"03/13/11- St. Patrick's Day Parade with Marbles Kids Museum<br /> <br /> Joey, Johnny, Madi, and I marched with Marbles Kids Museum in the Raleigh St. Patrick's Day Parade yesterday.  I knew the kids would be a little bored waiting for things to get moving but have a great time once we were underway, and I was right.  We all admit it was worth the wait,  and if we have the chance to do this again, we probably will.  Boy did we luck out on the weather!  It was in the 60's during the parade and a warm wind.  If anything, we were too hot because we were bundled for it to be a tad chillier.  We saw just a few friends along the parade route.  Too much excitement and too big of a crowd to make out much.  At first we were going to be behind the clowns, and then we got tired of waiting with fidgety kids and snuck in behind a dog group:-)  The kids sure liked that!  J&J&M took turns holding the Marbles banner.  How nice that the staff offered the kids that job.  I did my best to take pics and keep the kids in a straight line with it; not that easy of a task.  Most of my shots were taken waiting in line for the parade to start and shooting into the sun), and during the parade itself, so it's a different perspective than from the crowd.  My favorite moment in the parade was turning the corner and having the huge crowd and the old state capital building in front of us.  Wow!<br /> <br /> After the parade, we did a few carnival style rides on Moore Square.  Madi got her picture taken by a WRAL reporter on the rock climbing wall.  The pic is #17 in this slideshow:<br /> <br /> <a href=""http://www.wral.com/entertainment/image_gallery/9262142/"">http://www.wral.com/entertainment/image_gallery/9262142/</a><br /> <br /> We went to see Mars Needs Moms at the IMAX theater next to Marbles too. I figured we'd all enjoy sitting after the parade, and I was right.  It's a good movie and we really enjoyed it on the big screen.  It has a few tense moments like Toy Story 3 did.  If your younger kids/grandkids were OK with Toy Story 3, they will be OK with this.  <br /> <br /> I had trouble staying awake last night.  I wonder why.  As a consequence, I didn't make as many comments as I'd hoped, and I forgot to start my upload to SmugMug.  The pics are uploading to my March 2011 gallery now.  However, they are over on Picasa here:<br /> <br /> <a href=""https://picasaweb.google.com/fotomom.maryann/JJ031211MarblesStPatrickSDayParadeMadiTheBest"">https://picasaweb.google.com/fotomom.maryann/JJ031211MarblesStPatrickSDayParadeMadiTheBest</a>#<br /> including some neat videos.<br /> <br /> I have on 4 hats in the lower right pic because of course the kids got tired of wearing theirs and I didn't feel like carrying them:-)<br /> <br /> Thank you so much for the comments on my flower shot from yesterday too...  <br /> <br /> No clue what we're doing today.  71 and cloudy.  The kids are asking to 'go', and I'm sure we'll be up to something fUN!<br /> <br /> HAGD,<br /> Maryann"
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