Milwaukee Holiday Parade 2007

Today Lisa dragged me along on a family trip to watch the annual Holiday parade downtown. It was just about the last thing I wanted to do after a long week of work, but as usual I wound up having fun.

We managed to find a (free) parking spot within three blocks of the parade route and were lucky enough to occupy a large empty space front-and-center after the police asked a protester! (Keep Jesus Alive!) to leave the scene.

Seriously folks, c'mon - protesting a Christmas parade as un-godlike? The Virgiin Mary rode through the parade on a mule for pete's sake.

[note: this reminds me of a born-again comic book left behind by someone at work: "Jesus hates Halloween and all who practice it". Nice. Real Jesus-like.]

Not many pics. It was a tad on the cold side with a stiff breeze. Plus the camera was low on batteries.

The boy in back of the stroller is Adam, the son of a friend of ours. Lauren was at grandma's.

Park loves marching bands and often bops to the music.

It was the first time in my life I'd ever seen the parade balloons ala Macy's - unless I've forgotten something from when I was Parker's age. They had the gingerbread man, JayJay the Jet Airplane (once upon a time a YaYa favorite) and a dog.

I put the camera in Lisa's hands for a minute and look what happens: she failed to get a snapshot of LuLu posing with Dorothy (of Oz) by misjudging the time it takes to open the camera. Instead she got this shot:

Not quite the same 'wow factor'.

I really liked the next guy, the 'mad wheeler' who did Cirque De Solei (sp?) trips in his own hamster wheel.

Last and almost least in the parade was the big guy, Santa himself. He seems to have developed a longshoreman's accent and looked like he just came off a bender, but I guess delivering presents around the world in a single night is a stressful gig, so he's excused.

Still, kind of a anti-climactic finish to an otherwise enjoyable parade. The kids, while they had their moments, were pretty darn good. Lu had some issues but she was bone tired. Lauren has now officially moved into her room and the baby cried most of last night.

So in short, Lisa was right, I was wrong, and we had fun. The Christmas season has begun.