Mardi Gras

Louisianians are very serious about their Mardi Gras celebrations.  They have Mardi Gras wreathes on their front doors, place big bows on their mailboxes, eat king cake everyday for more than a month, have tons of parades for a few weeks, etc.  Scott even has Mardi Gras (Fat Tuesday) off because it is a legal holiday in Louisiana.  In fact, I might go as far to say that Mardi Gras pride rivals Texas pride (please do not get too upset by this comparison).

Here is a display for Mardi Gras that they have in Walmart.

Mardi Gras begins on Epiphany/Twelfth Night (sometime the beginning of January) and ends on Fat Tuesday (which is right before Ash Wednesday that begins Lent).  Honestly, the whole concept of these traditions/holidays seems a little twisted and complicated to me, but I am slowly starting to understand (I think:).  Basically, the Mardi Gras season is to be gluttonous right before Lent, which is a season to be repentant and abstain from all of your sins for 40 days before Easter.  

(Look here for more information: http://www.mardigrasneworleans.com/)

Moving on from the history lesson, they throw some fun and amazing parades here and we were able to go to one of them in Mandeville, Louisiana.

  

Rigby slept for an hour during all of the noise.  This kid is an amazing sleeper!

Here is a comatose Peter playing Angry Birds before the parade started.

Sweet little Adeline just hanging out with me in her kangaroo pouch (a.k.a. baby backpack carrier).

Here is an old fire engine that was in the parade.

I have no idea if they have the same floats every year or if they are different, but this year they had a lot of mythical Greek floats.  Here is Medusa with her head full of snakes.

Many of the costumes are very flashy and elaborate like this.

Even the horses had their personal set of Mardi Gras beads to wear.

Many of the floats had two levels of people throwing beads/toys/treats to the crowd.  Many parents put young children on their shoulders so they can catch things.  People are very serious about their parade loot.  For example, Scott (with Peter on his shoulders) happened to catch the same set of beads as a 70 year old woman.  Now Peter had not caught anything yet and this lady had a bag full of stuff, but she was getting ready to start playing tug of war with Scott over 50 cents worth of beads.  If she was drunk, okay; but if she was serious, wow!   

While Scott and Peter were having fun gathering loot, I had Adeline in the baby backpack carrier and Rigby on my shoulders so he could see the parade.  Bring on kid number four (no, not really).

Fifteen or twenty minutes of that tired me out, so we snuggled up in a camping chair for the rest of the parade while Scott and Peter kept delivering loot to us.

I guess next year we will need one of these ladder boxes (is that what they are called?).  Many people make these so they can set their kids up high in order to see the parade.  They usually decorate them in purple, green and gold (Mardi Gras colors).