Seattle Pride Parade 2011

Today was the Seattle Pride parade!  I know, we just had a tournament yesterday in Portland and we were exhausted, but we made it!  If anyone doesn't know, Pride parades are around the country and pretty much just celebrate people being who they really are.  It is mostly LGBT, but features all sorts of "different" types of people.  Rugby teams are known for being accepting of everyone so there are usually a lot of LGBT people that play, so teams are able to join the parade.

I had never been to Pride before, but my boss told me it was crazy and there are a lot of naked people.  I was a little nervous taking Sawyer, but figured since we were actually in the parade we wouldn't have any issues with a crowd or anything.

We arrived at 9am at our "staging" area, and I was relieved to find a lot of families.  I was a little nervous it would be a lot of drunk crazies or protesters.  We were put right behind a gothic bus that blasted crazy music, to the right of some drag-queen chamorros (or however you spell the Guam people), and in front of these crazy unicorn people that were like drag queens with painted faces and horns.  We waited for 2 hours in the sun, Sawyer got restless until Andy found some Filipino drummers to amuse him, and we were on our way!

Luckily we werent stuck behind the loud gothic bus in the parade, but behind a quiet church.  It was so exciting!  The parade was about 1-2 hours long (hard to keep track of time) and it was PACKED on the sidewalks as we walked through downtown Seattle full of cheering families of all kinds.  We had 2 of our girls dress as actual sirens which completely stole the show since they were dressed very scantily lol.  We also had people running the ball around and throwing line-outs (where you lift someone) and a few of us had signs that I made (Down To Ruck?, Give Blood...Play Rugby!, A woman's place is in the maul, and my sign you will see below).  We handed out beads with our practice info on them, and tattoos of our logo. Andy pushed a sleeping Beany through the parade as well in our stroller we put streamers on.

It was such a cool experience.  Most people can't really be themselves in public without dirty looks or what not, but here it is encouraged.  We would see signs with old people saying "40 years, same partner, 3 kids, 15 grandkids" and you know they weren't able to be themselves that long ago as much as today.  It was a good sign that people can be more accepting.  My favorite shirts said "Str8 against H8".  The best part was that I saw zero protesters during the route, though apparently the infamous Westborough Baptist Church made an appearance at the Picnic last weekend or something but they are kind of a joke (those are the guys that protest soldiers' funerals).

Here is the mass of pictures I took on my phone.  I didn't want to be lame and take them while on the route, so they are all from right before.

Before I forget, I would like to point out that I wore my shorty-shorts...in a public light...meaning my legs have shrunk to an acceptable size again and all my pants are too big! Woot!

Creepy Gothic people in front of us

Ariel and a crazy drag queen Unicorn from the group behind us

Goldie with her beads, and "Marge" in her siren costume (she's painted yellow)

Kim doing a dance

That giant dress was made of plastic bottles! The rainbow shirt on the right side  made me laugh "SnoHomos" lol the Snohomish club

Leslie's awesome streamer job on Sawyer's stroller

Our barrel full of beads

If you are unaware,  "hooker" is the position I play for most games. When the ball gets rolled into the scrum, they are the ones that "hook" the ball with their leg and kick it backwards to their team's side

Buttons and her friend with our sign