Hey guys, we’ve finally made it to the last day… parade day! As you know, for the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade participants, today was a big day! This experience was a unique one that the participants will never forget.

The participants got up this morning at the crack of dawn. They ate breakfast at 5:00am and met everyone in the Grand Ballroom at 6:00am to rehearse the routine a few more times before the big show. The cheerleaders and dancers did the routine 5 more times before it was time to head to Herald Square.

Even thought the sun wasn’t shinning today, we couldn’t have asked for better weather. The participants were getting anxious for this big performance, because this performance was truly a once in a lifetime experience. This was the first time ever the Varsity cheerleaders and dancers would not only be opening the parade they would also be closing the parade! On top of that, they also had two well know people introducing them… Matt Lauer and Meredith Vieira from NBC’s Today Show!

It was a unique experience for the girls to see what it was like to be on the broadcast one of the largest productions of the year.

I could tell five minutes before the performance everybody was very anxious and excitedly counting down the minutes until they were on. Finally it was time to start. Matt and Meredith came out to introduce the cheerleaders and dancers and it ended up being one of the best performances they had ever done! I was so proud of them!

Once we got done it was time to head back to the beginning of the parade, which ended up being a little tricky getting 700 plus cheerleaders and dancers down into the subway and all onto the same train. A couple stops later we were back to the beginning of the parade. When we got there we only had to wait a couple of minutes before we started marching. It was a huge honor for us to be at the end of the parade with Santa. The participants had a wonderful time marching the parade route in front of close to 1 million on lookers!

Once we got back to the hotel we got a quick bite to eat, took a short nap. By then it was time for the optional dance class. After that everyone went back up to their room to start packing their bags.

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving Day. I would like to thank Michelle Edwards, the chaperone staff, operational staff and the first aid for all of their hard work throughout the week!