New Year's Eve

Apparently it is important to sleep out on the Rose Parade route once in your life...it wasn't quite what I had envisioned based on the Christy Miller series, but fun all the same! We started off our adventure by bringing pizza to some of Adrienne's family who had staked out our spot that morning and we all took turns keeping it "safe". Cheryl had brought the girls for a trial run and we had dinner together at Islands and then she checked out the spot so she would be able to get back in the morning. We had company until about 9pm when it was officially Adrienne, Kristen, Kelly, and I's watch for the night. It never got too cold which was nice, but I have to say I'm past the age of staying up all night (although I slept more than I thought I would!) and it wasn't SUPER crazy...church groups on either side helped! Although, I did witness my first arrest...not sure for what, but part of the adventure :) We survived until morning...only had to brave the scary port-a-potty a couple times (there was a line by us ALL night) and we'll just say it involved some people picking the locks/breaking and entering going on. The parade was fun and I've
never been so excited to go home and shower!

Early on in the evening

Our slightly homeless look around midnight

Camping out
Bella and Ellie enjoying their breakfast


LOVE her!

She was waving back to the floats...how cute is she??

It had been a LONG night...Ellie is looking fresh and cute though!


Bella is quite handy with the camera
Seriously, can she be cuter? She was saying look Auntie, hat, hat Auntie...melts my heart when she repeats Auntie over and over whenever she sees me!
Sierra Madre's float - they had it on display in the middle of town after, it was cute :)
I LOVED the origami dragon!
Cal Poly always does a good job

Bella wanted her picture with the skater and the helper...who knows about that man, it made us all laugh though!

Jackie Chan was on one of the floats...apparently it was a big deal that he got stuck in front of us, they offered to let him off, but he stuck it out - such hard work ;)
Japan!! made me happy!