Happy New Year

Our New Year's family tradition has always included the Rose Parade. As kids, we woke up early and planted ourselves in front of the T.V. to hear Bob Eubanks and Stephanie Edwards describe the floats.

Last year, I even tried to make it part of Mark's childhood memories, although the results were nothing short of disastrous. I vowed never to step within 50 feet of a Rose Parade float again.

Until...my friend Vicki invited us to a Rose Parade party. And not just any party, she said. A party at Aunt Nosy's house.

Aunt Nosy is not actually Vic's aunt, but rather a friend's aunt. She lives right along the parade route, next door to the big white house where all the parade festivities begin. Vic promised us a parking pass, indoor plumbing, and gin fizzes, and suddenly, I was willing to give the Rose Parade a second chance. (Can't say the same for gin fizzes, though -- yuck!)

So we celebrated New Year's Eve at Vic's place, and then awoke at the crack of dawn. Actually, even before the crack of dawn -- at 4:30 a.m., to be precise. Luckily, Mark wakes up pretty easily when travelling or attending fun events like this.

Pretty soon, we were on our way to Pasadena. It was still pitch black outside, and the road was fairly empty, except for all the buses. They were heading in the same direction we were.

We followed the buses off the freeway and toward the parade route. Edra flashed the magic parking pass and voila! we were travelling behind the road blocks. Our only hiccup was when we reached the top of a steep hill and realized a bus was heading down directly at us with no room to pass.

Once the bus crisis was averted, we parked at Aunt Nosy's. I could tell we were close because the street was filled with T.V. vans and trailers.

It was now 6 a.m., and we were the first guests to arrive. Aunt Nosy greeted us warmly, and pointed us to the street. "Go walk the floats," she said, so we did exactly that.

It was incredible! We were literally steps away from the floats. There were people along the street, but most of them were T.V. or float crews. We stood mere inches from the floats. It was so cool!

Randi, Vic, Mark and Edra in front of the floats.
Three out of four of them were glad to be there!

It was still dark when we first got there -- the floats were lit up with floodlights.


We even got a sneak peak at the driver's seat -- there's a little T.V. screen in there to help them navigate the street.

About 30 minutes into the viewing, the sun started to rise. To our left, the sky was pink and blue, just beautiful. To our right, the full blue moon shined brightly over the white house. It was an awesome morning.

Blue moon.


Sunrise.

Mark and I stopped in front of the big white house. I was just staring at the house when the man next to me said to his son, "You know who that guy is? It's Captain Sully, the pilot who landed his plane in the river and saved all those people."

My head whipped around at that. Captain Sully was the parade's grand marshall and I was so excited to see a real live hero!

Turns out he was right in front of me. I pointed him out to Mark, who was completely uninterested. Instead, he fell to the ground in a heap and whined, "I'm going to sleep!"

I watched as a T.V. guy started interviewing Sully. I thought it was pretty cool, and even raised up my camera to take a picture. Unbeknownst to me, I was actually right in the shot, between Sully and the interviewer (see it here, around the 2:33 mark). My mom and cousin Kathleen both phoned me as soon as I got home to say they'd seen me! My mom also asked if the lump on the ground was Mark, and I confirmed that it was. "I knew it!" she said excitedly.

Captain Sully!

It was time for the parade to begin, so we returned to Aunt Nosy's. She's put out pastries and mimosas, and even bleachers for us to sit on in the front yard! We had the whole yard to ourselves, and a perfect view of the floats -- they were seriously 10 feet away from us!

Viva Mexico! The float of mi gente.

Very cool puffer fish/jelly fish/reef float.

One of my favorite floats had a huge bulldog on the front. It also had a small slope of snow, which we soon realized was for some real-life bulldogs, one of whom was wearing a tu-tu. The dogs were supposed to snow board down the slopes, but because they weren't quite at the starting line of the parade, the people on the float weren't doing anything. This did not sit well with Aunt Nosy's friends. The older ladies started shouting, "We want the dog! We want the dog!" They got the whole crowd to chant along with them, and next thing we knew, the dogs were snow boarding down the slope. It was hilarious! And even more so when the float passed us by and the dog trainers gave Aunt Nosy's friends a thumbs up signal to let them know they'd been heard.

We seriously had the best seats on the route. Not only were we on bleachers above the crowd, we were also at the point where the marching bands converged into the parade. They marched right up to the street across from us, playing loudly, and waited until the parade volunteers waved them in. The floats stopped, waited for their signal, and then moved up.

My favorite band was the Guatemalans. They were happy, dancing, playing and very glad to be there. They samba-ed and danced and then shouted, "Guatemala!" and danced on down the street.

One thing I couldn't believe was my son's reaction to the whole parade. He'd woken up okay, but went downhill shortly thereafter. He was grumpy and mad and wanted no part of the floats or the parade. I told him some day he was really going to appreciate all this, and he snarled back, "Not today!"

As soon as we got to the bleachers, he laid down and immediately fell asleep. Seriously! Not 30 feet from the marching bands playing as loudly as they could -- he slept through it all. (Later, when we watched it on T.V. at home, he said, "Wow, that's loud! I can't believe I slept through all that noise!")

Seriously? You can't hear that big marching band in the upper lefthand corner??

I woke him occasionally to see the really cool stuff (like the snow boarding dogs) but he immediately went back to sleep. He woke up just in time to see the last three floats pass by.

Even when he finally woke, he wasn't much interested in the parade. He was more interested in telling me how boring parades are.

Hey Mark, the floats are behind you!

By then, the parade had ended, and my own fatigue set in. Aunt Nosy set out quite a feast, but I was suddenly exhausted, and in no mood for my now well-rested, hyperactive son.

We stayed long enough to eat, and watch the crowd thin out. When both sides of the road were moving again, we packed up the car, thanked Aunt Nosy profusely and headed home, tired but very, very happy.

It was a pretty great way to ring in the new year.