family day freebies

a few weeks ago, the bean's soccer league sent out an invitation to "family day" at one of the local warehouses where rose parade floats are built. the hub and the teen were both otherwise occupied, but the bean and i were excited to go. 

we got there right as the party was getting started. 

it was fun to watch her excitement over being so close to those floats. there were quite a few of them there in various stages of construction.

animals!

floats!

inside, there were a couple of groups working on materials to be used on the floats. the lines for those activities were already fairly long, so we wandered around checking things out first. the l.a. galaxy soccer team was out there with a soccer ball kicking station and handing out promo items.

too bad neither the bean nor i like these things. they were handing them out like candy on halloween.

cheese!  super random, but whatever. i like cheese.

b.j.'s was there with lots of free pizza. 

they went through a few boxes. 

but this is where i lost her. 

i'm not even joking. she literally played in that thing for hours. there were lots of kids there, and they'd all run through it as fast as they could and then jump right back in line to do it again. over and over and over...

when the first show of the "futboleros" started, spots opened up to work on float materials and we slid right in. it was a fun assignment - we were each handed a box of dried coconut chips that needed to be squished into smaller pieces.

it made our hands nice and soft, and they smelled good too. that coconut oil, man...it's magical stuff. 

then as she scampered off to play in the jumper again, i wandered through some of the other floats.

this is the closest my ass is ever gonna get to being the rose parade queen. 

then the bean took her very first trip to somewhere new and exciting...

"WUT. you turn the water on with your FOOT?? that is SO COOL!"  indeed, my dear. now don't touch anything. 

on the way back in, we spied more cool rose parade stuff. 

can you imagine being stuck in this little hole, driving a float down colorado boulevard guided by the pink and blue lines painted on the street?

we caught the second futboleros show. it was really entertaining. 

before we finally left - at the very tail end of the shindig - she tried her hand at being a circus act. 

ta-da!

it was a really fun way to spend an afternoon, and now we're on the lookout for another chance to work on a float before new year's. i fear we're too late for this year, though. we'll just have to keep an eye out next year, i guess.