So living in the South has taken on a new meaning the last couple weeks. Apparently, it's Mardi Gras season... that's right, these people take Fat Tuesday to a whole level and turn it into a season! This includes parades, parties, balls and all sorts of things. There are actual Mardi Gras stores filled with beads, masks (some costing $100+), costumes, decorations, and everything that you could need to get into the Mardi Gras spirit.
I visited one of these stores because Daniel's class will have their drop night (where they find out their job and where they're going after graduation) just a few days before the actual Fat Tuesday and the theme for the drop night will be Mardi Gras. So Stacy (one of my fellow spouses) and I went shopping to see what we could find. We got a ton of beads and some plastic medallions so that the guys will have a memento of the night. On the front, the medallion will be decorated with their name and on the back, the instructors will write the assignment. Only 4 more days until drop night! I'm so excited!!!
We also found plenty of fun things to put on Lucas & Anna. These were the first ones we found but they both chose different ones that we ended up buying.
Just last Sunday, Lucas, Stacy, and Justin invited us to come to our first Mardi Gras parade. It was a beautiful day and since we didn't have much planned, we went and it was a lot of fun. It was in a small town next to Biloxi called Ocean Springs so it wasn't super crowded and we were right up front so the kids were able to see everything.
It was a very different parade experience for me. For me, parades have connotations of marching bands, dance teams and other groups actually walking the parade route as well as being cold with lots of crowds because the most frequently attended parade for me is the Pittsburgh St. Patty's Day parade. However, at this parade, it was so hot poor Lucas got heat rash from his long sleeved shirt and Dan & I both got a bit sunburned!
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| Anna with her Mardi Gras feather headband and new baton someone threw to her from a float. |
A the Mardi Gras parade, there were mostly floats decorated according to a certain theme, "Medieval Times." Each float is put together by a "krewe" and our favorite one was the Alice in Wonderland float- complete with all the characters, including the Queen of Hearts who turned out to be a man in drag!
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| After the parade, Lucas and Anna easily had about 200 beads! |
Anna and Lucas had a great time dancing to the music and putting on so many beads they could barely walk! After most of the floats had been seen, we headed home with more beads than we knew what to do with! We're going to steer clear of New Orleans even though we do have a 4 day weekend preceding Mardi Gras. Too many people, specifically too many drunk people, for our taste but we'll get our fill of authentic New Orleans King Cake at drop night, so I think it'll be a great Mardi Gras. :-)
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