December 7, 2013

Jim didn't make any Wrong Turns!  He and Katie just rolled in.  Now the Winter fun begins!

Katie and Pat.  So nice to have our good neighbors home!

We just love the desert during the Christmas Season.  Well, I think just about any season!

Our friend Janet did some modeling..clothes and jewelry at the Arizona Swap meet yesterday.

Garlic anyone?

Fry's Grocery has 6 or7 varieties of apples today. Made the produce department smell good

A "one scoop" mango ice.  Tasty, and no sugar added.

Amber.  Our normal Friday night snacks at the Copper Miner Kitchen.

Marlys has some carrot cake.  She made the mistake of leaving the table before it was served......a large Canadian mouse got into it. :-)

Annual event.  We haven't been for a couple of years, might try it again next month.

Saturday evening. The line up for the Yuma Light Parade.  There was 180 + units this year.  Lots of lights, 6 or 7 bands, many lights!  Even some clowns

There are a lot of schools in Yuma County.  And all the bands they have are very professional.  They all seem to have good music departments

A real variety of organizations were in the parade

The Color Guard that led off the parade was made up of these high school Marine Officer Training cadets.

Was dark by 6 PM, and the parade started on time

I took a lot of pictures.  Most didn't turn out very good.  So, will just post some of the better ones.

Some floats were sort of plain, some extremely elaborate.  But ALL had lots of lights

A Mexican Santa?  Well, maybe not.................

Yeah, when pigs fly....They seem to do that a lot this time of year around here.

Redd's apartment is just a few yards from here.  We were able to park at his place and get set up early.  The whole parade route gets packed early.  Redd is showing Dale where they operated on  his wrist.  Linda is taking it all in.

We were located right at the start of the parade

Pat is "clowning around"

Our little group. Marlys, Pat, and Janet.  Dale, Linda, and Redd.  After the parade we came to our house for Tres Leche cake and coffee that Pat made.

We had "birds eye" seats

More clowns

There were more dogs in the parade than we've ever seen.  Lost count of how many groups had decorated dogs.

Hmmmmm.

Pastor and wife of the Champion Church.  They always have one of the biggest and best floats in the parade.  Nice people.

4 floats made up one unit.

A whole theme of the Birth of Christ

Very elaborate.  And very well presented

Didn't get the whole float, but enough to give you an idea what it looked like

Lots of vehicles decorated like this one.  The largest was a big Kenworth with every square inch aglow.  Too bad the picture was too blurry to post

A tire snowman.  Best we can do in Arizona.  Many of the children down here on the border have no concept of what real snow looks like.  Nice nose on this guy.

Getting close to the end. I noticed unit 176, and there was several more after that.  Lost count.

Nice to see many of the floats celebrated "The Reason for the Season"

Not exactly sure what this guy was representing, but he was pretty cool. :-)

Something passing out candy

We expected almost record cold weather, but it turned out almost balmy, was 60 when the parade started, but did drop some

As is the case every year, we were really impressed with the music and marching of these young bands

Maybe the oldest Boy Scout in the parade

Some belly dancers were part of the Renascence Festival float.

Another band.  Next year I'm going to video the whole parade.

Tuba City!

7 of Yuma's finest on their Harleys.  They patrolled contently along the parade route, then brought up the rear of the procession.  Very impressive!  The End :-)