Clowns in the Parade!

Earlier this fall we found out that Macy's was asking Girl Scouts for help with their parade this year. Macy's would donate $10 for each participant in their big parade on the day after Thanksgiving. They have been having this parade since 1941! I called in and found out that the whole family could be clowns. There were many costume choices, but this sounded like fun! So I signed up the whole family. We needed to be downtown in the Hyatt at 7th and Pine at 7:45 am. We were early and able to find parking close by. The Hyatt was crazy! We were directed toward our costume area in one of the ballrooms. Every costume was hanging up with each person's name on it, and a bag of accessories. There were tons of helpers to find your costume, help you get dressed, etc. We wore our own clothes underneath, and it wasn't too cold yesterday, upper 40's. Kyler's costume was a little bit small, and a few minutes later while I was still getting mine on, there was another little boy whose costume was too big. I called Kyler over and we switched costumes. The second one fit him much better. Each of our costumes came with a neck ruffle, gloves, wig, and a hat. Then you went across the hall to another room with makeup. The adults all got white faces from a big guy who looked like a biker. I asked him what his day job was and he said he's in concrete! He's done this for 6 years. Doesn't tell all his friends why he can't stay out late Thanksgiving night having another beer, because he needs to get downtown and put makeup on! Then over to a lady who used an airbrush to spray on a red mouth, then a lady who did eyes, and last the lady who does cheek circles. A few minutes later and you're done. Then we had a lot of waiting. We went outside to wait for our float, number 41. It was fun watching all the other costumes come out. People on Segways, Ronald McDonald, bands warming up, Dogs and toy soldiers, Star 101.5. It was exciting! A few minutes after 9am, the lady who was holding the flag for our group (a Macy employee volunteer, who has done this for many years), said "Look, there's the stars". The red stars start off the parade with the Macy's sign. They were done, and we hadn't even started moving yet! We got rolling about 9:27am. The clowns got to pass out taffy to people on the side of the parade. They had 2 big wagons filled with tons of candy. Also, all the clowns got balloons, 5 each. The only problem was that it was kind of windy and at times they would get tangled up. Ilea soon had 10 balloons because she couldn't untangle from another person, so they just cut thiers off. They stayed tangled together the whole time. Sometimes the wind would blow the balloons into people too, and they were wet from the sprinkle of rain. But they looked great! It was such fun! We taped the parade at home, of course, and found all four of us on TV. Kipp was the easiest to spot because he carred a big Pansy (it wasn't an iris, like his Facebook says...). It took about 1/2 an hour to walk the parade route. It was fun, and everyone was excited. Then we walked down and around the long way back to the hotel to get rid of all our costumes. Again, it was very easy... find your hanger with your jacket on it, and hang up the costume, put the extra's in the bag, and you're out of there! We left by about 10:15 am. It was a fun morning! I've been meaning to go to this parade for a few years now, and then we were in it! Kyler wants to be presents next year, and Kipp wants to be stars. Fun day!