Bellobration!

It was by the grace of God that I was able to fulfill my obligation to my family last night: I told them I'd take them to the circus! I am loving the Fort Worth Star Telegram Press Pass that I recently received for pre-paying a six-month subscription to the aforementioned newspaper. It gives us discounts to all sorts of restaurants and attractions in Fort Worth and the surrounding area--wheeee! Many of the plans we made for our stay-cation took the Press Pass into account, and the circus was first and foremost. 50% off tickets with no restrictions, baby!

I called my brother Clark and asked if he and his family would like to join us (affirmative!) and then we headed to the Fort Worth Convention Center box office on Wednesday to acquire tickets. I was sort of holding my breath, hoping that I wouldn't hit any snags (we have come across merchants--well, A merchant--who wouldn't honor the Press Pass, but the ticket vendor didn't blink, but rapidly completed my transaction and presented me with ten pristine tickets to the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey's Bellobration!--The Greatest Show on Earth!!!

The circus didn't begin until 7:30 p.m. so we met at 6:00 to eat, and we wound up at P.F. Chang. Can you believe my family had never been before? And more than anything else, I was SOOOOOOOOO proud of my kids when all these exotic dishes came out and not one nose wrinkled up (well, Tyler wouldn't do that anyway)! They all took surprisingly large portions on their plates and if I do say so myself, everything was DELICIOUS!

Here I am with my sister-in-law, Rebecca


Uncle Clark and the kids gettin' goofy w/chopsticks


Savannah and Sawyer


Peyton became pretty adept at using her chopsticks


I would have loved to get a shot of Sawyer using his chopsticks because he did for a while, but this shot clearly shows that he discovered an easier way to get his food from plate to mouth!


Chelsea telling us we need to get going


I'm crying on the inside because of my back--see how Mary Kay helps me mask my pain??!


I'm coming, I'm coming--just one more sip!


This is going to be so fun!


Here are a couple of snaps of the circus. It was hard to get any good shots because no one was ever STILL! I did my best; now you'll just have to use your imagination! The fifth shot in this series is Bello of Bellobration. He was a big goofball who really hammed it up, but he was also an amazing acrobat who participated in many of the more "death-defying" stunts.






Are you lookin' at me???


The kids asked for $12 cotton candy at the intermission so I told them they could each pay $3 and split it four ways. Can you believe they agreed??? They each got two pulls off the wad and it was gone--and they were satisfied! Go figure. Darcy is wearing the hat that the bag of cotton candy came in.


One of a trio of women offered to take our group photo on the way to our cars. Presenting . . . the fam!