Monday, March 12, 2007

MARCH COMES IN LIKE A LION

With great anticipation I await the day when I can turn the calendar over from February to March. This means that an action packed couple of weeks have arrived! Beginning with a birthday,then a 5K and at times more races, parades, the Saw Doc's, St. Paddy's day and then more birthdays and finally that first day of spring. Nothing is better that March coming in like a Lion!!

For the second year in a row I helped put together a float for the Louisville Highland St.Paddy Parade AKA The Ancient Order of Hibernians parade. It rained until time to emerge the float from the Bat Cave, then the sun shined and it became a lovely day.

I put together two enormous and seemingly impossible rows of balloons in the Irish colors of green, white and orange to fly gracefully above our float, (a flat bed pulled by a Chevy S-10)in two arches to resemble an Irish rainbow. Those were the instructions as my BIL fled the Bat Cave to attend an important soccer tournament. (isn't that the way it always goes, several things happening at once when you have small children?)

The three of us left looked at each other and immediately got to work! Me, another SIL, and the nine year old Zoe. The going was slow at first until we got the hang of it and got the flow going. Instead of twisting the helium balloons into a knot, the mighty BIL had purchased a bag of plastic string things. They were wonderful as I discovered that the plastic thingies could also attach easily to the long string that was the base of the rainbow.




Finally the chore was completed and with plenty of time to spare.

As the showers stopped and the sun came out, so did our beautiful ballooned POT OF GOLD float (our theme was Tooar Loora Looral - That's an Irish Lullaby...but our float was the same as last year!) At the judges station BIL had all the children do a dance number to "HELLO EILEEN" which was fabulous! But our float was now way behind in the line up heading down Bardstown Rd. Our driver decided to close the distance between us and the float ahead.

The following pictures are of a very courageous Irish dancer catching up with the flat bed.










All in all, a great day.

My Sis had been circling the "Kiss" people all week. This was the group that had the winning float last year themed, "KISS ME I'M IRISH". They were the ones to beat! We closed the gap a little this year, thanks to the beautiful balloons...but we still fell short.



Damn ....they are a clever lot of Irish Eejit's.

3 comments:

ab said...

Erin Go Braugh....Sounds like you had a great time. March is full of promise.

I'm going to post my favorite Irish joke later this week. It's kind of raunchy lol.

meno said...

I love the photos of the girl trying to catch the float!
I also love balloons. i would have votes for you over 6 foot tongues anyday.

Nelle said...

OMG that looks like fun! WE have huge parades here but I never go because of the traffic and you have to arrive hours early to park. Lots of Irish in Jersey!
Have a Happy St. Paddy's Day!
Slainte!