The Best St. Patty's Day ever!!

On Sun. 3/16 we attended the best parade I've ever been too! Each year, my hometown of Metairie, LA throws a big parade to celebrate St. Patrick's Day. Now any of you that are familiar with New Orleans know that is is quite the party town, a city that never sleeps. Every year NOLA hosts Mardi Gras (AKA carnival). There are about two weeks of smaller parades that lead up to the big day of Fat Tuesday itself, which is always held 40 days before Easter and the day before Ash Wednesday. So in short, there are probably 60+ parades that roll before the Carnival season has come to a close. But for St. Patty's day there is only one held on one day and it just happens to be held on a different route that's within walking distance of my parents' house; how convenient can you get??!! We used to go to it pretty often growing up, but I had forgotten how much family fun there was to be had! So we got out the old ladder seat that my Dad & Grandpa had made for Benz when we visited a few years back for Mardi Gras. Benz helped decorate it with shamrocks and then we got there a bit early to save ourselves a good viewing spot. Perched high above us on his ladder seat, Benz was THRILLED with everything the parade had to offer, from the marching bands to the floats to the crazy people in the streets. But most of all, he was entranced by all of the things that the people on the floats threw to him! We were ready to go home after about 3 hours but he insisted that we stay until the very last float had come and gone:)

It is tradition that not only do folks throw the expected beads and trinkets but at this parade only, they throw vegetables, yes vegetables! The idea is for each person in the crowd to go home with enough free food to make their own Irish stew! When all was said and done we ended up with 18 heads of cabbage, a ton of potatoes, carrots, onions, oranges, limes, lemons, a sweet potato a banana and even 5 packages of Ramen noodles!! We caught chips, cookies, pretzels, peanuts, Airheads, gum, tootsie rolls...the list goes on. And bags and bags of beads; there were so many to go around that people finally stopped bothering to pick them off of the ground and just left them for the cleanup crew to sweep up. Benz caught 10 footballs, pirate swords, cups, whistles, and everything else in between, not to mention over 20 stuffed animals!!! He was so proud when someone would throw something directly to him from the float and he was able to catch it for himself! This was by far the most loot we have ever taken home from the 18+ Mardi Gras seasons I have ever attended. I hope it is something Benz will always remember but at least we have the pictures to prove it!