Shrine Circus Trip 2011

On June 10^th, Northside Christian Church went on a trip to the Shrine Circus in Salem. It was planned for quite a while and it seemed that I was more excited about going than the kids were! Well, we took four vehicles and had around 12 kids that went. My car was full of girls. Three younger kiddos and one of my older kids. Those girls had the seating arrangements planned out for days before the trip! We just chatted and laughed the whole way there. It was fun. Once we got there, we were mesmerized by all of the colorful toys for sale, the smell of carnival food, and the balloon-making clowns. We stood around for a while, getting balloon flowers and swords and then jumping out of our skin when they suddenly popped. We found our seats, put balloons there so they wouldn’t be stolen, then went out to get food and drinks. The older girls were ok wandering around by themselves, but I kept the younger ones with me. And I tell you, they had me running all over the place. “I want a corndog.” “I need to go to the bathroom!” “I want some cotton candy.” “Can we buy some toys?” In my adult mind, I went there to watch the circus. Apparently kids think a little differently because wanted to be all over the place! It was fun though. Luckily, the Lord blessed me with extra patience that day. We all enjoyed our corndogs, funnel cakes, lemon shake-ups, and cotton candy while watching some really incredible acts. One of my girls accidentally dropped her cell phone in her cup of soda, but other than that, we had no catastrophes. We were all looking forward to riding an elephant, but it was $10 EACH! Of course, we had already spent most of our money on food, so we watched the elephants from the ground for a while. A few of us went to get our faces painted and we watched the rest of the show. By the end of it, I was exhausted and jokingly asked which of my girls was driving home. They definitely kept me alert the whole trip home though. We played word games and laughed the whole way. I was definitely pleased with the trip. It went very well and we had a great time. I can’t wait for more adventures with these kids!