Rose Parade Floats

While we were in California for New Years, we decided to take advantage of the fact we were so close to the Rose Parade.  Since it wasn't feasible to sleep all night along the parade route to get a spot, we decided to head down to the Rose Bowl a couple of days before the parade and check out all the volunteers building the floats for the parade. 

After getting our tickets, we headed over to the first tent to wait in line.  It was especially hot that day, and the line had no shade, and the kids were a little grouchy.  They were complaining about the heat, saying they were hungry (we made the mistake of taking NO snacks or water, with expensive food vendors all around us!), and saying how the line was too long.  But after 40 minutes, we made it inside, and it was well worth the wait to see those floats up close!
This was the little Elmo float that marched with the real band behind the Sesame Street float. (Do you remember this float?)
And this float was titled "Seaside Amusement" put on by Cal Poly University.  It had a working roller coaster and Ferris wheel.  It was pretty cool.
They had a poster up showing what the finished product would look like.  It was neat to see this so you could visualize what it would look like when it was done.
They were working on the bumper cars that would drive around the float, and it was fun to see what it looked like under the frame work.  
The kids were happy once they had made it inside the tent, and thought it was neat seeing all those volunteers at work!
There was this big room off to the side of the tent where they stored a bunch of their flowers for the floats.  It really was incredible to see so many flowers!!!  
Then we headed over to the other area where they were decorating.  The line for this one was much better as it was shaded the whole time, with a nice wall to sit along.  It took as an hour to wait in this line, but it felt shorter since the kids were much happier.  A nice worker even got us a water bottle from the volunteer stash!
This time it was inside this big building and we were up on this cat walk thing looking down at the floats.  It was neat to see this view of the floats.
There were lots of floats in there they were working on.  The middle one here is the Wizard of Oz float, and since the wizard was so tall, they have him laying down while in the building.  On the bottom left of the picture you can see all the volunteers sitting at tables.  They were cutting up flowers to put on the floats.  It looked pretty tedious!
Seeing the floats being built made me want to see the parade in person some day.  Maybe when the kids are older!

We had a great time in California.  Sadly, these were the only pictures we took.  Other highlights of the trip were hanging out with all the family (we missed you Tammy and John), going to the park, being spoiled by grandma's cooking, New Years eve dinner at Wood Ranch with mom and dad (thanks Jessica for babysitting), and staying up till midnight to watch the ball drop.  Jessica and Ashley were the only kids who made it.  Tyler tried hard, but fell asleep around 10:30.  It was cute because the first thing he said when he woke up on New Years Day was "Did I make it??!!"  Sorry, Tyler, maybe next year!