today was the last day of float decorating, which meant only 1/2 a day of work. when we arrived about half the floats were completely done.
beezer and i first worked on the city of los angeles float, gluing white mums to the top of the building. we used the rubber cement glue and by the end my hands were covered in pedals.
then we continued to finish up the lutheran float. there wasn't a whole lot left to do except for some extra flowers to stick on. beezer and i were 2 out of 4 that were allowed to climb up today to play, er uh, help. while we were doing this, one lady was walking around with a spray bottle, spraying all the flowers. i bet she has some massive forearms from this.
here we are, carrying the arc of the covenant!
all finished!! i'll tell ya what, these petal pusher shirts are money. people pay money to come in the top of the building and "observe" and are not allowed on the floor. with a shirt like this you have access anywhere you want. it's pretty much a vip pass.
as the floats are finished, they are announced over the loud speaker and everyone stops to cheer! noon the the final cutoff. at this time everything has to be cleared from the floor, it has to be swept, and people have to go to the sides. riders on the floats get on for, more or less, a dress rehearsal, and this is when the judges come in. the guys on our float, by the time it is all said and done, will have had to stand on the float for 4 hours.
judging is interesting to watch. float by float the judges go around, inspecting. they have a certain time limit. you can take pictures of the process but must be silent (which is especially hard to do! .....maybe it's just me that has a hard time with this?) anyway, during the inspection time the music for that float will play and the people are waving (which does look kind of rediculous). once the time limit is over the timer rings a bell, everyone claps and the judges move on.
what is so AMAZING about the entire process is the detail that goes into every single square inch. here is a close up of the letters we did. all the letters in the entire parade are done like this. pretty mind boggling once you think about it. ideally all the petals need to be facing down. this way, when the petals wilt, they will look nicer.
(white carnation petals on top of clover seed)
going from small to large, here's a good perspective picture. check out beezer and my mom at the bottom left of this picture! this soldier is HUGE!!! (the building is 3 or 4 stories tall)
once we left the warehouse we found ourselves completely surrounded by people. the streets that the 5.5 mi parade goes down turn into a camp ground. at noon it is legal to "mark your space" and it quickly fills up with stoves, sleeping bags, kiddos and dogs. on the news it said that people were beginning to "hover" as early as 3 am. we even saw an toddler cradle with a propane heater right next to it. also, all the shops are boarded up. we're thinking that this is because they don't want people to stand inside during the parade. it's seriously a huge event here.
tomorrow the best channel to watch the parade on is hgtv. they will have nonstop coverage of the event. my mom totally splurged on awesome tickets and we will be seated in the stands where they will be filming. this year there are 41 floats. i would definitely come back for this experience again!
then we continued to finish up the lutheran float. there wasn't a whole lot left to do except for some extra flowers to stick on. beezer and i were 2 out of 4 that were allowed to climb up today to play, er uh, help. while we were doing this, one lady was walking around with a spray bottle, spraying all the flowers. i bet she has some massive forearms from this.
here we are, carrying the arc of the covenant!
all finished!! i'll tell ya what, these petal pusher shirts are money. people pay money to come in the top of the building and "observe" and are not allowed on the floor. with a shirt like this you have access anywhere you want. it's pretty much a vip pass.
as the floats are finished, they are announced over the loud speaker and everyone stops to cheer! noon the the final cutoff. at this time everything has to be cleared from the floor, it has to be swept, and people have to go to the sides. riders on the floats get on for, more or less, a dress rehearsal, and this is when the judges come in. the guys on our float, by the time it is all said and done, will have had to stand on the float for 4 hours.
judging is interesting to watch. float by float the judges go around, inspecting. they have a certain time limit. you can take pictures of the process but must be silent (which is especially hard to do! .....maybe it's just me that has a hard time with this?) anyway, during the inspection time the music for that float will play and the people are waving (which does look kind of rediculous). once the time limit is over the timer rings a bell, everyone claps and the judges move on.
what is so AMAZING about the entire process is the detail that goes into every single square inch. here is a close up of the letters we did. all the letters in the entire parade are done like this. pretty mind boggling once you think about it. ideally all the petals need to be facing down. this way, when the petals wilt, they will look nicer.
(white carnation petals on top of clover seed)
going from small to large, here's a good perspective picture. check out beezer and my mom at the bottom left of this picture! this soldier is HUGE!!! (the building is 3 or 4 stories tall)
once we left the warehouse we found ourselves completely surrounded by people. the streets that the 5.5 mi parade goes down turn into a camp ground. at noon it is legal to "mark your space" and it quickly fills up with stoves, sleeping bags, kiddos and dogs. on the news it said that people were beginning to "hover" as early as 3 am. we even saw an toddler cradle with a propane heater right next to it. also, all the shops are boarded up. we're thinking that this is because they don't want people to stand inside during the parade. it's seriously a huge event here.
tomorrow the best channel to watch the parade on is hgtv. they will have nonstop coverage of the event. my mom totally splurged on awesome tickets and we will be seated in the stands where they will be filming. this year there are 41 floats. i would definitely come back for this experience again!
1 comment:
Wow that is incredible! I can't believe the amount of flowers and work that goes into this.
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