Beads, Beads & more Beads!!!

OUR MARDI GRAS FAVORITES:

Edd: King Cake
Anne: the cool beads
Bethany: King Cake & the parades
Andrew: the week off, King Cakes, and the parades, just about everything!

Aimee: eating King Cake

Mattie: watching the parades

Thomas: nufing.

Our Mardi Gras week started with a day at home re-cooperating from the weekend festivities!!! Edd made us a yummy dinner...

Seafood Boil!!! YUM YUM YUM!!!! :)

FAT TUESDAY was spent out on the parade route! We saw 3 parades in a row!

We left the house a little before 8am so we could get across the lake and claim our spot before the parade route got too crowded. We found a great spot and then had to wait "a long time" according to Mattie! It was about a 2 hour wait and it was FREEZING COLD AND WINDY TOO!!!

We spent the day with the Whipple family, which was fun! At first there was a lot of snuggling to keep each other warm. There were some pretty interesting people who walked by...

One guy who walked past was in a black afro wig, white suit and a pink dress shirt. I was looking at him trying to decide if I should get a picture of him when he yelled to me, "I LIKE YOUR HAIR, IT'S LIKE MINE!!!!" Once he said that I decided I'd better not take a picture of him.

To pass the time before the parades started and to get warm, Andrew, Connor & Thomas played football with some other boys whose families were sitting by us.

Andrew & Connor had gathered up a bunch of broken bead necklaces and connected them into a GIANT necklace.

After freezing for awhile, I had a great idea!!! Mattie, Aimee & I took the broken beads that Andrew & Connor had collected and started to jump rope with them!

We had quite a few kids, boys & girls, come join us! Best of all, we finally got warm! :)

FINALLY, IT WAS PARADE TIME!!!
Our first parade was ARGUS!

Thomas actually had a pretty good time watching! He didn't like wearing any beads though. After a little while, I put Thomas up on my shoulders so he could see better. I guess he got pretty comfortable because he fell asleep up there, we were about 2/3 the way through the first parade!

2nd Parade ~ Our first TRUCK PARADE!

So while you are "parading" (I don't know if that's actually a word or not but that's what I call it) the thing to do is wave your arms and holler trying to get the attention of the people on the floats! "THROW ME SOMETHING, MISTER!" is the parading phrase that you yell!

The people on the floats generally throw out beads. Other "THROWS" include fancy beads...some that are themed with the name of the parade, or Bethany got a really cool necklace with some Mardi Gras faces! Other "THROWS" that we caught were these giant scissors! We also got a bunch of stuffed animals, spears, a t-shirt, cups, cazoos, flowers and a whole bunch of other crazy stuff!!

The bigger the beads, the better! BIGGER=RARE only because they hardly throw BIG ONES!

I caught these BIG PINK BEADS!

Edd and I took turns holding people on our shoulders so they could see better. Other people had modified ladders with seats on top for their kids, like this:

3rd Parade ~ Another TRUCK parade!

The truck parades are different than all the other parades only because the floats are pulled by big truck instead of slow tractors. They move a lot quicker too, which is really nice! :)

Thomas woke up just in time to see the last parade and enjoyed wearing his beads, at least for a little while!

By this time, everyone else was getting pretty tired! Aimee took all her beads off...they were getting too heavy!!! Mattie took hers off soon after that! Mattie had so many beads that I could hardly get them off of her!!!

There were a lot of Saints themed floats, they were even throwing BLACK and GOLD beads!

This tow truck was the end! A bunch of people were throwing their beads trying to get them onto the truck!

Once the parade was over, we headed back to the van. It was amazing how at the beginning of the parades everyone was so excited to get beads and you'd snatch them up off the ground!!!

By the end of 3 parades everyone would just walk past beads everywhere on the ground. There were beads everywhere!! Along with all sorts of other things left behind.

Here's our loot!

When we got home, we each weighed all our beads:

Anne: 5 lbs

Bethany: ~20 lbs ~ B had 48 lbs TOTAL from all her parades

Andrew: ~ 20 lbs ~ Andrew had 44 lbs TOTAL from all his parades

Aimee: 24 lbs

Mattie: ~ 20 lbs...Mattie was too tired to weigh hers and wouldn't let anyone else do it.

Here are the different sizes of beads we got!

Most of our beads fit into these containers...there were some beads that weren't put here!!!

TONS OF BEADS!!!

What do you do with all these beads?????

Aimee wants to keep all of hers...they'll probably end up in the attic.

Is the REAL reason New Orleans is sinking that there are too many beads stored away in all the attics???

Theses are some of a really cool beads that we got!

Mattie got this really cool necklace!

The last few days we've spent sorting all these beads by color. Purple and Gold are the winners, then Green, Pink, Blue, White, Silver, and Red. There are a few multi-colored bead strands too!

When Mardi Gras season started, I bought some Green, Gold, and Purple beads to decorate with. Edd asked me yesterday if I feel silly for buying them. I do now...I've got tons to choose from!!! But back then I didn't have any so it was worth it~I just won't be buying beads ever again! I've got my years supply and then some!!!!!! :)

PS. We had a great Valentine's Day! Edd made us some delicious gumbo for dinner!