Rose Parade Float Viewing

Living in Southern California has given us many wonderful opportunities to do things with the girls. Our awesome weather permits us to go out pretty much year round, though I tend to be a weather wimp and prefer to stay in on rainy or "cold" days (cold for us is 40-50 degrees).

When I was 18, I camped out on New Year's Eve on Colorado Blvd. in Pasadena to watch the Rose Parade. My friend was marching in one of the bands so we went for support. Camping out was interesting and I'm so glad to say I did it- but its kind of like skydiving- yeah I did it- do I need to do it again? Nope! LOL. Talk about COLD! Check out my hair!!!!

I'm holding what I was using as my marshmallow launcher.

A few, well, many (like 10) years later my sister and I woke up the day after New Years and decided to go view the floats. This was amazing and was even better than watching the parade in my opinion because you could take as long as you wanted to really look and see the detail on these beautiful floats. Look- my hair is getting shorter!The girls have never been really interested in the parade, until this year. We had it on all day long and they still ask to watch it! So I decided to try this year to take them to the float viewing. Joann joined us and off we went Jan 2nd to see the floats. We parked at one of the shuttle areas and took a bus over to the area they were on display. Below are some of the pictures I took of the day....

The girls loved seeing the drivers seats on the different floats. This one had the driving instructions written in Sharpie right on the wall.

That's a small space!

This was the Donate Life float. We took this for our triplet friend Mira who is waiting to gain enough weight to get her kidney transplant- that's right folks- they found a MATCH!! She is on her Make A Wish trip with her family to Disney World right now!

A good reminder to us all!

The riders and stars are all people that either gave for or received a transplant.

The Wizard of Oz float was very popular!

Check out how tall the Honda float is!

I think this float has been the favorite of everyone I have shown pictures to, and the pics don't do it justice- it was gorgeous!

Emily loved watching this one on TV with the skateboarding dog. She decided he was in the little dog house resting after all that work. :)

The details are amazing!

The girls thought this hot dog was funny- it was bigger than them!

LOTS of people! we were glad we went early- this was towards the end of our day.

We had the girls walk since strollers would have be a big hassle. I was so proud of them!

The little details were amazing!

The girls in front of our city's float! One of these years I want to be a "petal pusher" and help decorate...

The girls hands were frosty by the time we were done- the sun never really came out- note to self- next year, bring gloves- just in case :)

We for sure want to make a tradition of this! They do have several of the floats in running order so they operate just as they did for the parade.

Truly a sight to see if you can!!!

San Diego Wild Animal Park

We were given 3 free tickets (thanks Beth!) to the Wild Animal Park in San Diego that expired on 12/31. So mom and I loaded up the van on Monday (complete with new Leapsters) and took the 2 hour drive. My mom had never been before and its been about 13 years since I last went. It's VERY different- and we had a great time!



Checking out the animals...

This lion camped out on this jeep all day.

Taking the tram ride through the back area...
we ended up on the tram right at lunch time for all the animals!

Two of the world's oldest rhinos! Turned 46 this week (13 years longer than the average life expectancy)- both girls.
The view from the upper level

Time to feed our animals...

Ask any of the girls their favorite part of the day and they will say the bird show- it was really cool- had a lot of birds that flew right over the crowd including this owl that flew right over us!

Checking out the gorillas...

And then the elephants...

Lots of baby elephants!

I purposely didn't dress the girls the same (I usually try to on big outings like this so I can spot and count easily) but I must say it was like we were incognito! We had ONE person ask us if they were triplets and it was when we were taking these pictures (and the lady's brother has triplets- guess we can spot each other pretty easily!). It was really nice spending the day without being stopped every 5 minutes to answer triplet questions. I usually don't mind- but some days its nice to be left alone and just enjoy the time with the girls.

The girls were great- they listened, no real melt downs, and they all took turns (some more than others) walking- we had 2 strollers.

There were wild deer running through the elephant exhibits and the elephants were chasing them...

Grammy and the girls towards the end of the day...

Time to ride the merry-go-round! Emily had to have a zebra since that was the animal she decided to BE all day!

Ashley...

madeline and grammy...

Hi Mom!

Blowing kisses!

It was a great day and the girls are still talking about it (and pretending to be various animals). We will go back again for sure!