let’s start with a little back story. as long as i can remember (sometimes as far as before i could walk!) i have loved mermaids. mildly obsessed is putting it very mildly. that is kind of embarrassing to admit, however, it’s true. when i was really small i would put rubber bands around my ankles and take such long baths that my family thought i had run away. my parents had to replace the floor in my bathroom because i had spent so many hours splashing with my mer-fin. and that, my friends, is a true story. do you think that is weird? i’m sure it is, but just remember that i was homeschooled and that probably clears a lot of things up (homeschooled kids tend to be a little weird).

SOOO, fast forward to when Reagan is in her twenties and sees a poster in the subway for a coney island mermaid parade. I stopped completely in my tracks. I knew I had to do it. so i scoped it out for a few years, had some fun on the spectator side of the boardwalk and quietly planned my attack. 2010 is the year of the attack.

the theme was “housewife mermaids”. i was event coordinator with lots of help from aubrey. I decided we needed pearls, aprons and cookies. we spent several hours on a few different days making our fins. it was a lot of work, fun and glitter taking over my apartment (it turns out glitter is very hard to vaccuum.). but worth it if you’re wondering. (after this night below jake exclaimed “i’m girl party’d out”. can’t really blame him there.)

here we are walking into the subway. getting lots of stares. a few kids screamed excitedly “MOMMY!!! MERMAIDS!!!”. we saw the missionaries and waved. they didn’t recognize us so i was all “it’s me, sister breinholt!”. then they covered their innocent eyeballs.

i have never had more fun waiting for the train. isn’t our butler great? he carried the plate of cookies and we handed them out to the judges and a few kids.

i made the cookie dough and aubrey took complete control over cutting them out/decorating them. i don’t think i’ve ever seen cuter sugar cookies. except for maybe from martha…that b****.

we were the weird people on the train until about 14th street. people were taking our picture like crazy though.

i did everyone’s hair beforehand. i wish i could have spent a little more time on each mermaid, but i just didn’t have the time. i think the pearls and red lipstick did the trick though. plus my friends are so pretty.

notice the sign behind us is Mermaid Ave!! cool right? the mermaid parade was like christmas for Reagan Breinholt. except that christmas has religious purpose and less pasties. hopefully no pasties….

the crowd gave me and andrea nicknames. people called me “marilyn” and they called andrea “glasses”. ps, if you want to know what it feels like to be famous and get your picture taken thousands of times in one day, you should do the mermaid parade. i know that sounds silly/conceited, but it’s true. my friends and i took thousands of pictures with kids, families, as a group and by ourselves posing and hamming our mer-brains out. my cheeks were hurting by the end of the day. i liked it. i love the camera. it’s magical. ps someone from the new york post took my picture and then asked me the full spelling of my first and last name. i’ll be veeerrry surprised if it makes the paper, but how cool, right?

when we arrived to coney island we started noticing how really amazing a few costumes were. i was feeling like ours werent as exciting as we thought they’d be, but people loooooved us. i guess that is what happens when you have such pretty friends? partly because we were such hams for the cameras. posing and fluffing our hair, curtseying and blowing kisses. they went nuts for our butler and the cookies he was holding, and my old friend “glasses” was getting all kinds of remarks like “i love a woman in glasses”. we had a total ball.

I am definitely going to do the mermaid parade again. but only if it’s with this great group again (and maybe round up a few enthusiastic add ons?). coney island is far away and it was really a lot of work, but so so so fun. one of my funnest/most faviest days ever.

ps when i say other people had amazing costumes, i meant things like this…..

btw i try to be a graceful, gentle, classy 26 year old, but swearing and potty jokes are funny. to me. and i can’t stop myself from laughing at them. that explains the bleeped out s*** on my blob. sorry. i try to change, but i can’t. so i’m embracing myself for who i am. are we good?

All photos taken by Jake