Balloon Festival

Last year we heard about a hot air balloon festival and decided to check it out. We ended up having a wonderful evening and discovered how much fun it was to watch hot air balloons. The problem with hot air balloons is that they are so weather dependent. Friday shaped up to be a perfect, albeit hot, day for the balloons. When I left work, I noticed that a wind had come up - I hoped it wouldn't stop the balloons from launching.

Chuck and Shannon have been on vacation for the past couple of weeks, so Karsten was SO excited to see them at the balloon festival. They brought him a present from vacation - an adorable stuffed bear. That bear has gone everywhere with us!

There was so much to watch, Karsten would start playing with something and get distracted by people going by, a kite flying or music on the nearby stage.

These huge kites were flying while we were waiting for the balloons. We learned that when it's too windy for hot air balloons, it's apparently perfect conditions for big kites.

We had a picnic while we waited for the balloons. Karsten was happy to see that Grandma brought cookies.

Chuck brought his binoculars to check things out and Karsten thought they were a fun toy. We weren't sure he was actually seeing through them, then he would look through them and ask a question about something we couldn't see without the binoculars. Guess he was seeing through them!

His new bear wanted to wear his hat.

And since the bear was wearing Karsten's hat, Karsten wanted to wear Chucks 'blue one hat'.

Watching one of the balloons inflate with Grandma!

This cool remote control blimp flew all around the field - he did all sorts of tricks like flying straight up in the air and then diving to the ground before changing directions to avoid crashing. It was a huge hit with the kids.

Finally the balloons started to inflate - so exciting! They told us that three balloons were going to take off to test the winds. We were keeping our fingers crossed that the wind would die down and more balloons could take off.

Watching the balloon inflate. He still pulls up his shirt and finds his belly button like this from time to time. He often does it when he doesn't really know what's going on - it seems to center or reset him.

oooooo - the balloon took off! So exciting!

And he got the binoculars out again to check out the action with the other balloons who were inflating.

Then we got the bad news that the wind was too strong for the test balloons so no additional balloons were going to take off. They were still planning to stand up about 20 balloons to do a 'glow' so we decided to hang out for a while to see that. Karsten, Scott and Chuck decided to walk over and check out the military display while we waited.

Karsten got to sit in the pilot's seat of a helicopter. Note that his seat belt is on - Scott said Karsten sat down and wanted to put the seat belt on before he played with everything around him.

It was starting to get a little darker and more of the balloons were inflating in preparation for the glow.

What a great backdrop for a family pic!

In this picture Karsten had been trying to get Grandpa's attention but he was doing something else. Finally, Karsten had enough waiting and said 'Hey CHUCK' - that got his attention and everyone had a good laugh. :)

Love the glowing balloons - so pretty!

Having a great time, but starting to get a little sleepy since it was WAY past his bedtime!

You can see how windy it was by the balloons that were not standing straight up. Since it was so windy, we weren't allowed to walk among the balloons because they were bouncing all over the field. Still, it was so pretty to see.

On Saturday night, we hoped for less wind and went back to the balloon festival hoping we could see lots of balloons take off. Scott and Karsten played ball while we waited.

Then they decided to send up a couple of test balloons again to see how the wind was - unfortunately, each of the test balloons went up then quickly went back down just one or two fields away. Karsten was waving goodbye to one of the balloons.

So we gave up on the balloons and went to have ice cream. :) When we drove back by, the flying pink pink balloon had inflated - it was very fun to see. I wish we could have seen it take off!


Although the majority of the balloons never took off, we had a great weekend! Can't wait for the fun next year!