Natalie's World: SIGHTS AND SCENES OF THE CIRCUS (ONE WEEK AGO TODAY)

I am not sure who enjoyed the circus more...Cari and Alex OR Natalie. When we were making plans to go to the little circus in Vidalia a while back, I realized that Cari had not been to a circus. Being the 2nd child she was, I guess we had gotten busy with ball or other activities and just didn't think about it. Though I asked her to go with us when we went to the other one, I think at the time she was getting interested in partiuclar boy or something along that line and chose to got to a ball game instead. I guess that is typical of a teenager especially on the weekend. When I told her about this one (about 2 days before when we decided to go), she was immediately excited and wanted to invite Alexa.

We had actually looked up Circuses on the internet after going to the little one in Vidalia, we saw that Barnum and Bailey was coming to Baton Rouge, but I had forgot about it until Nicki was tellling me about some upcoming events for children. I had emailed her back to confirm that it was this month. We had talked about going together or something, but since I didn't hear from her (I am sure she missed that questions in probably my long winded email), that I figured she had plans with some of her other plans with children near Jonah's age or something. So I decided to look up ciruses in Baton Rouge. So just days before the circus, I purchased our tickets.

We were tickled to see them at the circus and had fun with them at the Pre-Show that I will post after this, but will show up first when I get through making all my posts.

We were in the first sets of sets off the floor, they were on the floor. We could see their seats from ours. I took some of the watching, but since the lights were out they aren't that sharp. This one was taken during intermission. I think Dan was taking Jonah for a diaper change.

Natalie was introduced to cotton candy last fall at the little fair they had in Vidalia. She ate it again at the little circus in Vidalia a few months ago. By now she knows what cotton candy is and that she loves it.

I am trying deligently this morning to finally post the circus images. I had so many of them. I took a few, but Cari went a little nuts with my nice camera and my long lens and took almost 2 Gigs of memory of just animals and circus talent. Some of them are pretty bad, but some were really pretty nice. I most wanted to capture us there and a few of the events...enough to remember, but I can relate to overshooting better than the average person...that really is one of the cool things about digital. If they had been film...what a different story! One of the reasons I had not posted this yet, is because of the abundance of images I had to go through. I first picked images with Natalie and us enjoying the circus, then I picked images of Natalie's favorites (the next few images) and I wanted to pick a few of some of the really awesome talent, but I have ran out of time because I want to stay in order as much as possible. So maybe I will post them later, but probably not...

The next day when I was looking at Nicki's blog...boy did she get a jump start with hers, I showed them to Natalie (mine were still in the car with the camera bag we got in at 11:30 that night). As we were looking at them, I asked Natalie what was her favorite part of the circus. She immediately responded: "the elephants and tigers!"

So I had to pick out some of those for you:

"ELEPHANTS AND TIGERS! OH MY!"

BRAVE WOMAN, UH!

I think this was high five from the tiger!

And here he is waving to every one!

And after she finished with the tigers, she took of her "tiger coat" and did some most amazing acts in the air! Maybe I will post one of those later!

Cari and Alexa being entertained at the circus. Small children can't really appreciate the talent of these performers, but teens can.

Cari had to have her turn wearing "the hat".

Natalie wearing her silly hat that came with the $10 cotton candy while watching the circus.

I took this one of his leaving and then I asked Randy to take one including me.

We're leaving...take a photo of us leaving since we have already taken so many documenting us arriving so now take one leaving too! I am finally ended up in some photos with Natalie after almost 3 years of being her Mimi. I am not fond of some of my expressions and such in them, but at least she will know that I was there. I often wonder if something were to happen to me (when she was much younger), would she know how special she is to me...how close we were (are). Because if you look through the photos, you rarely see many of us together. It certainly doesn't reflect the time that I have spent with her the last few years, but surely someone would tell her...surely they would tell her that I was the one behind the camera. Gee, I didn't mean to go there. But I guess I need to finish it now. I used to rarely ask someone to take my photograph...even after I realized this and had expressed it to my husband (who is often photographed where her) when Natalie was close to a year old Randy would offer to take my camera and photograph me with Natalie. Often I would decline (usually because it was always, always when I looked funky for whatever reason). Since last fall I have lost approximately 20-25 lbs (depending on what day it is). So I am sure that is one reason that I ask to have my photo taken with my little sweetheart too. I am still not that photogenic and I am still not the size I want to be, but I will have some photographic memories with our little one...after all she is "my heart".

Hopefully, this gives you a little view into Natalie's World and her trip to the "big" circus! It is always so special to see things through the eyes of a child whether they are the "almost-three" years or 15 years old.