I disliked it because of the massive crowds, the exuberant parking prices, the 3 mile walk to the actual parade site from parking, and finally getting there and not being able to see much of anything because the crowd is ten people thick. The kids had a great time and that is the most important thing and it made it all worth it. However, I was sure I would never go again. And then this year's parade came around. I knew it, and I knew I wasn't going. Then 2 hours before the parade, I get a call from one of my favorite people. She has four passes to the children's parade that she can't use. As flashes of last years event explode in my mind, I can't pass up a chance to give another reason why I'm the greatest mom (lol) for FREE. Free bleacher seats, that is. Free bleacher seats that are on the opposite side of the massive, pushy crowd. So I take the kids inside, pack up their pirate gear, and take off. We get the tickets, get a friend to come, too, and make our way to parking...ugh. We get there and after a few amazing miraculous events, we score free (not illegal) parking! And its less than a half a mile to the parade!
We got to our seats right before it started and the kids were able to have an unobstructed view the whole parade and score a neck full of beads and a smashing boa. 
Now that's how to do it right! Thank you (times a million) to the Pack family and John for the redemption of the Children's Gasparilla Parade... I may plan on doing it next year.
Don't worry it's just a statue. Okay, so maybe they were life like but they were large like. Jackson pointed out that a lot of herbivores had sharp carnivore teeth - very unrealistic.
They had a fossil dig, where the kids were able to dig in a pit for fifteen minutes and were able to keep 3 real, teensy, fossils. 
There was also a larger sand pit with a dinosaur skeleton underneath that we worked at uncovering for about a half hour.
The last area we visited was the playground, and even though it was old, it was very large and the kids could've stayed and played another hour but then the rain came.
Overall, we were there for a couple hours and had our moneys worth of fun. I highly recommend it if you have a child who is into dinosaurs and if you don't you should go there when your very bored, need to get out of the house and don't want to spend a lot of money.
Looking back it was my favorite event of December.
I was able to go inside the temple for the sealing while Jason watched the kids. I was surprised by the temple's size - it was HUGE!
I would love to go back there but it would have to be in the middle of summer.
We also got to spend an evening with our friends the White's.
And oddly enough, while in Temple Square I ran into my friend, Ashli, who I knew from Florida and she's now living in Wisconsin but she was visiting family.
And at the same time I ran into my best friend, Jami's, family. CRAZY!
Then headed to fancy McDonald's for lunch and a few presents.
As for my costume, I had already been a Nun to a party this year but I didn't think that would really fly at a church party so I decided to be Thomas the Train ... who doesn't love Thomas. The kids got a large amount of candy and the youth had a lot of fun booths including face painting. 
If it were up to me I'd be fine if that was their Halloween experience but we did go Trick-Or-Treating tonight and got another 10 lbs of candy. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with all this candy! I wish there was something like a Coinstar machine where you put candy in it and it spits out money.
Note: Cute Halloween costume pictures to be posted in a few days.
The Three of Us | Creative Commons Attribution- Noncommercial License | Dandy Dandilion Designed by Simply Fabulous Blogger Templates
