Circus Days

Last weekend Katie and Peter went to the Ringling Brothers circus at the Verizon Center in DC.  Before the show started, we got to go down to the floor to watch some jugglers, an aerial artist, and an elephant paint a picture.  Then we went to our seats to watch the self-proclaimed "greatest show on earth."

The circus had horses (whose main trick was running around in circles), elephants, and tigers.  The elephants and tigers were fun to see and a few rebels didn't do what they were supposed to.  Regardless, they were better trained than some of the crowd.  Some people didn't seem to know how to wait their turn in line, sit in the right seats, or pay attention.  One guy in front of us watched basketball games on his iPad the entire show.  He even had headphones in so he didn't have to listen to his kids.

Katie's favorite parts were the elephants and the guy fired from a giant crossbow on fire.  Peter liked the tigers and kept roaring.  Honorable mention goes to the people wearing jumpy-things on their feet and day-glo bodysuits and the guys running and jumping on giant spinning cylinders.

The show was good but next time we may see it at the smaller Patriot Center in Fairfax.  We saw it there last year and it just seemed a lot easier to manage than the massive Verizon Center.  But we did manage to have a nice dinner at one of the many good restaurants in Chinatown.  We ate at Vapianos, an Italian place owned by Germans (think pasta served in woody decor with techno music).


The aerialist at the circus' pre-show


The artiste


Katie's distracted


Peter has a little trouble seeing


The elephant painting


A short video of the elephant painting


The elephants perform




The kids watch the show.  The circus held Peter's attention more than we expected and he sat through the entire 2.5 hour show.


Katie's new cat at the restaurant after the circus (photo by Katie).




Peter rides Katie's toy dog.




Katie shows off her iPad art.  She loves drawing and is getting pretty good.  We can usually recognize what she's trying to draw (tonight she drew a Spinosaurus).


Katie with her friend and neighbor Cameron who unfortunately moved away last week.  They moved in to our neighborhood just a month before we did.


This is what a Katie sandwich looks like.  It's full of ham, turkey, and cheese.


Fun with packing materials.




Peter's getting taller and can almost climb up on the couch by himself.




One of us looks more ready to go to sleep than the other.


This episode of Katie TV features a monkey fight, a sneak peek at our new storm door, and watch what happens when Peter takes the camera.