We attempted to go to the St. Patrick's Day Parade in downtown Cleveland today. It is a big deal around here and I thought it sounded like fun. It wasn't quite what I hoped it would be. To start off, the parade draws around 350,000 people on a weekday. Today, on a Saturday with the weather expected to be perfect in the mid 70s, it was estimated there might be over 400,000 people there. But, we decided to go anyway. We managed to get there about an hour early and parked in John's parking garage which is only a few blocks from the parade route. Jack LOVED seeing John's office. His face was priceless. John showed him the cafeteria and the debit cards and let Jack take one. We also had to use John's badge to get in doors, as you know Jack, this was all right up his alley. He loves cards, doors and elevators. After leaving, we walked to the parade and found a small opening where the girls could still stay in their stroller and partially see the parade. That is, until the people next to us decided to stand up when the parade started and blocked most of their view. Adults, too, I was a little upset they were standing in the road. The girls and Jack enjoyed two bags of cotton candy (I have pictures of the girls eating this for the first time!) before the parade started and John bought Jack a green blow horn, which I am still questioning. The horn was blown the whole way home, and now we hear it inside the house. I told John he will go to work on Monday and I will have to deal with the horn! Anyway, we saw the parade---well about an hour of it and left. It was supposed to be almost three hours in length. I guess I am spoiled with the small town parades that are much, much better. Not that many people, and just more entertaining to watch. At least the kids were well behaved.
After we left and made a second trip through John's office (much to Jack's delight) we went to P.F. Chang's for dinner which we mananged fairly well. When we got back, we let the kids play and then took a nice walk. We are soaking up this weather every chance we get!
The horn...
This was our spot. The parade came from the right in the picture and the people standing up never sat down and instead moved farther into the street when the parade began.
Green cotton candy
These next three pictures sum up the girls' personalities perfectly:
Kate is the athlete with the sprint and ball in her hand
Elizabeth is loving life. She is always smiling and laughing. And she has that great belly laugh that is contagious!
Anna is my girly-girl. Doesn't she look like that here? Very feminine and maternal.
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