Followers

Pages

Thursday, March 24, 2011

St. Paddy's Day Celebration

I wanted to post this on St. Patrick's Day, but, alas, I'm late. We have had something scheduled just about every single day for the past week. I've hardly had time to comment on everyone's blogs, let alone post on my own!

Here are photos from the St. Patrick's Day Parade here in the park.

These are the Drillettes, the female marching team. Their usual costume is black pants, white shirt, red hat, but they were feeling a bit Irish that day!

Here they are doing one of their routines.


Our Val Vista line dancers were in rare form! Classes meet twice a week; one for beginners and one for advanced.



The Kitchen Band is one of the crowd favorites. It's made up of only a few REAL instruments; the rest are made from kitchen utensils and odds and ends.


The pot of gold


These are a couple of our "Rangers"; volunteers who escort new people to their sites. Love the doggies!


The pickleball team was lead by a couple of "cowboys"!


In case you've never seen a pickleball paddle or ball.....

Of course, the ball was tied to the paddle just for the parade!

Love this little leprechaun!


No matter what, this tortoise,


and this 43 year-old horse,


show up in every parade.

I think I can say without bragging, that the crowd's ALL TIME FAVORITE of the parade is the Lawn Chair Drill Team. Jim, again, was a part of it.

Marching
open chair (pink arrow is Jim)
throw chair over the shoulder and set behind self
"hike 'em up (pants)"
drop chair behind self

catch chair midway

Sit down!
march away
Here is the video from last year in case you missed it.



Some guys relaxing after the parade. The drill team was lucky; a guy ran out and gave them each a can of beer along the parade route!


The park sponsored a hamburger fry after the parade. For $5 you got a big hamburger, beans, bag of chips, pop or beer (1), and ice cream.

Chairs were set up in the ball room where a band called "Sixteen Tons" was playing. They were really good.


Or you could opt to eat outside and enjoy the warm weather.

But as you could see, the music was so good, even the food servers were dancing!


I couldn't resist this photo! It isn't everyday that you see a bunch of clowns sitting together!


This old guy was a cutie, too!


I've got to admit, I hang around with fun people!

Carol and Sandy
The cutest little leprechaun of them all! He is the grandson of a friend of mine.

21 comments:

Cindy Caudle said...

Looks like fun. Wish I had been there.

Snowflake said...

Great photos!!! I love your clown photo, I have a few pictures of other "clowns" in the park but they aren't dressed up!!!!

Brian Miller said...

ha so much fun...that drill team is a blast...and all the floats so colorful...

Gail said...

Your life is a dream!

Bossy Betty said...

Looks like SO much fun!!!

Valerie said...

What fun. I love parades, and your people definitely got in the swing of things. It's a good job the tortoise had a lift otherwise he'd never keep up...grins.

Rae said...

You do live a fun filled life. The parade would be something to see in person. Looks like everyone was having a great time. I bet you miss all that activity when you come back to Illinois.

Anonymous said...

y'all sure go all out...awesome ;)

Unknown said...

Looks like a fun time! Loved the lawnchair drill team!

Country Gal said...

Looks like a great time. Awesome photos. Have a good day !

Teresa said...

looks like tons of fun! the drill team (lawnchair) was so cute.

Ed said...

Thats a lot of grean.

B. WHITTINGTON said...

I so look forward to your posts as they make me smile without fail. This got a huge laugh.
I envy you girl from here in cold shitty Ohio. Apologies. I love the sunshine and why am I here. Because my daughter lives nearby and we love the house and yard. We belong here but we need to start thinking about getting away in the winter. This is ridiculous. I suffer from depression every winter when it just won't quit. It's going to be cold for the next week. Yiiiikkkkeees.
God bless you for sharing your sunshine and pictures with us.
Barb

SquirrelQueen said...

Pat, you do hang around with a great group of people. I like all the parades your town has during the winter.

The lawnchair drill team will always be my favorite. They should tour the country!

Kathy's Klothesline said...

You are too fun, my friend! We have so many golfcarts in our park now that we wil have a parade on the 4th of July!

Carletta said...

It does look like some fun times as always!
I love the old guy and that costume!!!

Lynda said...

As I may have mentioned before, I am very impressed with all the activities your community has for its residents. How many homes are there? Do they have an activities' director on staff or do the managers coordinate all this or is it part paid staff and part volunteer committees?

Beatrice P. Boyd said...

Pat, just catching up on some blog posts I haven't visited for awhile and your recent events were certainly entertaining, except for that delayed train ride and police search. Yes, you do hang around with some fun folks.

labbie1 said...

Looks great!!!! And I am really glad you included the video from last year. What fun!

wenn said...

awesome! love the green color!

becky said...

Gosh, you have fun. We should switch places for a day!