I set up a camera to make a photo every 30 seconds. I then turned it into a short video in case you weren't able to be at the parade. Enjoy!

Susan McGuire, the vice president for public relations for the Daffodil Festival, is gushing. She just e-mailed this report.

The crowd in Orting is as large or larger then last year at 8,000 - 10,000. Not sure how they get that many people into town, but they do and they have been waiting all day for the Parade!!

This has been an amazing day for the Daffodil Festival...the Tradition seems to be alive, the crowds in every city have been awesome and the enthusiasm has been tremendous...it makes one feel good to know that all of our hard work has been appreciated.

The sidewalks are filled to capacity along Main Street today, and in a small garden nearby there was a small ceremony as the City of Roses paid respect to the Land of Daffodils.
A group of 14 Rosarians (the Portland equivalent of Daffodilians) planted an Oregon Celebration rosebush beside the Ryan House Museum.
The
Rosarians had earlier ridden through Tacoma and Puyallup to show their colors (cream and red) to the people of Pierce County.
Daffodilians, by the way, have already offered the Rosarians a selection of daffodil bulbs.
"We think your parade was wonderrful," said "Lord High Sheriff" Rosarian Carla Stenberg. "Who could have asked for a better day."
Meanwhile, as the parade leaves Sumner, Pastor Lori Bunkoski of Christ the King Lutheran Church smiles at the profits from today's bake sale.
She estimates her church choir earned $300 from sales of popcorn and baked goods at a stand on Maion Street.
The biggest seller?
Chocolate chip.

And now, on to Orting.

Living on a parade route is not everyone’s idea of paradise, but Bonnie Lambert loves it.
Lambert owns a house in Puyallup, a few blocks south of the fairgrounds, and on Saturday afternoon her street was jam-packed with clowns, marching bands, fire engines, vintage cars and daffodil bedecked floats.
“We like it,” Lambert said,watching from her front yard. “We’ve lived here 15 years, and we really look forward to this.”
A second story deck gives her family and friends a unsurpassed vantage point, she said.
Lambert also volunteers for the Puyallup Police department and makes herself useful during the parade, letting people rest unside, offering first aid and sometimes blankets.
“As long as I can get in and out of my driveway, it’s fine,” she said.

Taking part in four parades in a single day means a lot of coordination – and a lot of waiting, too.
Puyallup’s 5th St. SW was one of the feeder streets where floats and bands and cheerleaders waited their turn to merge with the main stream of the parade, heading down 7th Avenue SW and then onto Meridian.
One of the groups parked on the side was the SeaFair Pirates, with their rolling vessel, the Moby Duck.
Captain Walter “Tattoo” Taucher and his crew of 24 mean-looking pirates killed time waiting their turn by snoozing in the sun, pretending to terrorize passersby and sucking down ice cold bottled water.
Taucher looks tough, but inside the Shogun helmet and behind the long curved saber is the nicest pirate you’d ever want to meet.
“The Daffodil Parade is a really good parade, and it brings out the best in the pirates,” Taucher said.
“This is a part of Americana,” he said. “A lot of people think it’s being lost, but I think it’s getting better and better.”
“Americans are rediscovering events such as this,” Taucher said. “Sometimes it takes a bad economy to make it happen. It gets people thinking about what’s really important.”

Ten minutes from the start of the Sumner leg of the Grand Floral Parade, families are waiting three- and four-deep along the Main Street sidewalk.
Some have had their places planted since before dawn, reserving spots with lawn chairs, dining room chairs and just plain blankets
Susan Byersdorf and husband Landon have Grocery. While Landon waxes his new pickup truck, Susan lounges in a garden chair in the bed of their. truck.
They're looking forward to seeing their son, Dylan, who will be marching in the Sumner High School band.
And if the weather gets too hot - I'd say it's around 60 in the sun - Susan is ready with sunscreen. She has not excluded the possibility of some ice cream from the grocery.
Meanwhile, at Ryan House Museum on Main Street, Julie Moltke - president of the Sumner Historical Society - is showing guests a collection of momentoes from festivals past.
Vicki Connor, curator of the museum, notes that the festival had its beginnings in Sumner.
It began around 1922, she says, with something called the Trout Banquet.
The Bulb Banquet followed, and soon came the Daffodil Festival.
Incidentally, a display of queen's robes andphotos from long ago will be on displayh at the museum - at 1228 Main - for the next few months.
And now, bagpipes are playing.
The parade has begun.

The parade didn’t start in Puyallup until 12:45 a.m., but the downtown was packed by noon.
Parking was nearly as hard to find as it is on fair days, and the streets within blocks of the parade route were lined with cars.
Meridian was so crowded with kids, dogs, strollers and people in folding chairs, it was impossible to walk on the sidewalks
“The good weather is what brings them out,” said Randol Brookshier, a Shriner clown decked out in a red fright wig and lime green pants. “If it’s rainy you might get people lined up one or two deep on the sidewalks. This kind of weather, they’re lined up four or five deep.”
Brookshier, stopped for a moment astride a bicycle with tiny wheels, said he’s been a clown at Daffodil Parades for 40 years. This year was one of the best in years, he said.
“The weather makes all the difference.”

The Tacoma leg of the parade ended at noon, and the floats - along with busloads of drill teams and bands - made their way toward Puyallup along
River Road.
As she was walking from Tacoma's Pacific Avenue up 11th Street, 82-year-old Evelyn Larsen recalled parades past. She's been attending since she was a girl.

She stood along Broadway and named the stores that once graced the street: Rhodes, Fisher's, Woolworth. Her late husband was a bellhop at the nearby Winthrop Hotel, she said.
And Saturday's parade?
"It was nice," she said.

Here's how floats and other entries fared in the judging.

Major Float Awards

Grand Sweepstakes
Best in Parade – Highest overall Point Score: # 95 Clover Park School District

President’s Award
Sweepstakes Runner-up – 2nd highest Score: # 88 Capital Lakefair - Olympia

=> Read more!

Shriners in tassled and sequined fezes pass by, clowns ride bikes, a calliope plays and pirates offer their friendly menace.
A tractor carries a cargo of a duck, chicken and pig.
Julie Marsh of Puyallup sits on the sidewalk near 11th Street with her 1-year-old daughter Olivia.
"She loves it," Marsh says.
Sitting nearby, Sarah Keller of Gig Harbor watches the parade with her 2-year-old, A
bby.
"We're having a great time," Keller says. "Abby thinks it's a little loud. This is her first parade. I'm impressed with the amount of people here, and you couldn't ask for a better day."

Parade marshal Wayne Severson - one of several marshals with the Seafair Festival in Seattle - estimates the crowd along Pacific Avenue in Tacoma at 8,000.
"It's a great turnout," he said. "This is the largest turnout in a number of years."
Severson said he marshals parades from March to December, maybe 22 each year. The Puyallup Valley Daffodil Festival Grand Floral Parade is his second in 2009.
"Look how cheerful everyone is," he said, smiling and cheerful himself.

Only nine minutes behind schedule, the 76th Annual Grand Floral Parade has begun under sunny, if chilly skies.
As he prepared to take his place in the line of floats, bands, princesses and other dignitaries, Puyallup Valley Daffodil President Brad Stevens said he was up at 4:30 this morning - and his first thought concerned the weather.
"I hoped it was going to be like they said it was. It was," he said.
Stevens' wife, Sherry, stood near him, and near the float that would carry the 22 princesses and one queen selected to represent the festival today and throughout the remaining year.
Sherry herself was a princess - representing Tacoma's Lincoln HIgh School - in 1978,
This year's queen, Melanie Stambaugh, 18 from Emerald Ridge High School, adjusted her white silk dress.
"I'm so excited," she said. "Today's been great. I've been meeting royalty from other cities. The sun is out, and I'm with the whole court. You can't have a dull time."
In a queen's handbasket she carries the parade necessities: Kleenex, lip gloss, festival buttons.
Stambaugh has marched in the previous six parades as a drummer in marching hbands, first from Ferrucci Junior High and then Emerald Ridge. This time she's riding high atop a flower-strewn float.
Sherry Stevens warns that she should look out for sunburn.

Assistant parade director Jim Bradley stands at the corner of 11th Street and Pacific Avenue in downtown Tacoma. Less than an hour remains before the first of 145 units begins the four-city, 76th annual Grand Floral Parade of the Puyallup Valley Daffodil Festival.
"It's a great day for a parade," he says.
Indeed it is, with the sun shining and daffodils in bloom, festooning the 30 floats and the lapels of officials.
Or make that 29 floats.
"There's one missing," Bradley says. "The Lions Club. But maybe they're somewhere in the back."
Still, he says, "The flowers are fresher than they've ever been."
Festival spokeswoman Susan McBride takes her station before the float on which the queen and her court will ride.
"There's a band from Kennewick. The Peach Festival from Pentictan B.C. is here for the first time. The Portland Rose Festival is here, We'll have more than a half-million daffodils."
Shriners on little tiny motorcycles drive in circles. A band practices. Folks find places to sit along the sidewalks.
We're a half-hour away.

Ron Miller, left, Warren Wotton, center, and Tom Farley judge floats prior to the 76th Daffodil Parade Saturday, April 4, 2009. The Parade is scheduled to start around 10:15 and lasty about an hour and a half.
Joe Barrentine/The News Tribune