Brian managed to score some circus tickets from work. While part of me knew the kids would love to go the other part of me really didn’t want to support an organization that cages animals, trains them, and then drags them around the world for people’s “entertainment”. I mean, I don’t support Sea World so how can I support the circus? At the same time, I enjoyed the circus as a kid and have fond memories of my parents taking me. It was a tough choice but I ultimately decided to take the kids since I read recently that Circus Vargas recently committed to phase elephants out of their shows and since my son loves elephants so much – he’s been dying to see them again. I really wish there were alternative ways for kids to learn about animals. My son loves them and I want to encourage this love. The whole reason he wants to go to the circus is to see the animals. He actually said to me, “I don’t care about the people I just want to see the animals – the elephants, the tigers and the horses.”
In the end, we decided to make a late-afternoon/evening of it. We started off with a stop at an office furniture store and then Home Depot to checkout the new tiki line of merchandise. This means fun for the kids and fun for Brian.
Then we headed to Staples Center and parked nearby at around 4:00 PM and went for a walk. We enjoyed downtown Los Angeles’ (DTLA) architecture on our way to Bottega Louie for an early dinner. I’ve read the reviews on Yelp and so many of my friends rave about it so I was dying to give it a try. And let’s be honest, I wanted to take home $100 worth of macarons! Here are some of the highlights of our walk and our amazing dinner.
After dinner we headed back to Staples Center to catch the 7:30 showing of The Greatest Show on Earth (or so they say). Here are some of the highlights from the circus.
All in all it was a fun night. We all enjoyed the walk, the food was amazing, and the circus was fun. For all the worrying and stressing over the decision about supporting the circus I have to say that it was worth it. Seeing Ethan and Violet marvel over the animals made it worthwhile.