Christmas Parade

So this time around we have an excuse for updating our blog so late - we have been out of town visiting our families in California for the past few weeks. We had a great time, and we'll get to all the details about that trip a little later.

For now we thought we would show you pictures from the Christmas Light Parade that we went to before we left on the trip. It was so much fun and the floats were really elaborate. We left in the early afternoon to attend a Christmas event that was being held at local fire station. They gave the kids tours of the firehouse and firetruck and served punch, hot apple cider, and cookies.



Rumor had it that Santa was going to be making an appearance there, which he did...only, Aaron had more interest in the "Firehouse Dog" than Santa. Here he was giving him a high-five:






Aaron sitting in the firetruck:



For the record, although Santa did not receive a high-five, we did all take a picture with him. Unfortunately the printed picture is still hiding somewhere in our unpacked luggage. And since I have never used the scanning feature on our printer, I'm not even going to bother going down that road of frustration just for one picture at the moment. Anyhow, it was a great little event they put on for the kids - a nice prelude to the fabulous parade that was about to begin.

Now, maybe it's because I am indoors for a large chunk of the day, or maybe it is because we are home-grown Californians, but geesh - I completely forget how dang cold it can get here in Idaho at night. Luckily the bright lights and fun music of the parade distracted us from our frozen flanges for about an hour. I have to be honest - we were expecting to see some 20 minute long, rinky-dink parade consisting of a few cars decorated with lights and maybe a marching band or two, but I will admit I was totally surprised at how much thought and Christmas spirit that was put into these floats. For example, the first float blew us away; It was a whole stage set up with the Pinocchio theme. And get this - Pinocchio (a real boy) (...no pun intended) was actually hanging from some kind of large mechanical device that would swing him off of the side of the float and dangle him there in the audience for a few seconds at a time. It was such a neat thing to see and really set the tone for the rest of the parade.



Since we couldn't show you all of the 100+ pictures Matt took of the floats, here are a few of our favorites:





The marching bands were awesome! Although you can't really tell in the picture, not only was the music great, they were also lit up from head to toe with lights and glow sticks:






Of course the Grinch had to be there to steal Christmas:




Although you can't really see it in the picture, this float was set up to look like a mock-crash - an out of control jet-ski that crashed into a Christmas tree. Very clever!:






If only all school buses could look as cool as these...:




An awesome Winnie the Pooh float:





This was supposed to be Alvin and the Chipmunks. Even though I don't remember Alvin having a mustache, it was still pretty cute to see three grown men singing karaoke and dancing around just to get the spectating kids to smile:


Needless to say, be will be going back next year. And this time we will be prepared with chairs, blankets, and a few large thermoses of hot chocolate!