Luke's 1st Boom Boom!

Saturday night marked another one of Luke's Firsts....he went to his first "boom boom" (aka: Mardi Gras Parade). It was a REALLY cold night (the wind chill was 24 degrees) ALMOST too cold for a parade, but we braved the cold and set up camp on Broad Street right in front of the Red Cross building. Since we have the Red Cross hook up (Aunt Liz), we got to run inside and use the restrooms when we needed them and warm up for a while. It was especially nice since we got there at around 6:30 pm and didn't leave until around 9:30. Apparently, where we were standing is toward the end of the parade route so even though it started at 7pm, it didn't get to use until around 8pm. Plus, we got to see 2 parades back to back tonight since the one from Friday night was rained out.

Luke was SO excited that he could hardly stand it. When the street vendors stared coming by, Luke asked: "Daddy, that the boom boom?"

Jeremy replied laughing: "No buddy, it hasn't even started yet!"

Luke couldn't believe his eyes once it really got started. His favorite part was collecting all the beads. I had my nice camera, but I guess I needed my tri-pod to get the shots without my flash. These were as good as they got. Plus, who can take pictures when you are trying to catch STUFF!!!

AND they had a train float just for Luke because they knew he was coming and that they are his favorite ;) Ha!

My favorite part of the parades are the bands! Jeremy's favorite part was getting as much STUFF (beads, coins, stuffed animals, candy, footballs, etc.)---really ANYthing he could get his hands on---as he could. Luke's favorite part was picking up all the beads that fell... He would say every time he picked one up "Hey, I got one!" "Hey, I got one!" "Hey, I got one!" and he put everyone he got on his neck. He could barely stand up by the end of the parade!

This was the stash of loot we ended up with: too many beads to count, 14 moon pies,

12 dab- loons, 11 stuffed animals, 3 footballs, 2 airheads, 2 cups, 1 snickers bar, and 1 bag of peanuts. And this is just the FIRST parade! So, needless to say, Luke had a GREAT time and he can't wait to do it all over again next weekend!