118th Rose Parade...

For New Year's we went down to Pasadena. We stayed in a hotel on Colorado Blvd.--right on the route for the anual Tournament of Roses Parade. We were so shocked to see how early people start camping out on the street to get good seats for the parade. People were there from about nine o'clock a.m. the day before, and slept outside all night. Crazy! But, it was a very cool thing. It was almost like being on Georgetown Rd. the night before the race. The girls were awake for midnight Eastern time, but couldn't all make it to midnight our time. The next morning we had to get up pretty early for the parade. The girls were woke up to the sound of a stealth bomber doing the flyover--they were terrified (you'd think they'd be used to it.) We sat up on the wall around the pool of our hotel to watch the parade. It was amazing. We even saw George Lucas because he was the Grand Marshall. The only dissappointing thing was that Notre Dame didn't get invited to the Rose Bowl Game. The next day we went over to the city park where all the floats were on display. It was so cool to see them all up close. Every bit of each float is made of only all natural materials i.e. seeds, grass, nuts, wood, flowers, and of course roses!

A view from our seats...

Float viewing...