped over the clowns and acrobats standing in that line in the right hand corner...

... like this. Insane!

Elephant rides during intermission

Family! Clara was so good during the loud parts and flashing lights.

Bryce got a little wiggly during intermission, but he was fascinated with everything and anything that moved

She's just four months old!

Bryce was a little bewildered when the seat folded up on him. Stuck!

Elephants dancing to disco Tina Turner. Inventive.

Lots of synchronized formations

All the ladies kept their seats - impressive

The elephant trainer had the elephants in the act of laying down - not sure what Tina Turner is doing in the bottom right hand corner, but I'm amused. Haha!