Happy New Year! I slept right through midnight, but that's because I wanted to get up early to go see the Rose Parade. Take a look at my gallery, you will see four photos I thought would be interesting to post. There's a picture of Star Wars stormtroopers, a float, Marines on horseback, and a marching band.

For those of you that aren't familiar with it, the Rose Parade is an annual event held on New Year's Day. It's part of the Tournament of Roses. On New Year's Day, the city of Pasadena, California hosts a parade named the Rose Parade and a college football game called the Rose Bowl.

The Rose Parade consists of marching bands, riders on horseback, and floats, to name a few participating features. The floats are made out of mostly flowers, thus the name Rose Parade. It's actually quite amazing, if you think about it. One float in this year's parade was made with over 45,000 flowers. 45,000! Other materials are allowed, but only to complement the flowers. For example, a float went by with a car made out of roses on a road of potatoes (or potato skins).

The football game was in the afternoon at the Rose Bowl. USC and Michigan played each other, and USC won.