Woo Hoo!

Yesterday, I felt just like the Pillsbury Dough Boy looks - absolutely thrilled to be there!

It's hard to describe how exciting it was to see the Thanksgiving Day banner, the first marchers, and that first balloon come around the corner onto 6th Avenue.  I think the only thing that could be more exciting than attending the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade would be marching in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade!  I may just have to become an employee so I can experience that!

 Who's having the most fun here?!?!  I hope you'll indulge me and let me show you some of my most favorite shots (all taken by my DH - he took over 200 photos!).  Don't you love Kermit...

 and Charlie Brown with his football?

I love how huge the balloons are, even in contrast to all the skyscrapers.  Spiderman was so awesome!  

There were some awesome floats as well, including Sesame Street and many muppets.  Bob was even there, smiling and waving.

 Here is Don McLean with Mt. Rushmore...

  and Miss USA!  The women's gold-medal-winning USA gymnastics team was there too!

Unfortunately, I am not up on all the latest celebrities and didn't know who some of them were...  But I did recognize the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles!

 And Whoopie Goldberg was dressed as a pirate and waving from the front of this ship.  How cool is that!

 Not sure who this was either, but we waved to Colby Callait, Cody Simpson, and Carly Ray Jepson, even if we weren't sure which ones they were!

 Once again, I seem to be having the most fun in this photo, but my DH loved Buzz Lightyear, below.

 Finally, after two hours of waving, cheering, and standing on tip-toes, Santa came riding up to usher in the official start of the shopping season.  Isn't he spectacular?!

 We were so fortunate with the weather, so after the parade we wandered around Central Park a bit and found the statue of Balto.  I'm so glad we made the effort to get to NYC this year - everything just came together perfectly:  I had researched everything online beforehand, so we had a good idea where to park and how to get in and out with the least amount of hassles.  We did hit a bit of traffic afterwards on the LIE, but we made it in time for a spectacular dinner at my SIL's.  Everything was scrumptious!

I realized this morning that one of the things that was so fabulous about being there, was that I was perfectly happy "in the moment."  I wasn't thinking about what I needed to do or where I needed to go next.  I completely enjoyed where I was and what I was doing for the full three hours!  Wish I could do that more often, even on a daily basis - just be happy where I am, doing what I'm doing.  I think it would be a lot easier if I enjoyed cooking, cleaning, and grocery shopping a bit more, but it's probably all in your attitude.  I'll have to work on that!

Anyway, hope you were able to be "in the moment" as well, wherever you were, whomever you were with, whatever you were doing!