The Circus!!

Our seats were perfect!  Front and Center and about 15 rows up!

This family of seven motocross performers got in this ball and all rode around together.  This was one of the best acts of the whole night!

 

 We really loved seeing all the animals. However, as we were driving into the stadium parking lot, we were greeted by a slew of PETA protesters and in your face posters.  It was really sad.  I do feel bad for the animals and I know that abuse can happen...not always, but I'm sure it has at some point.  I also know that there are rules and laws and that the circus regularly gets inspected.  I also hate to see a million people crying and sad about an elephant in a circus and then feel indifferent about all the babies being killed in this country every single day through abortion.  I care more about human babies.  Sad.  I'll step down from my soap box now...

Alanna was thrilled to get a small white tiger.  She named her Mia after one of the girl tigers in the circus show.

 Crazy side note...we almost saw a trainer get mauled by an angry tiger.  It was so scary.  I heard a lady praying behind me for the man.  Haha.  Turns out, I knew her from church!  I wasn't recording at that moment thankfully!

 This is a terrible picture, but it was Alanna's most favorite part of the whole circus.  It was a white horse with wings, a Pegasus, and a black horse with a golden horn, a Unicorn.  The ring master told everyone that they are real if you truly believe in your heart that they are.  Alanna gasped and said "I believe in my heart!! I knew it!!!!"  Sweet girl.

 I was really really sad to see this boy in the row in front of us.  He was at the circus...but chose to be on his tablet the whole time instead. =( 

The finale was so amazing!  We are so thankful to the veteran website that gave us these tickets!  Such a blessing to our family.  We took this picture and posted it to their website. =)

Monkey Monday:

Alanna and her BFF, Sarah!

Tea Party:

We were invited to a tea party at our friend Kennedy's house.  No reason.  She just wanted to have a tea party. =)  She planned it out to every last detail!

 First, they had tea, (kool-aid) and banana bread, and cookies.  It was adorable because they used a real tea pot and tea cups!  

***Funny side note***  

That night, Alanna was laying in bed and said "Awww Mom, I totally forgot to be fancy and hold up my pinky at the tea party!' Hahaha!

Then they sat outside and cut out paper dolls and taped them together. 

These girls were so proud of their dolls!  Alanna wore her fancy Elsa dress and cape and shoes and hair for the party.

Then they went upstairs to play a board game and run around.  And lastly, they braided friendship bracelets and vowed to NEVER take them off.  We are on day three and Alanna still has her on. =)

Lion Habitat Ranch:

 

This place was SO neat.  These lions have been raised with people since they were born.  Most of them were bred in captivity.  They are hand fed every day, and hand bathed twice a week!

 They told us that they hand wash them normally, but since we were there and the lions were more nervous, they washed from the outside that day.  I don't think I'd want to be in that small cage with that big lion!

 They make the lions jump up for a treat.  Raw meat.

It was just so crazy to see this man in there petting a grown male lion.  This lion was rolling around like a house cat wanting his belly scratched.  It made us ALMOST want to go in with him too.  Like they were sweet or something.  haha.

Most of these lions are retired from performing at the MGM casino on the strip.

Park Day With Friends:

Monkey Monday: Father's Day Edition

Friday Funnies:

Look hard at the end piece of this banana.  Do you see that brown thing sticking up?  I'm pretty sure that's a banana seed.  Most people probably didn't even know it was there.  When you pull a banana out of a peel, you usually take the whole thing.  Well.....NOT Alanna!  She breaks the tiniest teeniest part off and says "Here mom, I don't want to eat the stick."  HAHA!  She INSISTS that bananas have sticks in them.  I never understood until she brought this to me one day.  Now you know.

Throw Back Thursday:

I love this video so so much!  

Her little voice.  It kills me every time.  She is somewhere between 15 - 20 months old.

Swim Lessons:

HOORAY!

Alanna has tested out of the starfish class and has moved up to the seahorse class in her swimming lessons!  She got to pick a prize from the prize chest and she got a ribbon showing that she has graduated from the starfish class.  She LOVES to swim!

The Brown's Go Camping:

We drove three and half hours NorthEast to a small town called Pioche, Nevada.  It is up in the mountains and is always 20 degrees cooler than Las Vegas!  HOORAY!  We went from 105* to 85*.....with 6% humidity....perfect!  It was absolutely gorgeous and worth the drive for sure!

When we got there, ALL of the designated camping spots were full!  We didn't plan for that!  We kept driving another 2.5 miles and ended up finding this secluded spot with 4 camping sites and as the website calls them "primitive bathrooms".  I'll just let you know now, it's basically a pot to pee in with cardboard walls around it.  That's it.

 We were right up against the mountain, so we felt very safe.  Cie-J immediately got us a fire going, while I set up the tent and got the beds ready.  Alanna helped to collect some little sticks for the fire.  See that small tree to the right side?  We called that our pee pee tree.  I'll let you figure that out...

 She thought it was so much fun to cook our hotdogs over the fire!  Then of course, we toasted some marshmallows for s'mores!  Alanna had never had them before and was amazed at how good they were.

 They were a huge mess and worth every bit of it!!

 The moon was so bright and absolutely beautiful at night.  We stayed up until 11pm just watching the fire, gazing at the stars, and listening to the quietness around us.  We discovered that some deer came to visit us in the night (we found the tracks) and the coyotes woke us up around 3am with their howling.

 We woke up at 4:50am and had breakfast and then headed to the lake to fish!  It was 54* and it was COLD!

 

Almost immediately, Alanna caught her first fish!!  She was so proud of herself and super excited to see what the fish was all about.  Daddy helped her touch it. She had to tell them goodbye before we'd throw them back.

 At first, we (Alanna and I) were scared of the worms and didn't want to touch them.  But I ended up sucking it up and just doing it and Alanna decided to do it too.  She was a pro at ripping the worms in half and running half to Cie-J and bringing the other half to me!  YAY!

 

(PROOF that I did it!)

It was nasty and not fun, but ended up being not a big deal.  I just used a wet wipe and hand sanitizer after each time. =)  LOL!

We will be going back very soon!

Monkey Monday:

Painting Dad:

 From time to time, Alanna asks Cie-J if she can paint his toe nails.  He always says yes.  I think he secretly loves it...but don't tell him I told you. =)

She chose a mint green and did a pretty good job.  Well, sorta.  Haha.  I, of course, grabbed my camera and snapped a picture.  Cie-J said, "You are putting this on your blog aren't you?"  I said yes. (duh!)  He said "Well, then put a caption that says 'A dad has to do what a dad has to do.'" Haha.

Star Wars:

Cie-J has introduced Alanna to Star Wars.

She LOVES it!  I usually find something else to do. =)  One day, while watching an episode, Alanna ran to her play room and grabbed her two nerf guns and her nerf sword and brought them in with her.  She sat in front of the TV and shot all the storm troopers and sith that came on the screen.  Or used her sword as a light saber.  It was cracking me up, so I had to get a picture.

Monkey Monday: