Wednesday, January 1, 2014

Holidazzle Parade - A Christmas Recap: Part 1


The last week and a half has really lived up to all the festive hype a Christmas should.  Well, besides our New Year's Eve which included Ryan getting surgery, my sister and step-mom leaving town, and a crazy and wild record of Lyla's all time latest bedtime and Ryan's all time earliest...both at 8:30 PM.  Which I followed up by 2 hours of cleaning and 2nd birthday party planning.  Can you hear the party horns??

Anyways, Christmas was just as white and full of Santa sightings, little parties, baking, cooking, and eating as I could have dreamed of.  I ended up taking a bit of a somewhat accidental social media break because of everything going on, and I keep meaning to post updates and photos, but the more I procrastinate the more there is to post, and the more I procrastinate.  You know how it is.

So, I'll go ahead and start simple with some photos from the Holidazzle parade we went to the Saturday before Christmas.  It was sort of pure chaos, but I think it was a success because I'm kind of a sucker for anything festive.  I'm not sure Ryan feels the same way though.  Especially considering the fact that our alma mater, CSU, was playing their bowl game and somehow pulled off possibly the craziest win in the world's history.  Which we didn't get to see.  But let's not bring that up.

Now, if you know Ryan you know that "waiting patiently" isn't exactly his forte.  Nor are crowds.  Or traffic.  Now what I knew about this parade and he didn't (since I'd seen it with Lyla last year) is that it's pretty darn pathetic.  I mean, cute because it's Christmas time, and the Christmas lights, and people are excited and yada yada, but it's, I would guess, about 15 total "floats" which are mostly just Comcast vans with Christmas lights strung on them, or something similar.  What I didn't know was that we happened to be going on the very last day of the very last Holidazzle parade to ever exist.  I also didn't realize how many people would choose that day to go see these lit up Comcast vans.  Let me just say it was a lot.

I won't go into the details of just how hectic it all was, but after approximately 2 hours of having plans thwarted and finally getting something to eat, we headed out into the bitter cold to watch the parade.  After about 15 minutes of freezing, and 15 "this is seriously it?!" exclamations from Ryan we decided it would be best to head to our warm car and get the heck out of there.  Little did we know the parking garage exited into the street that was blocked by the parade, so we ended up sitting in the garage for about another 20 minutes before being able to move.  But at least we were warm?

All things considered all 3 of us really managed to keep it together and have a good attitude, which is somewhat astonishing.  There's something to be said for Christmas miracles, I think.  ;)  Here's some photos from the night.  Please note Ryan's pleasant smile in all photos.  And also note the incredible crowd...but mostly that skyway above the bridge.  It's hard to see but I'm pretty sure they reached max capacity and/or the weight limit.  The thing was completely packed from all angles.  It gives me claustrophobia just looking at it.

- K




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