This year our kids had Thursday and Friday off for "fall break" (which really means "Balloon Fiesta break" around here). We decided to go down to the field on Friday, but on Thursday morning the girls and I were up at 7:00am and decided to run down to the bridge over the river and see if the balloons were out. They like to try to touch the river if the wind is right.
There were 5 or 6 of them up by the river, but the wind wasn't quite right for them to try to descend and touch.
The really cool part was that the wind was blowing west, so the balloons from the mass ascension were all coming across the river towards us (though a few miles north). It was beautiful!
The girls had never walked across this bridge before, but it's the one we drive across in rush hour traffic every school day, so it was kind of fun to see it from a new perspective.
On Friday morning we all woke up at 5:30am and blearily (but excitedly) got dressed in our warm clothes. The kids love going to mass ascensions, and Matt and I do too. (Otherwise there is no way we'd drag them out of bed so early!) When you go on a weekday you don't need to leave quite as early as you do on a weekend, a small mercy. Really we hardly had to wait around in traffic at all - going on a Friday is great! (It can be an hour or more in traffic on weekend mornings.)
It wasn't even all that cold - some years we are seriously freezing, but we eventually took off our jackets. You can see the sack of fresh mini-donuts in Pierce's hand - they are our favorite fair and fiesta food and we each got our own bag this year. Mmmmmmmm.
When we got to the park I realized that I had charged but forgotten to change out my battery. It was already flashing when I started taking my first picture, so I knew I would have to be judicious because my pictures were going to be limited. Luckily I had charged the small camera up, and I think Pierce took a couple hundred pictures - I haven't gone through them yet. But it's hard to go wrong with balloon pictures so I bet they are great!
Friday morning was a "special shape" mass ascension, so there were a relatively lot of the cool shaped balloons that we (and everyone) especially love. Here are a few pictures of our favorites.
The carriage wasn't quite blown up yet, thus the floppy wheels.
The first picture of our family was in front of the fireman's hat before he was inflated. So cool.
Yoda is new this year. I love that he got to hang out with Darth. They turned around eventually but obviously I didn't get a picture of that.
Such a giant Elvis.
The shark is new this year, as is the whale (coming later).
Even with people in the shot it's hard to tell the scale. The special shapes are sometimes twice or more the height of normal balloons.
Zoe especially loves the butterfly (of course).
Some of the special shapes... I look at and wonder who would pay the exorbitant sum of money they cost for... a beaver with a hat and weird small arms? The roadrunner, sticking his tongue out? What do they use these things for??? There is a giant battery, a giant Alpo can, giant cans of soda... I guess I can see it when there is a sponsor, but how about the giant basketball that's stuck in the hoop? Just weird (sorry, didn't get pictures of all of those).
The big brown mushroom-looking balloon turned out to be a liberty bell, it was pretty cool.
We liked the flags this balloon was carrying.
Another successful Balloon Fiesta - done! We had no guests this year (you should really come and see this next year!) but I think we really enjoyed it anyway.
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