Circus, Playground, and other fun

The weather has been great almost every day since my mom left, so we've had fun being outside and going on new adventures.

One of the first ones, just a few days after my mom left, was a trip to a circus with our friends Irene, Kristyn, and their grandma, who arrived the same day my mom left. Unfortunately, getting there was a bit of a hassle, because public transportation was on strike that day (and several days since then...) and the taxi we ordered didn't show up, but we did make it there barely in time after all and fun was had by all. I think at least in part because of the disaster with public transportation, the circus was only about half full and we scored seats in the front row (I sat in the second row, because, well I don't like the front row ... too close to the action). The show included everything! Clowns, acrobats, elephants, horses, tigers, strong men, etc. It was truly a classic circus presentation and the kids loved the action!

You can see the wonder in their eyes.

We really were this close to the tigers!

Here are two acrobats doing a roller-skating act. Death defying, but oddly compelling.

 During the intermission, Irene's grandmother, took the kids to see the animals.

and they even got to ride the ponies!

After the show, there were no taxis to be had and we set off on the rather long trek home...

On another day, we all met at a playground, which Alex has dubbed the pirate playground, because of the big ship.

Observant readers of this blog might recall pictures of this same spot in the winter with snow.

One day this week it got so hot that Alex talked me into taking him to another playground after school. This one has a water pump where the kids can pump water and create a wonderful muddy mess in the sand. Alex met 10 or more kids from his preschool and they played in the wet sand like we were at the beach. At some point he had stripped down to just his underpants and t-shirt and some other kids wore considerably less. Nobody cared about any of it and we loved it!

Here he is making some kind of pirate-move.

And then there was the day he was swinging from a rope hanging on the big magnolia tree in the backyard of his school when I picked him up. I shot a short video, but like most others, blogspot has refused to let me upload it.

Instead, I leave you with this shot of my Euro-boy in his tight red Euro pants and hoodie that has non-sensical English on it (in this particular case, it says: Faculty Member and I just couldn't refuse to buy it).