Mom and Dad's 44th Anniversary

This year mom and dad decided to celebrate their 44th Anniversary by staying at the Lummi (Dad's an official "card-holder" now) casino hotel, and coming to Vaudevillingham.

Sadye and I sang her hot dog song, with a few added lines to help celebrate their 44 year anniversary.

This was their reaction, captured by the talented Thaddeus Hink.

Priceless. I love these two!

Royal Family Kids Camp

This is the second year I've been part of this camp. It's super fun to see kids being cared for and supported in this way. This year Wren couldn't make it so Chipp filled in. What a guy.

Bellingham Fete

Wren, Chipp, Esther, and I were the entertainment for this event, which was a benefit for Sustainable Connections and had nearly 5,000 attendees!

Urban Music Festival 2016

Tonight Wren and I performed in a late-night slot as part of the Urban Music Festival.

It was at the first time Wren had performed in or been at the Wild Buffalo! So exciting! It was a bit like going home to me, as it felt much like a visit back to the Gallus Gal days with Sarah Marie Roche McDonald. Last night, Mary hooped and MC'd, Dream and PJ both did aerial, Wren and I performed our juggling act, and I did the Pig act. It was a sweet little show with a fun and professional cast... totally professional, just check out these photos!

Kiwanis Celebration

To start off our 3-gig day, Wren and I performed for the Kiwanis Celebration, in downtown Anacortes. Wren was part of the Kiwanis growing up, so this was an awesome event to give back to.

 Wren shared a bunch of his cool solo skills.

He's got so many!

And we did our three duo acts.

We had a sweet little crowd, and a great time. Thanks Kiwanis!

Aslan Anniversary show

This is my third time performing for Aslan. They love the circus and we love beer, er, I mean them... we love them! This just happened to be Wren and my third gig today, after the Kiwanis event in Anacortes, and the Something Wonderful show at the Cirque Lab... yowza!

Last year I performed the Chair Dance on the table, because there is no way for everyone to see the act without me being on some sort of stage, which Aslan doesn't have... but they do have tall tables! This year Wren and I did our juggling act inside the aerial rig,

and then I had my same sweet personal table-stage for performing the Piggy Dance!

Stefan took this photo, and along with it said, "I was almost on the floor with joy." ...about me performing the piggy on the table. What a guy!
And here are some photos from the past celebrations!
Taylor Lee Warner and Chippy Kay-yay.

 Claire and Chipp.

Wren and I doing our Rope act in borrowed cowboy clothes. I forgot our costumes! But somehow not our ropes or hats! Whaat?!!

 The gang: Wren, me, Chipp, Laura, Mattea, Bem'ya, Dream.

Thanks to Thaddeus Hink for these last awesome pictures!

April Brews Day

This event has been an annual event for Chipp to organize, and it's my 3rd year being part of it. It's a hugely well attended event, and all of the proceeds go to the Max Higbee Foundation.

 

Last year I got to perform with Alastair,

and this year I dressed Nate up in Wrens costume and we juggled together. After our shift we got to go enjoy the party. Heidi, Chipp and I hung out, and it was great. Maybe next year Wren will be back!

Anacortes Arts Festival

This year, the festival coordinated with Wren to produce a circus "Working Artists" portion of the festival. We were there for 5.5 hours showing people how to juggle, do rope tricks, etc. or just play with our toys, or ask us questions. We also performed 2 shows! It was a ton of fun.

Here's Wren, Vern, and Claire sharing their juggling skills, and hoping to entice folks to join in.

We quickly got to settin' up the aerial rig. Later on, Greg and Vern had kids harnessed in and flying from the thing!

I wanted to see how easily I could be hoisted in preparation for the flying pig act I hope to perform again someday, so here's me doing sweet hat tricks while playing on the rig.

 Here's Laura toying with me when I immediately dropped my hat.

Reason number 387 I think I should be dieting... Greg: "Come help us lift you!"

 The show was fun. It featured Wren, Greg, Myself, Chelsea, Laura, Vern, Esther, and Claire.

Even Jules cut out of his street show to be in one of our shows!

That weekend, Jules performed his street show 14 times! In the crazy heat and sun! What a trooper, and what a great event and weekend.

Time on the boat

There were so many things to do on the boat! Eating being a "big" one, but we also participated in a game called "what's in the bag" where you could submit your guesses to win the mystery prize. We never won, but it was fun, nonetheless. We also watched three movies (Bourne Legacy, Dark Knight Rises, and Sherlock Holmes 2) in the on-ship theater. We went to lectures, hot tubbed, learned napkin-folding, read, played chess,

played trivia and gambled, took a waltz class, lounged in the sun, used the gym, saw more shows, juggled,

watched (twice) the show by jugglers, Paul and Alexa of Airborne,

and was even in a show!

Wren and I (now "international" performers!) performed our Yippe Ky-yay duo rope routine, and below is a picture of  me doing the Chair Dance in the show!

What a great time. Travel by cruise is way more fun that I imagined... and speaking of fun, Wren was even practical joked from across the world with this little number from his mom. Fake poop... you so crazy!

Summer Sewing

So I'm moving into a Clown Pod at the Quarry! I'm super stoked because of many reasons. One of those reasons is sewing... I guess I love it.  And though living in a van has been an amazing and liberating adventure, it is not the most conducive for sewing machine desires. Ok, I will share more info about the quarry and my new residency soon, but for now... here are photos of my first project in the  Pod... Chaps!

First I cut up a pair of old torn Carharts (thanks Liam!) for a pattern. I had the darndest time trying to see how to make chaps online, so decided just cuttin' up a some pants would be the best idea.

Then picked the fabric from one of my (too) many fabric bins, cut out enough for two pair, drew a fun design for the sides (the black fabric), and decided on elastic for the back. This is just the preliminary phase... soon I will fringe, trim and bedazzle the heck out of these!

Here is a photo of them in action... Wren and I have a rope act we've been working on. He found this super awesome song (Egyptian Regge by Johnathan Richman & Modern Lovers) that had us thinking cowboys, so that was the motivation for this project, and we had an amazing place to perform... on a flatbed truck at the annual summer potluck at the Happy Little Farm in Conway (awesome folks, food and best vegetarian gravy in the morning!).

Here we are as Yippee and Ki-yay (with the just-sewn chaps, vests and buckles), two of the Happy Little Circus crew (Justincredible, Miles, Zach, Tasche, Kai, Clay, Jules, Chipps and Jasper)...

and we were just part of the ongoing entertainment of the day/night, as Lucas called some square-dancing, there was a paper-rock-scissors tournament, Smoke Wagon played some rockin set into the night, and there was midnight naked slip-and-sliding! What!?! Hooray for summertime, circus and sewing!