Cold Spaghetti

Looking back at the crowd. We were in the “neutral” ground on St. Charles Avenue — the street light in the distance is Jackson Avenue, which is the end of the Garden District. Usually, we are closer to home on Napoleon, where the crowd is thinner — but Zulu hits St. Charles at Jackson Avenue, so you have to get further in town to catch that parade. (Rex does the more common route starting on Napoleon to St. Charles.) 

Rex: the king of Carnival! It was the first Rex King that decided the colors of Mardi Gras, still used today: Purple, Green, and Gold. They have significance as well. Purple is for justice, gold for power, and green for faith.

The bull is a Rex symbol — one of the special throws for this year was a bull stuffed animal. Unfortunately, Will was tired for the majority of Rex and spent most of the parade quietly playing in his stroller, running around in the neutral ground with other kids, or asleep. Will is our “speciality throws” magnet so we missed out on the bull. 

One of the horsemen in Rex. Usually, this is who you work to get the coveted doubloons. (I was thrown two — and caught one — from a float rider who specifically took them out for me when he saw my belly.) 

A Rex float and the crowd with arms up and ready for throws! 

Detail on one of the beautiful Rex floats. We noticed that there were classic floats in many of the parades with damage from Katrina; sometimes the damaged parts were covered up with FEMA blue tarp (ha ha) other times, the damaged float was pulled behind another float. 

My guys! Just before Will went to sleep — towards the middle of the Rex parade. 

We enjoyed a great afternoon with friends from Paul’s unicycle/juggling club. We decided to forgo the evening parades and hung out all afternoon and into the evening… made dinner, played around, enjoyed the beautiful day.

Here, Will gets buried in beads by Grace and Mina (his new favorite girls — he refused to do anything all day without one of them by his side) while we all look on from around the room.

The other exciting news is that Paul actually managed to ride the unicycle today and group consensus is that he may actually be riding by next weekend…!

Human skyscrapper! Mina stands on Paul’s back while Alex helps Will make the top. Grace looks on (she was our spotter!) 

Will copies Grace’s flexibility poses (BIG laugh from the adults!)