Pasadena Update #2
December 30, 2014
Today was another eventful day as our group once again
traveled to Pasadena to work on the floats. We left at 7:00 this morning and drove
in completely different weather than yesterday! We enjoyed the nice California sunshine
the entire day yesterday, but today it was clouded over and rained throughout
the afternoon—something that isn’t that common here in Southern California. (I
shouldn’t complain about the rainy weather, since it is a lot colder and maybe
even snowing back home!)
Once arriving at the Rose Palace, we started working immediately
on the floats. Most of us worked on the Lutheran Hour float for most of the
day. Today was really the last day to work on the float because the final
judging will be at 8:00 tomorrow morning. It was amazing to see how much progress we got
done on the float before we left at 4:00. We had the fun of putting on
beautiful gerber daisies and gorgeous roses, along with many other dried and
live flowers.
The Lutheran Hour float represents stories from the Bible,
including a large Bible at the back. So much detail was put into the float, including
Noah’s Ark with two pairs of animals on each side, and a manger with animals
beside it.
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| Prepping flowers for float |
Each float has over 500 different types of flowers and
seeds, and we spent many hours handling the different kinds. Some of us learned
how to cut and glue ti leaves, mums, and carnations to put on the float. The ti
leaves filled the back of the Bible and the mums made a nice outline along the
inside of the Bible. For the carnations, we put toothpicks in the base, so they
could be stuck easily onto the float.
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| Manger scene on Lutheran Hour float |
Another group finished the tablet containing the 10
Commandmetts, which was made completely out of seeds. There is so much detail
in the float, so make sure to watch HGTV to see all of the hard work we put
into each and every piece of the float.
Before any of the flowers can be pushed into the float base,
which is made of spray foam over chicken wire, we had to cover it all with
ferns and staple them in by hand. To make it easy to organize the multiple
colored flowers, the float base (foam) is painted the color that matches the
color of the flowers that will be placed there.
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| Noah's Ark on Lutheran Hour float |
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| Thousands of roses vialed and ready for the floats |
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| Kathryn, Karen and Julie 'preparing' the commandments |
We started by finding a colored patch to fill with flowers.
Each patch could have four or five different kinds of flowers of different
shades of the color. On some parts we pushed the roses down farther and the
other flowers were kept higher.
It was neat to see everyone working together to get the
float finished in an orderly manner. We left before the float was completely done,
so I’m sure it will be a surprise when we see it at the parade! We drove back
to our hotel in the pouring rain and once again hit rush hour traffic. After a
few wrong turns, all of the cars eventually made it back to the hotel just in
time for a short break before supper.
After our devotions tonight, some of the members stayed to
assemble more health kits, while the rest went to get a little rest before
heading back for more work! 14 of our group members volunteered to go back to
the Rose Palace tonight to keep working on unfinished floats so they are
finished for the judging tomorrow morning at 8. They’ll be leaving the hotel
around 10:00, so they decided to get a couple more hours of sleep before going
back to work in the morning.
Those who didn’t go back to work another shift will be
heading to the other float decorating site, Rosemont, tomorrow morning to work
on the floats there. Tomorrow will be a big and stressful day for everyone
working on the floats as they have to be finished by a certain time. Keep our
group in your prayers as they travel back to the Palace tonight to continue
working on the floats and those working at Rosemont tomorrow. Good night from a
rainy Los Angeles! Jeni Zeller
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