St. Patrick's Day Parade

This year we made an impromptu decision to go to the St. Patrick's Day parade. It was the first St. Patty's Day parade any of us have ever gone to, which is weird seeing as how Todd has lived here his entire life and I have been living here for nearly 18 years.

Jocelyn loves a good parade, and seeing how this one is the second largest St. Patrick's Day parade in the country (New York has the largest) AND the fact that we had beautiful, warm weather, we figured we had no excuse to miss it.

We had to wear sunscreen, sunglasses and little Miss 'baldy' wore her hat! Reagan had nothing green to wear, but she did have a shirt with a rainbow on it, which I thought should suffice. With her strawberry blond hair, she fit right in with the Irish folk anyway!

Jocelyn sported her shamrock shirt.

We were definitely under dressed for the occasion. With the exception of Reagan, we all wore green, but we seemed to be the only ones who stopped with a simple green shirt. We saw green tutus, hats, tattoos, hair, socks, necklaces...you name it, someone had it on in green. Oh well, we know better for next time (if there is a next time).

The streets of downtown Pittsburgh were lined with a sea of green!

Todd and I found the actual parade rather boring. There seemed to be an abundance of cars advertising dealerships and a lack of high school bands. It also seemed that every time a dance troupe got to our section of the street they were on a break. Bummer!

Then there was a 30-40 minute halt in the middle of the parade where we were wondering what was going on. Right afterward a car drove by with guys holding HUGE automatic weapons and running close behind was Vice President Joe Biden. I guess it was kind of cool seeing the Vice President.

Oh, and there were plenty of bag pipes and kilts to go around!

I wasn't overly impressed with the whole parade and it would probably take another very warm St. Patrick's Day with no other plans to get us to go again, but it was worth it simply because Jocelyn said she had fun. I'm pretty sure the part she found the most fun was the part where people were throwing candy at her! That always makes for a good time for a 4-year-old. Okay Maybe for a 31-year-old as well. I will admit that I did enjoy the tootsie pop Jocelyn shared with me--That was fun, and spending time together as a family is always time well spent!