I Love a Parade

I love, love, love our little town. And today was just another example of why. It was our Annual Christmas Festival and Parade. Both Boyz were going to be in the parade so there was no way we were going to miss it…not even if it was cold and rainy.

We dropped the Boyz off early so they could get with their groups and went to find a place to watch the parade.

We found our little spot to sit and LaLa noticed this little asphalt patch shaped like a heart right in front of us.

How perfect.

We had almost an hour to wait until the parade got started and the streets were already lined with people.

Very cold people.

It was freakishly cold and rainy for us desert dwellers.

Not exactly parade weather.

Soon the perfect small town parade started.

We had groups of dancing girls…that had to be freezing.

And marching bands.

But unlike big time parades we also had marching sheep

and goats. There was also a chicken, but I didn’t get a picture of it.

And our own little covered wagon.

And soon we had some unwelcome visitors in the shape of drops.

But that didn’t stop our rodeo queens.

You might have thought the weather was planned by this guy.

Good thing we had this guy to spread Christmas Cheer by singing loud for all to hear. (Okay he wasn’t singing, but he should have been!)

Einstein was happy to wave at us.

The jr. high band doesn’t march.

But they did sound great. Big J is in the back in the Santa hat.

Whoever did their float did a great job on the decorations.

And Macy’s has nothing on us.

We also had Santa to wrap up the parade.

And as we were walking back to the suburban I realized I didn’t get a picture of us.

Duh.

I knew how to fix that.

Vacation Wrap-up…Part 3

So when we left on our vacation the original plan was to come back on Saturday, but we were just having too much fun to leave. So finally on Sunday morning, dark and early, we left Springville and headed home. Since it was early and cold and dark the kidlets and I were quickly asleep. I think Big Daddy likes it better when we are sleeping, it is quiet and he can just drive…fast.

He covered quite a few miles while we were sleeping away.

We all woke up as we were getting to St George. The landscape had changed dramatically. Instead of mountains covered in snow we were definitely in the desert.

We don’t usually travel the route that takes us through St. George and Las Vegas, but during the winter the roads are much safer.

And the views are pretty dramatic.

Traffic always gets bogged down at the Hoover Dam, but in a few years that should be changing with construction of a pretty amazing looking bridge.

Can you tell we have a Civil Engineer in the family…we are excited by construction.

Once we got over the Dam

We saw this sign and we got pretty excited.

Until we saw this.

There was quite a bit of traffic with Boise State flags since they were going to be playing in the Fiesta Bowl the next day.

We also saw some of these on the road.

But the best part was the warmth of the sun.

Blessed, blessed warmth.

And you can’t find these just anywhere.

And finally we made it to Phoenix. And all of her glory, well the glory that you can see from the freeway going 75mph.

And when I finally saw the Superstitions I knew I was home.

And the next day my house looked like this and I needed another vacation!

 

 

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All Aboard…

So the Phoenix area is way behind when it comes to mass transit, but finally they are trying to catch up. After a few years of construction a light rail metro train started running at the first of the year. Since today was going to be cool and rainy we decided it was the perfect day to take the kiddos and ride the rails.

So we got up this morning and headed to the closest light rail station, which is still about 25 miles from our house, and jumped on the train without any idea where we would be going. Well we did have an idea considering we were on a train with a schedule.

But anywho….off we went. The kids thought it was fun to move from seat to seat and especially enjoyed moving around while the train was moving. Me? I found a seat and stayed there.

I gave Ham my camera to keep him happy and entertained for part of the ride and got some awesome pictures. A lot of shots of his shoes and his pants with a few random shots of the train thrown in.

We finally decided we were hungry and decided to get off the train and head back downtown to find a place to grab some lunch.

We only had about a 10 minute wait until a train came headed back in the other direction.

We got off the train at the Chase Field stop and decided to have lunch at Friday’s Front Row Grill. It would be an awesome place to watch a game, but since we were about 4 hours early and didn’t have tickets we just settled for lunch.

They seated us in a private dining area, which was really nice so I didn’t have to worry about the kids being to loud. Of course, the were perfectly behaved today.

While we were enjoying lunch we were able to watch a little batting practice.

I would have loved for the light rail to have been available all those years ago when I worked in Phoenix. It was so convenient. Big Daddy used it a few days ago when he went and watched the Diamondbacks season opener. There are so many neat museums in Phoenix that I never think about taking my kids to because driving downtown is such a pain. Maybe now that will change…or not. Because seriously, there are still 5 of them!