Happy Birthday, Hosanna!

We celebrated Hosanna's birthday yesterday by taking the three cousins to the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus at the GMU Patriot Center. We had a bit of concern - Jen has had a persistent fear of clowns and other things sometimes associated with circuses, and Veronica was still a bit wiggy from the Disney Princesses on Ice (drat, that Ursula!). We really have Jen's friend Julie to thank for the excellent seats (and great price!). <>
After some initial 15 minutes of hiding in daddy's and mommy's shoulder, she finally came out of her shell a bit. The elephants and horses helped a great deal. The tigers were icing on the cake. Hosana and Natalia took it all in pretty good stride. By the end of the night, all thee of the girls had a ball. Chad, Jen, and Nathan had a pretty good time, too. We're just sorry it started out so stressful - we told Chad and Mandy to try to get there early to beat traffic (hoping to meet around 5:30), and we were even later than our originally planned time of 6 o'clock! (Subconscious sabotage from a clownophobe.) Then we couldn't find a place to meet for dinner...all the pizza places that were on the online maps must have been hiding down unseen alleys. Ruby Tuesday's did us in a pinch. After the stress of traffic, meeting for dinner, dinner with three toddlers in a mostly grownup restaurant, and parking for the circus, it was a really good night. Good times were had by all.
Happy birthday again, Hosanna! Happy Easter!