Fun at the circus!

This past June we had a small circus roll into town. We decided to take advantage and let Kate experience her first circus. Before the circus parents could pay extra to have their children ride horses, camels, and even an elephant. I was suckered into letting Kate ride a little horse. She is obsessed with farm animals and was so happy to hold on while the horse walked in circles. It was worth every penny because she talked about how she rode a horse for weeks. I love getting to see life through her eyes.

 The craziest part of the show was the tigers and their crazy trainer. I would never ever turn my back to this cage full of huge tigers, who I imagine are hungry, but the trainer repeatedly did it. It was my favorite part of the show. I hope this guy has a good life insurance policy.

 We loved watched the big elephants do their tricks. 

Joe turns 32!

The love of my life turned 32 in May and we had to have a party to celebrate. One of Joe's favorite things to eat is seafood, which happens to be my least favorite food. Because I love him so much I  decided to throw him a seafood bake "white trash style". We ate in the garage, and without plates for the most part. Luckily my friend Marcy is an expert at seafood bakes and had a huge metal container built to cook such a feast, and she even helped do the cooking. Joe's parents, his brother John and sister Cheri were able to come as well as some of our friends. 

 On the seafood menu was lobster tail, crab, shrimp, clams, cooked with corn, and potatoes. We had pulled pork sandwiches for the non-seafood crowd.

 This was all that was left over after the feast, you can see the line to where the water and food was before, it truly was a feast. Joe said it was the best meal of his life! 

 And here the birthday boy is blowing out all 32 of his candles. My guess is that his wish was to have a seafood bake again for his 33 birthday.

Hummingbird Festival

At the end of May some residents in a local small town host a hummingbird festival where people who are certified to catch, band, track, and release hummingbirds gather. Sounds kinda nerdy but it was fun to see how they catch the hummingbirds harmlessly as they feed from the feeders measure and then put a band with a unique number on them. The information then goes in a registry where the birds migration can be tracked. We stayed for a short time, but by the end of the day they expected to track hundreds of different hummingbirds. What was super fun was once they did all their data entry they put the birds in a spectators hand and we were able to release it. Sometimes the birds would stick around for a few seconds before flying away. It was fun and Kate loved it!