Rose Parade

This post is a number of weeks overdue!!

Anyways, at about 1:45 in the morning on January 1st, 2007, Scott Mallon and Sara Borntrager (to be married on February 10th...yay!), Ryan Secor, Charis Simmons and I arrived on Colorado Blvd in Pasadena. We quickly found a suitable "campsite" near the curb where we would have good viewing of the Rose Parade and we laid out our sleeping bags. Scott went right to work setting up his little portable stove, and when it was all ready Sara and Scott made us all hot chocolate. I was quite impressed when Scott and Ryan pulled out raw meat from their coolers and cooked it, right there on the street! Scott had brought steak and Ryan brought lamb. Man alive, Ryan knows how to cook lamb. Or, I guess it was very early in the morning (or very late at night, whichever way you want to look at it), so perhaps my tastebuds didn't have their BEST discernment going on, but anyways, it seemed to taste like heaven.

It was a very fun night to spend together. After cooking and having several theological discussions, we turned slap-happy. Suddenly everything Scott said gave Sara and me blue faces. Our giddyness wore us out, and we all ended up napping from 4 am to 7am.

At 7 am I don't think any of us felt as happy to be alive as we had felt before we all slept, but when the parade finally started it was nice to take our minds off how much we just wanted a shower. I have to admit, I did not stay out all night for the Rose Parade. I stayed out all night simply to stay out all night with friends. It was WAY worth it. The parade was nothing to shout about, I thought, but I did like the Star Wars march.

Scott and Sara as we were just beginning to get slap-happy.

Ryan and Charis were pooped from the started, but once Ryan had downed
his lamb, they were both out of it.

And here's me looking pretty much how I felt. :)
Happy but unkempt.

Sara and I loved Scott's wake-up hair at 7 am.

Self-portrait. After 3 hours of sleep on concrete.

Don't they look simply marvelous?

Ok, so here's how the first float looked from our viewing point.



And, just as I thought, I didn't capture the Star Wars presentation very well.
Darth Vader led the way, then a BUNCH of storm troopers, then Darth Mal, I
think, and then the float was supposed to be Nabu I think with Queen Amidalla.
I sure hope I have all my Star War's personal pronouns down. And spelled
correctly.

It was SO fun!