World Choir Games & Flying Pigs

Yes, there is such a thing as the World Choir Games.  I'm not sure when they started.  But it was held in the USA for the first time this year and it was held here in Cincinnati!  Who knows when it will come back, but if it does, I'm certainly splurging to get real tickets.  This is like the International Folk Dance Festival of Utah and Idaho meets the International Barbershop Competition.

My friend and I decided that we wanted to take our three children each (read 6 total children) to one of the free concerts at lunchtime on Fountain Square in Cincinnati.  It was a fun adventure!  I think we enjoyed it much more than the kids did, but they were pretty impressed by the policeman on horseback - okay, just the horse - and the multiple fountains in the square.  Oh!  the giant fans blowing mist to cool people down were a big hit too.  So as long as we hit one of these side venues in between performances they were okay. :)

 My friend Stacy (love this lady!), her boys Logan and Henry with Bekah and Patrick in the background.  For some reason her oldest, Ben, got away without me getting his picture...

 An-duh-roo as is affectionately called around here most often by his Daddy.

 Bad lighting on the fountain lady - but a picture nonetheless.

 I can't remember if he was distressed about having to sit for one more number before going to see the horse again or if he was in the middle of talking to me.

I've been in downtown before and have seen these pigs before.  But there were a LOT more to see this summer.  Stacy told me a bit of their history so let's see if I can get it right:

Back when Cincinnati was just beginning to boom as the Queen of the West (on the frontier) it was THE place to get your pork.  It's nickname was Porkopolis.  I guess all the clay in the soil was perfect for them??  Or maybe it was the high influence of Germans and other random nationalities mixing together.  Anyhoo, sometime before now, some of Cincinnati's more wealthy entrepreneurs took the saying "When pigs fly" (which came about in Cincinnati) to heart and made a bunch of these statues in which pigs have wings or are about to take off.  Some were sold, but were borrowed back for the summer to be hosts to the World Choir Games.  It was fun to see so many and how they were adorned. 

 Wings and a xylophone on it's back.

 Decorative Easter swirls.

Looked a bit like a plane.