The Greatest Show on Earth

This post will not be about how much I loved the 1950s classic movie starring Charlton Heston.  (Note to self:  rent this movie for the next time Sloan goes out of town.)

THIS post is about the most recent Phillips Family Fun Friday.

I began the morning with a little psychiatric testing.  (Because that's how all good days begin.)  In case you've never gotten to take the MMPI, it is basically a scientific personality test that will tell China if I have anger issues or whatever.  It is close to 600 true or false statements ranging from the ridiculous ("I am uncomfortable left alone in a room with broccolli") to the checking to see if you are a liar ("I never get in arguments with members of my family") to the awkward ("I never think about sex when I am in the bathroom") to the random ("I enjoy mechanical magazines.")  Oh, and did I mention that the psychologist who did my intake session and test and will write up our personality reports gets paid three digits per hour?  Awesome.

Phillips Family Fun Fridays are rarely cheap.

But they are ALWAYS awesome.

Because when we go out, we go big and then we go home.

We don't just go to the circus, we get front row seats to the circus.  ( They were Daddy's birthday/Valentine's gift from the kids and me).

The front row seats were great because then the kids could stand up and not bother the folks in front of us.  And to give you an idea of how close we were to the action, here is a picture of the circus band.  And no, I was not zoomed in.

Henry's favorite part was the motorcyles.

Yeah, that's a motorcycle on a wire with two ladies dangling from it.  And yes, it was basically right above our heads.

And that's eight guys on motorcycles in the ball of death.  Or maybe it was ball of steel.

Gracie's favorite part was the elephants.

Sloan's favorite part was the lions and tigers.  Meanwhile, I was longing for days of Gunther Gabel-Williams.  (No YOU wrote him fan mail when you were a kid...)

And my favorite part was the trapeze act.

All in all, it was a great day.  One we hope to make an annual family tradition.

I would also like to give a shout out to Ringling Brothers.  I'm fairly certain its performers are far more ethnically diverse than when I was a kid.  I think it was a pretty pale show back in the eighties, with mostly caucasian performers.  They now not only have an African-American ring master (who rocked his sequins so well that I'm sure even Rod Roddy would be jealous), an African-American cowboy, as well as many Latino, Asian, in addition to your standard Eastern European circus performers.  Pretty much every tongue, nation, and tribe was represented.  What a treat it was for gaggles of kids to see and want to be when they grow up folks of every ethnicity.  Now, if you could stop charging $12 for a bag of cotton candy, you'd really have my heart...