Anything with the word storm sounds cool.

STORM CHASERS! STORMIN' NORMAN! STORMTROOPERS!

Everything sounds cool when it is associated with storms.

And that is why our casal faller's theme for the pre-fallas parade was communication in the future...with storms! And satellites! And planets!

This was a giant parade in the first weekend in March, which we began planning for back in February. The theme was communication in the future: the planets communicated with satellites, who fought with storms to send their messages around the universe. 

The parade was kids only. The older girls were the planets, the boys were the storms, the younger girls (early school age) were satellites, and the little tots (ages 3 and 4, therefore no Dani or Lucas) were stars. What the stars' roles were, I don't know. Look cute, I guess, as you will see below.

The parade went all through the city, and it was huge, because almost every casal faller participated. If you still have no idea what a casal faller is, look up my other posts with the "las fallas" tag to learn more.

Here are some photos from the day-long preparations. I made them super small to load quickly, but if you click on each one, they'll expand to full size.

Here is the group of kids practicing. The building for our casal is a bit small, so we finally got to go outside and practice the formations in a large plaza.

That's me and one of the planets. I volunteered to do makeup since I love it so much. It was a lot of fun getting creative with the girls' faces. I also helped with the satellites' makeup, as well as chasing down the boys to put on their silver lipstick. 

I feel like these girls look ready to attend a KISS concert. Especially Maria, on the left, who has her hair sprayed with water and seems extra goth. The girls were in the group of satellites. After getting their makeup done (I did Lucia's!), they got their hair done.

One of the older girls dressed as a "Fallera of the future." She stood on an elevated platform on wheels which was pushed from the inside by an adult. She had her hair sprayed gold, with a super tan and "futuristic" makeup look. Her sleeves featured gold foil doilies, and she also had satellites all over her skirt.

I just had to capture her frozen look of terror. She was quite nervous, and it showed. I wouldn't wanna stand on a rickety moving stage 20 feet off the ground, either.

Lucia, Dani and Maria. Dani brought a Spiderman costume because his parents knew he'd feel left out when he saw everyone else get to dress up and not him. So he dressed up. And the mask he wore meant he was constantly bumping into people, chairs, and walls.  

This is "Earth" with a moon headband.  The dresses had these huge metal hoops in them that were very Lady Gaga-ish.

The storms. Very super hero-y. I don't know if you can see any of them, but they are wearing these boot sleeves to look like they have giant cartoon shoes. It's great.

In case you missed this adorable little munchkin in the corner of the previous photo...I snapped a close up for you.

I just love these little satellite hats they have. Like a cross between a Baptist church attendee from the south and a 1960s flight attendant.

All the satellites, ready for the parade. We arrived on site an hour early. The kids began like this, but were pretty antsy 45 minutes later.

TOO MUCH CUTE!

This is Mercury, the girl I did makeup for in the previous photo of me with a paintbrush. 

The poster says "Communication in the future," the theme of our group. The "sun" is in the front. That girl also starred as Mary in the living nativity back in December. The "planets" held their skirts high while walking to the square, but I am sure by the end of the city-long parade, these skirts got quite dirty. 

And I have tons of footage from the parade. I am "editing" it. And when I put that in quotes, I mean it is on my to-do list and nowhere near started. Like my Fallas video. Sorry. But at least you got pictures here! From early March!