Sunday 22 June 2014

We went to the circus!

Millie and I were up before the sun and lay in bed playing on the iPad together. We wanted to watch the sunrise, but there were clouds on the horizon so we just saw the sun behind the clouds a bit - still interesting and pretty. Tony left for baseball and we moved to the lounge room to see if we could see the sun better, and Millie wanted to play Harry Potter - Scene It, so we had a game of it just me and her and it was fun, she had a good guess at all of the questions and we both had a lot of laughs. I remembered I'd also bought an interactive DVD game at the op shop so we checked it out - it is a Dreamworks Animation game, based on Madagascar, Shrek 2, Over the Hedge and Shark Tale. Millie was quite excited that we play it on the TV using the DVD remote. There are a range of games and each player can select the level they want to play at (based on age, which doesn't necessarily equate to skill or knowledge in our family, but we can just think of it as easy, medium and hard rather than follow the age ranges). Millie did really well at this game, knew the answers to the fairy tale questions and blitzed the physical challenge questions (especially the 'make 5 funny faces in 10 seconds' - she's a master at funny faces). The other kids wandered out while we were playing, so we played 4 player for a while until everyone lost interest.

The kids watched ABC2 and 3 for a while, and played Minecraft. I asked Caitlin questions from the cards in the Harry Potter game, and she knew most of the wizarding questions. Millie and I thought about making cake pops - we always seem to get distracted. I think if I made the mixture up and then suggested it then she'd be keen to pour it into the moulds and cook them (and decorating them will be the really fun part). We watched several episodes of Dragons: Defenders of Berk, which we've always loved, it felt more relevant having just seen the 2nd How to Train your Dragon movie, and we talked about the ways the characters were different in the movie, where they are so much older.

We went in to Yarra Glen and did a quick grocery shop, getting stuff we'd run out of and supplies for tea, then we went to the circus!!! Eroni's circus are performing in Yarra Glen and all week I'd promised we could go, so we decided to use our Saturday while Tony was at baseball to go and check it out. The kids had a play on the jumping castle before we went in, it had a part where they could climb up then a large and very fast slide - they all had a lot of fun and were knackered when they got off. We found seats in the raised section of seating, which meant Millie could see the ring. The last circus we'd been to had been rather sad and old so I wondered if this would be the same, and I was pleasantly surprised. It was professional and quite well run, and the performers were all impressive. Lots of trapeze/gymnastics type acts, some jugglers and magicians, a fire eater, clowns, a tiny pony, jack russell performing dogs, and palomino horses. Caitlin loved the trapeze and gymnastic acts, and the horses. LiAM liked the dogs and the clowns and didn't mind the jugglers. Millie liked the animals and the clowns - she was a bit bored in the 2nd half, it went for longer than she felt like staying. At interval they had show bags and toys and food for sale - I felt I'd spent enough money already, then remembered that the kids all had their own spending money left from our holiday (we'd been to fewer touristy places than usual so they hadn't spent money on souvenirs to the extent that they sometimes do). So with their holiday money they were each able to buy a show bag and a snack to eat during the 2nd half. The showbags were pretty good actually, quite a lot of items in them - a sticky hand, a clapping hand, a clown nose, a water pistol, a mask, a fake moustache and glasses, a windmill and maybe a couple of other things.

Back home to play with all the show bag goodies while I cooked tea - it was meant to be mexican meatballs but my meatballs fell apart so it was more like mexican stew - still quite tasty though, and Tony appreciated it as he hadn't eaten much at baseball and was starving when he got home. We started to watch National Lampoons Christmas Vacation but the risk of Chevy Chase's character injuring himself became too stressful for Caitlin so we turned it off and played Minecraft instead. Millie and I went to bed and played the iPad for a while then she went to sleep and I read my book while the others watched 'We Bought a Zoo'.

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