The Rose Parade

My parents live right by Pasadena, so when we found out Bart didn't have to go back to school until January 6th this year, my mom made arrangements for us to take the two older girls to the Rose Parade. 

We took all the girls to see La Canada's float the day before the parade, right before the judging, so they were testing it out to make sure everything worked properly.

Each of the girls wanted pictures in front of the float.  Hannah insisted I take a picture of her profile, and Addison wanted it to look like she was lifting the float...I'll have to work on that in the future.  :)

And this is how Hannah reacted when she realized she wasn't allowed to pick flowers off the float.

The next day it was just me, my mom and the girls off to the parade.

Police officers drive down the route to begin the parade.

I still can't believe that everything is made of flowers...well, flowers, grasses, leaves, bark, etc.  Pretty much any kind of plant life.  But still, it's really incredible, and fun to try and guess what the unusual colors/textures on the floats are made out of.

I think the Trader Joe's Float was my favorite (other than La Canada's of course).  It had a cheese man being orbited  by an olive helicopter, and a pickle-mobile driving back and forth around it. 

Poor Cal Poly's Float broke down right in front of us.

And while it was fascinating to watch the whole process of getting a float towed unfold right in front of us, after a while people got a little restless, and started wandering out onto the parade route to get a picture with the float.  

This little guy was one of the adventurers, but he had more than just pictures in mind.  He put on a little show for us swerving around on his razor, dancing, and interacting with the costumed paraders.  I'm pretty  sure he was drunk, but he was entertaining!  Although I don't think the crowd control officers agreed.

The bands were pretty entertaining too.  Stanford's band was quite colorful.

And these guys not only played, but danced Gangnam Style

A Harlem Globe Trotter spun a basketball on the finger of this adorable little kid sitting in front of us.

But I think of all the non-float entertainment, the guy below on the right was my favorite.  After every group of horses went by, a few people in charge of collecting horse manure would follow.  This guy got very into his job. It was AWESOME!

If you've never had a chance to go and see the Rose Parade, I suggest you put it on your bucket list.  It's pretty impressive.