Estes Park snow parade

In the spirit of family adventures and making memories, we spent Friday afternoon up in Estes Park.  Every year they have a Christmas season kick-off party.  There are hay rides, carolers, window shopping, hot chocolate, and a light parade in the evening.  It sounded like a lot of fun so the women folk took up the kids for some window shopping and atmosphere enjoyment. 

It was pretty chilly so we made sure we bundled up.  We pulled out every hat and glove we own for our little girls and they were happy, more or less. 

Faye's face just cracks me up though:  "We're doing what?  Don't you realize that it's cold up here?" 

We managed to get on one of the last hay rides of the night and even though I was having a great time, the girls didn't want to sit on my lap and kept squirming.  The ride was simple a turn around the block, not much to brag about but a good ride nonetheless. 

Then it was time to check out the local shops.  We saw lots of goodies for sale:  caramel apples... 

and freshly pulled taffy.  We wish we could have eaten all the yummy stuff we saw. 

The whole festive atmosphere up there was intoxicating.  We did nothing but walk the streets and I was having a fantastic time. 

The men met up with us for the parade (they had been googling over electronics at Best Buy), and we enjoyed some pizza along the parade route.  By the time they got there a light snow was falling and it was a very picturesque scene with the lights on the tree and the music playing in the air. 

As we were waiting for the parade to start, we heard a cheer coming from up the street.  But it wasn't the parade, it was a windy wall of snow!  We were hit with a ten minute blizzard that made everything very wet and very cold.  We soon discovered that we were actually sitting in the gutter and all of the freshly fallen snow was melting right into our blankets.  Now it was cold, snowy, and we didn't have a single dry blanket to keep us warm.  The parade was simple, Christmas lights decorated town vehicles and local floats, but we soon realized we couldn't make it through the entire parade. 

The kids were freezing, I mean, look at Cambrie's face.  Doesn't it just scream, "What on earth are you doing to me?!" 

We stayed out as long as we could for memories' sake, then the crying children went back to the car to warm up.  Ironically the only ones left watching the parade were the guys and we had to basically bribe them to come up anyway.  Will we do it again?  I don't know.  I love stories like this and I had fun but if it is that cold in the future we will have to be much more prepared.  Yea for memories!