HHHHolliddday Sssttrolll Pppparaaaade...(sorry my teeth were chattering)

When we decided to watch the Christmas parade, I had no idea it was going to be as cold as it is tonight...especially when yesterday was so warm!!! Despite the cold, most of us enjoyed the parade and lighting ceremony in Central Park afterward.

I almost didn't drag out my tripod for the parade because what a hassle it is, especially in such a crowd of people. But, I'm sure glad I did because as cold as I got and as much as I was shivering there is no way I could have held the camera still and you'd all be getting dizzy looking at very blurry, fuzzy photos!

There were several cool floats all lit up for the occasion.

The Starsteppers. Heather was marching with the band and I never did even see her among all those kids!

The Bridal shop in town had one of the prettiest floats.

This was my favorite float. The carousel was actually spinning! It was very cool!!!







What parade in Texas would be complete without all the horses??? These horsewomen rode in wings and halos.







At the very end of the parade, Santa and Mrs. Claus waved to everyone from the back of a fire truck.







After the parade was the traditional lighting of Central Park after the mayor's countdown. It's always so beautiful to see Central Park at Christmas!

Downtown

As has become our customary Sunday night routine, Marty and I headed to the coffee shop after church tonight for dinner and coffee. When finished we still had time to kill before Heather got off work so we walked around Central Park (with camera in hand of course!). I decided to snap some more night time pictures. While wandering around I noticed the Christmas lights on the lamp posts were lit and they were not lit when we were there last night. Central Park is always beautiful, but even more so with all the Christmas lights on display. I'm anxious to see them all on soon. There's just something so peaceful about walking around among the Christmas lights on such a quiet night. There was no one else around, no traffic. I know by this time next week when all the lights will be up, that won't be the case so it was nice to enjoy our quiet walk together.

Just the simple change of a setting on the camera can totally change the "mood" of a photo from this




to this.

The coffee shop from Central Park.

I should have used a tripod for this one, but in the time it would have taken me to do so I'm sure the oncoming traffic would have run me over.

Photos Downtown at Night

After picking Heather up from work tonight, we all went for coffee and to take some photos downtown at night. I wanted to experiment with some photo settings at night before shooting a wedding next weekend. I'm still going to play around a lot more with settings, lighting, etc. in the coming nights but these are what we took tonight. Thankfully, the wedding location will be much more well lit than Central Park was tonight.



















For more photos of Central Park at Night, see my other blog.