A Parade of Top Ten Awesomeness

Great news everyone! I can officially say that both my children have been in a parade and they will no longer need to put that experience on their bucket list. Last Thursday night was the Lakeland Christmas Parade and a good friend of ours asked us if we wanted to ride on an old-time fire truck sponsored by his law firm. (McKendrick Law: Representing the Naughty and the Nice Since 1999. Ha! I love that slogan :) Anyway, we jumped at the chance, and so Cindy, Luke and I got to smile, wave and say Merry Christmas to the throngs of adoring fans. And Luke got to almost have his bladder explode during the last 1/2 mile stretch. Seriously, I took Luke to the bathroom twice before the parade started, but of course, he had to go when there was absolutely NOTHING I could do about it. Poor kid was in tears by the time we got off the parade route. But at least he is a boy and so as soon as we could get off the truck and find a good bush, all was well :)

I didn't take any spectacular pictures, including any of the fire truck itself (how did I neglect that?), but here are a few I snapped while my decision making skills were functioning at at least 49%.

Cindy, Maddie Adams, and Luke in the background. We were up on the fire truck for a while waiting for our turn...



I thought my antlers were pretty stylin'! And yes, it was 62 degrees so we dressed in our eskimo best.


Cindy and Maddie. Yes, I do own a scarf so I gave it to Cindy.


Luke and Justin chillin' like villians.

The parade itself was quite the show. I hadn't been to this parade since I was a twinkle in my father's eye. There were 140 entries and we were number 68. There were soooo many people there- somewhere of about 30,000 people according to the paper. And I would say that only a good, whopping .01 percent of them were smiling and looking like they were happy to be alive. Seriously, those Lakelanders were a rough-looking crowd! Probably because they all had not yet gone to the tent I saw that was selling the Deep Fried Oreos. We almost had to stop the fire truck for that one :)


For those who are really bored, if you go to 9 minutes into the video- you will see the fire truck. This is just a video we found on YouTube taken by a random stranger. Isn't technology wonderful that you can steal videos from people you don't know and share them as your own? :)





And speaking of parades, did you catch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade a few weeks ago? Standards are falling quickly up there...

TOP TEN WORST BALLOONS FROM THE MACY'S THANKSGIVING DAY PARADE

10. Justin Beiber's Hair
9. US Capitol Building (comes pre-filled with enough hot air to last 10 years)
8. Lacey the disgruntled TGIFridays hostess
7. Lint-covered candy cane from Santa's pocket
6. Rudolph, the One-eyed Reindeer
5. Coca-cola polar bear dying in the hot, hot sun
4. Obama's Ego (Oh wait, that's way too big to fit in the streets of New York)
3. A deflated Kris Humphries
2. Festive clogged artery sponsored by McDonald's
1. Grinch bunions


(thanks to Dad and Dave for thier contributions- #s 4 and 8, respectively)