Happy St Patrick's Day

This weekend we celebrated St Patrick's Day by attending the St Patrick's Day parade in San Francisco. We joined thousands of other green clad people and watched as the floats, fire trucks, horses, marching bands, Irish dancers and local workers' unions marched down Market Street toward Civic Center.

Irish for the day!

I've actually never done anything for St Patrick's Day before which, considering I'm of Irish descent, may seem a little odd. In fact, I've always avoided St Patrick's Day celebrations as they're generally just an excuse to get really, really drunk! I'm sure it was no different for most people here this weekend but the addition of the parade made the celebration a little more family friendly.

Ava enjoyed watching the parade. I had worried that she'd get a little bored but there were plenty of people in the parade handing out candy, stickers, beads, flags and green fortune cookies to prevent this from happening!

Somehow Lola slept through most of the St Patrick's Day parade. It was pretty noisy and we were out in the bright sun but I guess she was just really tired! She did wake up in time to see maybe the last 20 minutes and was really excited to see that there were horses stopped in front of us when she first opened her eyes.

Both girls ranked the horses and the Irish wolfhounds as their favourite part of the parade. Oh, and the candy and stickers of course!

Happy wolfhound

Pretty big doggies

Lola woke up just in time to see the horses

Here's a look at the St Patrick's Day parade for 2013...

Flags galore

Dancing a jig

Pipers piping

Drummers drumming

All kinds of green

An interesting car

Ava meets a leprechaun

This guy told me off for taking a photo of his dog!
I figure that if you don't want people taking photos of your dog don't dress it up and take it in a public parade!

It's not a parade without bagpipes

Drummers

A different kind of drummer!

Crash those cymbals

Tootling away

Lots of green

So many flags

St Patrick's Day gangstas?

Fat Bastard?

Being San Francisco there were plenty of dogs in the parade

Ava was a little worried to meet such a big dog - although in this shot it looks like the dog is worried to meet Ava!

Drunk revellers

Marching Lumberjacks

Marching Lumberjack

I like to think that this is his regular car!

There were lots of trolley cars in the parade too

Shamrocks, flags, beads and lots of green

A terrorist?

Here come his friends!

A half awake Lola and her leprechaun watch the parade

Even the Golden Gate Bridge took part in the parade

Scoot scoot

Little Leprechaun

Lots of vintage fire trucks joined the parade

Another firetruck

One more firetruck

After the parade we met some of the Irish wolfhounds that we'd seen earlier. After giving Ava's face a little sniff the wolfhound below decided to give her a big lick! Being licked by such a big dog was a bit of a shock for Ava but Lola thought it was absolutely hilarious! I must admit that Kim and I couldn't control our laughter either!

A sniff followed by a big lick across Ava's face!

Lola thought it was hilarious when the wolfhound licked Ava's face!

I hope you all had a great St Patrick's Day and that you've recovered from your Guinness induced hangovers!