Bucket list

I love crossing things off. Specially on my To Do lists. It gives me a sense of satisfaction knowing that I have completed something. Yesterday I had the opportunity to cross yet another thing off my Bucket List. I cannot wait for Mike and I to slowly cross things off that list together.
For New Year's Even we decided to go and sleep in the streets to celebrate, hehe sounds awful, right? I've ALWAYS wanted to do that.
New year's even started like this: Woke up in the morning and went to the temple to do an endowment session with Marcia, the last session of the year. I came home cleaned my entire house top to bottom (wanted to start the new year with a clean everything) I had asked a couple of people who have gone to the Rose Parade what time one gets there and they just said to get there around 7AM the day off. At first Mike and I were going to get there in the morning around 3AM so that we could get good seats but last minute we decided we would do the entire experience and spend the night there, so I packed us up to go camping. Mike got home from work, we ate dinner at a Mexican restaurant and went on our merry way around 7pm
When we got there, I accidentally drove to the end of the parade and I was so confused to see thousands of people already lined up on the streets with their mattresses and sleeping bags. I was really frustrated because I DID NOT want to be at the end of the parade. I wanted to be there at the beginning where the cameras were, why were there so many people already?! So we drove, and drove and drove around until we finally compromised on a spot a little ways from the cameras. ( Oh and the people on the streets were throwing silly string, marshmallows and what looked like shaving cream pies at cars, thankful we dodged all of them by staying in the inside lane) Our next job was to find parking. There is NO parking in Pasadena so we finally found a garage were we could leave our car over night. We got out of the car with nothing but two chairs and a blanket and walked around until we found a little spot small enough for both of our chairs. I asked the people around us if we could sit there and since nobody really gave me an answer I just plopped our chairs open and sat down. FINALLY!

There were some teenagers next to us and a family that looked like they were from LA on our right. When the dad got there I asked him what time he had gotten there, he said they got there at 8AM! He said they get there at 8AM on the 31st and stand where they want their spot and at 12 they were able to bring out their chairs and mark their spot with chalk. (We were sitting between the line, woops) I told him sorry for sitting in his spot and he was fine with it, he said they had gotten too large of a spot and were fine sharing a little bit of it. He was super nice. And let me tell you they were prepared! They had a fire pit, warming lamps, chairs, blow up mattresses, a game table, treats, the whole enchilada! They were super nice also and I later found out they were from Redlands.

 The people in front of us also had a fire pit and a patio heater, so smart!

 There were blocks and blocks and blocks of people camping out waiting to celebrate the New Year. I learned that you are supposed to stay on the side walk and you can move your stuff down to the curve at 11PM. That's were all the hot seats are. That way you are up and personal with the floats with no body in front of you.
Everyone counted down to the new year and there was a lot of cheering, small fire crackers, and people having a good time on the street. It was pretty fun celebrating with the thousands of people who had camped out on the streets with us. The party kept going until about 2AM and then things finally started to settle down a little. I was ready for bed. I managed to get about 3 hours of sleep in total because at 4 every body started waking up again. A lot of people were just coming in trying to get a spot on the street. They would try to squeeze in while people were sleeping. I decided to stay up and guard our spots because I didn't want all that work to end up being behind somebody. So while Mike was out and about getting hot chocolate and bringing some more goodies I stayed put.

There were also news casters every where. They were across the street from us giving out blankets, darn!

 This was probably around 6 in the morning. There was a 5K going on and you could see runners in the street as well as people dressed up putting on a nice morning show.

The guy next to us had 7 chairs for his family and he was nice enough to let us squeeze both chairs in but we decided we'd only put 1 in front so they would sit comfortable. he had already been too nice to us.

 By about 6:30 everybody and there mom was showing up. I couldn't believe how many people were there. I think I read that they were expecting about 500,000, yowzas!

We were about a block away from all the cameras and they were all setting up and getting ready to go

At about 8AM these airplanes put on a nice little show for us, writing things in the sky. They did that through out all of the parade

At 8:30 the parade finally began!

 It was great to be front and center

 Sorry some pics are tilted, I couldn't figure out how to turn them right way up.

 This float was ginormous, it took up almost the whole block. This was the front...

 Middle...

 And end

Can you spot me holding my camera?

I am in the bottom right with Mike behind me in a white jacket holding his arm up :)

The band geek in me made me really excited to see the bands playing. I always dream of being in a band big and enough to go to the Pasadena Rose Parade. There were bands from all over the country

This was one of my favorite floats, it was so colorful!

 Aloha!

They had dancer too

 The horse carriages were also beautiful. Everyone would cheer really loud when the poop clean up crew would walk by with their brooms and shovels, it was fun :)

 I loved all of the details of this float too

 Loving all of those colors and flowers!

 Look at the size of that horse, some of these floats were ginormous!

 City of Hope Float! You bet we cheered for this one. They had survivors holding pictures of people who had donated their organs to them...loved it!!

 Search and rescue dogs :)

 Sorry the pic is tilted, but this is probably the best baton twirler I've ever seen. She threw it so high and she would catch it with her neck! And then she would twirl it around her neck and her elbow! She would throw it up so high and catch it every single time..Ah-mazing!

These kids had some pretty amazing soccer tricks

The details on every float were simply amazing

 I think all of the flowers were fresh because they looked and smelled so fresh and beautiful

 SO many flowers

 This was another one of my favorite floats

For some reason the night before the parade people were holding up "Boycott SeaWorld" signs up. Not sure what the deal with that was. The homies sitting next to us were holding up some signs so I didn't bother asking them why. People were also being silly and holding up "Free Hugs" signs..gross :) When the Sea World float came up I missed it cause I was in the potty but Mike said they didn't do anything just had police guarding it as they walked down.

All the fresh flowers, it smelled so good!

 This was a fun float also, they had WWII lady vets sitting on the float and other lady vets walking with it.

 Can you see how high that guy is jumping with the white shirt? They were doing back flips on the street, crazy!

And the very last float

We were supposed to head over to see the floats after the parade but we were exhausted! We also had plans to visit the tournament house but all I really wanted to do was head home and take a nap. I am so happy we were finally able to go to the Rose Parade. I've been wanting to do that for years! It was definitely a night to remember. Happy New Year!