The Circus is in Town!

I love going to the circus. I mean, I really love going to the circus! When John would take me to the circus before we had kids, I didn't want to take them until they were old enough to love it as much as me. I took Cooper for the first time last year and he LOVED it. He pretty much talked about it all year long, so I knew he wanted to go again this year. I was up in the air if I would take Natalie, but she said she really wanted to go. (and she did great!) We invited Cooper's friend, Cooper and his 2 sisters and his mom to go with us. We went early to the pre-show and saw 11 pachyderms backstage. I learned some interesting facts about elephants:

• They live to be 50-60 years old in the wild and 70+ years in captivity.
• The have the mentality/brain function of a 5-7 year old.
• Only females were in this show, a total of 11. The boys have to go to a special ranch when they go through puberty (behavioral issues).
• They can sleep lying down for only 4-6 hours, then they have to get up or they may crush their internal organs. They can sleep standing up for an hour or so, and you can tell when they stand really still and their trunk is laying down on the ground. (The keeper pointed out one that was 'dozing off'.)
• The females typically have no more than 4 calfs in their life. They have the highest conception rate if they let the elephants get impregnated the old-fashioned way. Artificial insemination is not nearly as successful.
• The females weigh anywhere between 7,000 to 10,000 lbs.
• Each elephant drinks two (2!) 55 gallon drums of water a day.
• When they start goofing off and pushing each other around, they separate them. We watched one of the male keepers, put one of the elephants in a time-out.

We had great seats and got to see 'Belo' up close when he was swinging on the extra tall pole and running around the spinning circle cages. It was a BELOBRATION!!! Lots of fun. I think I love the circus just as much if not more than the kids. I will always 'volunteer' to take the kids to the circus!!!