Holiday and the Rose Bowl

Jo had a newly sprung wrist/hand for the holidays so we celebrated by taking a trip to visit my parents in New Mexico.  We were treated to sunshine (for at least part of the trip) along with several great Mexican meals, always a favorite of our visits.  Then we got to enjoy a couple of days of being snowed in which was perfect for me since it provided lots of time for reading.  We played several rousing games of cards and enjoyed a few movies to while away the hours.  It was a great relaxing trip even if Jo had to battle a bit of a head cold during the visit.

We then moved to Pasadena to spend several days partaking in the Rose Bowl/Parade festivities as part of Northwestern Mutual's sponsorship of the Rose Bowl game.  We met up with some of the top representatives from several of the offices around the country and got behind the scenes tours of the stadium, float construction, and the Tournament of Roses house.  Watching the floats being crafted was very cool.  It was fascinating watching them glue on berries one at a time after sorting them by hand to ensure even colored berries.  I would have just thrown them at a glue patch and let whatever stuck work for me - must be why no one took me up on the offer to help.  The warehouse smelled terrific with all the flowers and the creativity to find appropriately colored vegetable matter to create the different displays was phenomenal.

We had several evening events including a small New Year's Eve celebration which we celebrated using the eastern time zone.  This was primarily to ensure everyone was in bed early, because we had to leave the hotel by 6:30 AM to get in our seats for the Rose parade.  The Rose parade was fun to watch, although a wee bit chilly sitting on metal stands early in the morning.  But the entire town turned out and the floats, bands, and horses were all spectacular.  Afterwards the actual football game was a bit of a let down - since Iowa didn't have a stellar game.  The good news for us was that since we didn't have one of our teams in the game we could just enjoy watching the game without the usual stress of worrying about who won.  The real highlight for the game was probably just enjoying being in Pasadena in 60 degree weather at the beginning of January while it was cold and snowy at home - so all was good.

After the game, we took the red-eye to Chicago to attend the wedding of John and Linda's oldest daughter before finally making it home on Sunday - tired but thrilled with everything we managed to see and do over the last two weeks.

Now it is time to get ready for another year.