The Rose parade

As a lifelong Tylerite, I have seen many a Rose festival take place. I've been to the queen's tea, I've been to the coronation ceremonies, and as a child, I was even able to go "back stage" to see the beautiful gowns and props and costumes since my mother has done hair for many a participant of this whole, shiny, super expensive, elegant shebang. (She has done the hair of at least three rose queens. Yeah. Impressive.) But I have never been to see the rose parade. This year, I decided to change all that. Since Stephan would be working, I figured there was no better time than now to shake up my Saturday routine with something that might make a two-year-old's day.
  Friends, it was fun. It was a little long for my and my toddler's tastes, and the weather warmed up quite a bit while we were there, making our adorable cold weather outfits unnecessary and uncomfortable, but Noah was enthralled the whole way through. Here are a few pictures I took:

This was our set up. It was pretty nice and a great viewing spot.

I saw these crazy cats there. They were kind and loving and loaned a forgetful mom their blanket so that we weren't sitting on the cold, hard concrete the whole time. I love family.

In my opinion, this was the only band/dance team combo that was any good. All the others were middle schools.

Delegate from our sister city in Japan. Neat!

This was Noah and Wyatt's position for the grand majority of the parade. Enthralled!

These clowns got waaaaay to close for my comfort.

I LOVE THE GOWNS! WHY NOT MEEE???

Witten was fought over by adoring cousins the whole time. He didn't mind one bit.

I used to dream of wearing one of those get-ups and being a part of the rose festival. *sigh*

It's a fuzzy picture, but the two in the front are actual twins that they cleverly dressed as Siamese cats. My mom and sister did their hair.

The girl in the gold in the middle's costume was super cool. She had, like, twelve "arms" that fanned out from her back when she raised her arms.

Some more beautiful costumery

   I didn't get a picture of this year's queen because I was packing up to go as she floated by and I didn't care to dig my camera back out. Per usual, it was a stunning gown with a fantastic train that was about 15 feet long.  Just to give you an idea of how the queen's dress looked, here's a picture of a previous queen's gown:

(P.S., I advise all who are interested in the Rose Festival to check out their museum. It's stocked with a plethora of these stunning gowns and has the history of this event on display. I wanna go back!)

All in all, it was a good morning. Thank you, God, for good mornings.