We left Dallas early Saturday morning in order to make it back to Shreveport for our first Mardi Gras Parade!! Now why we have never gone to one before...I don't know??? I really wish we had because we were missing out! Dan and I both LOVED it! Shreveport has an area designated just for families which is really nice. That way you don't have to take part in the crazy partying part of the parade if don't wish to do so. I am used to 4th of July Parades where you park farther away and just walk to where you want to be at during the parade. For Shreveport's Mardi Gras they actually do it along a parkway along the red river. So there is plenty of space for everyone to spread out. You park your car at the same place you will be standing/hanging out for the day. We got there about 3 hours before the parade started. Everyone brought their own meat to grill and we mostly just ate and hung out. Dan and a few others played a little football as well.
This picture is of Heather (one of the Young Women in our ward) with her little sister Ava. Their mom is one of the YW leaders with me as well. 
Dan busy stuffing his face.
The parade started at 4:30pm and got to us about an hour later. We took this picture right before the parade started.
Dan and I decided to compete to see who could get the most beads. I was TOTALLY winning until Dan got the smart idea to put a kid on his shoulders. Reagan (The YW President's daughter) is extremely outgoing and seems to get a lot of attention with her cute chubby cheeks. She was getting stuff thrown to her left and right! I think she got more stuff than anyone else in our group including a feather boa and at least 10 stuffed animals. To say the least...Dan's ploy helped him slaughter me in the competition.
These guys (see pic below as well) were at the very beginning of the parade. I just had to take a picture because I couldn't help but laugh. It was just funny to see these grown men dressed like they were dancing with their umbrellas down the street! Mardi Gras is definitely the day of exceptions for how men can dress! Most men wouldn't be caught dead wearing beaded necklaces except on Mardi Gras!
Ava got a lot of beads too from being on her brother's shoulders. Something about cute little girls sure attracted the bead throwers!
Kassi posing with her princess crown. I taught her as a Sunbeam (3 yr old) at church. It was cute to watch her excitement as she caught a bunch of girly things.
A few of the floats.... 
At the end of the parade Dan and I caught a total of 99 beads, a t-shirt, and 7 cups! Dan even caught me a frog necklace! I was so excited! My frog necklace now is proudly displayed in my office at work.
3 comments:
Holy Cow you got so many beads!! That is crazy! Do they just throw out a ton or what? Is it a long parade?
Anyway that is awesome!
Yeah, they really do throw a ton. That is what I LOVED about it. At other regular parades I have been to there are a lot of floats you just look at. Not everyone throws stuff....but at Mardi Gras the whole point is to catch beads so they are been thrown left and right! The parade was about 45 minutes??? So a decent ammount of catching time! You will have to see my next post...then you will really know how many beads we actually got!
Just for all ya'll info, i was winning Sierra by one bead before we made a competition out of it. We only had a couple each, we weren't being thrown anything, so after we made the competition i asked one of the girls near by me if she wanted to be my daughter for the next hour and she consented and we kicked some trash. I had no voice at the end but i had a blast, i loved having the little girl on my shoulders because we were having so much fun and laughing so much. I can't wait til the day Sierra and i have kids of our own because then i won't have to search and ask if someone wants to be my kid at a mardi gras parade. Dan
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