Homecoming 2011

If you look back on the blog, we have a picture of the girls at every Homecoming parade since they were a few weeks old.  Some years it's been snowing, some years (like this year) we were hot even without a coat on.  You never know what the weather will be like, but we always have fun!

As we walked to the parade route we saw a man taking these pack mules through a routine (we're guessing so they wouldn't get restless as they waited to enter the parade).  They were beautiful and we had to watch for quite a bit before we even got to the parade.

Once the parade got underway we pretty much only saw the back of the girls' heads for an hour and a half, because they were totally focused on the parade in front of them.  So we took this opportunity before everything really got started to get at least one picture of each girl's face.

Okay - I guess we only caught Elena when the parade set-up was already pretty engaging. :)

We won't show all the floats, of course, but there were a few that went over very well. One was any float that had "cheer ladies" as Clara has dubbed them.  Whenever we're at a football or basketball game she zeros right in on them - we wonder if it's a forecast of her future.

These people were advertising the Tweed Ride, which is a throw-back, olde-timey bike ride where everyone wears tweed and tools about town at a leisurely pace.  Maybe one day we'll do this.

We don't know who sponsored this float, but the girls really liked the grizzly head eating the people!

Christina got really excited about this Brownie/Daisy float- next year the girls finally get to sign up to be Girl Scouts!

The Foresters are always an outgoing, crazy bunch.  Their float is wacky but fun to see.

Look - almost another picture of both faces!  Elena insisted on her cowgirl hat for most of the parade (with the elastic brim part pulled down - don't tell her it's not supposed to go that way!)

Whenever a band went by Clara had to cover her ears - but she also wanted to clap whenever they went by - this led to some difficult on her part figuring out what to do!

Clown car!

When the Hellgate Roller Girls came by Steve went to go urge the girls to pay attention- he has a vision of them being roller girls one day.

Clara decided she liked this kind of dog (pug) and told us she'll have 100 of them when she grows up!

And, we'll end with the most disturbing of the parade sights - the plasma center in town marched, and they have this big plasma walking around, which disturbs Steve and Christina to no end.  Apparently that is not everyone's response, as you see by the girl below going in for a hug.  That was not our girls, though - they said: "Look, a big candy!" which pretty much reflected how much they had gone candy-brained from all the candy passed out along the parade route.

Since they couldn't take him home they didn't care much about seeing him - but they did take home about ten pounds of candy, so we are set for what we'll give out on Halloween!  Plus, it was a great time and a great tradition.