Up, Up & Away!

The balloon seems to stand still in the air while the earth flies past underneath.

— Alberto Santos-Dumont

Several weekends ago, we finally ventured out to do something I've wanted to do for a long time. Luckily for us, Grammy was willing to babysit the twins so we could take Ethan out to see the 28th Annual Festival of Ballooning. I have to say that it was one of the coolest things we've ever seen!
Since it was a bit windy, we had to wait a little bit for them to get clearance to inflate the balloons. Luckily Ethan found activities to occupy his time!

Honestly, 10 bucks for a bubble blowing gun that at this moment, I have no idea where it is. But when people are in their booths blowing bubbles in your kids faces, what are you supposed to do? He seriously would not stop nagging us until we broke down and bought the darn thing.

Finally they got clearance to inflate the balloons and it was a sight to see. It really was incredible watching these amazing balloons come to life.
Some day I would love to take a ride in a hot air balloon. But, since it cost $250 per person, we unfortunately had to pass this time. It's on my list though of things I want to do in my lifetime. How amazing would that be?!

My boys watching the balloons.

I'm not sure how many balloons were inflated but it was a lot. I can only imagine what drivers were thinking as they went down the freeway and saw the sky fill up with balloons. So awesome!

I don't want to say this was the highlight of the night, but if you are truly a child of the 80's, you'll appreciate how cool this was. Air Supply was putting on a concert at the festival after the ballooning was done. We got there late so we had a bad seat behind a big lighting tower. But we spread out a blanket and enjoyed the music. Suddenly we noticed that people were starting to stand up and look out at something. Sure enough, Russell Hitchcock was walking through the crowds, right toward us. So, I did what any other true Air Supply fan would do...I jumped up and started running toward him, screaming, with Ethan in my arms and no shoes on. He came right up to our roped off area and serenaded me, well us I guess it was the whole audience. It was awesome! Blake had camera duty and unfortunately this was the best shot he could get from the crowds. Several splinters in my feet later (I realized after the fact that I had run across some pretty intense brush), I don't regret a thing. What a perfect day!