Balloon festival

Last night we went to the balloon festival. It was a beautiful evening and a lot of fun. We decided to ride the train up there so we would not have to fight traffic to park and leave the festival. When we got to the train station the train pulled up so we ran to get on . . . but we did not have time to pay. We were hoping not to get a ticket. Katherine has not really ridden any public transportation since we returned from Norway and did not remember riding trains. She had fun. Caroline was in the sling and got a lot of attention for being so cute in there.
When we arrived there was a beautiful sky. I love when the sun shines through the clouds like this. It makes me think that Jesus will return right there, at any moment.

There was not much going on when we got there so we grabbed dinner and a spot on the lawn and began to eat. They had a team of parachuters come in with the state and American flag. Katherine was not really impressed. Oh well. I told her that both her mommy and her daddy have jumped out of an airplane and again, she was not impressed. Sam told me not to tell her that and encourage her to be a daredevil.
We had great seats for the balloon launch. We were equivalent of 6th row, 50 yard line if it had been a football field. We just kind of squeezed ourselves in. We had told Katherine that we were going to go see some really big balloons. I don't think she realized how big they would be until we were there. Finally, she was impressed.

We tried several times to get a good family shot. We failed miserable and I have resigned myself to not having any good photos for the next few years. In every photo either Caroline was crying or Katherine had her eyes closed or was looking the other way. This was the best of attempt #1.

There were probably about 25 balloons that launched so there was a constant stream of activity. It was neat to see them get blown up and then to take off.
I love the really colorful ones.
Katherine said her favorite was the pink and white striped one.

I really liked the one with all of the animals on it.


We were lucky to be able to get a little better picture for our family photo.
After the launch, they inflated the character balloons. Here is the panda.
Here is the daisy. I am not sure if this one could actually fly. It was shaped very oddly and took forever to inflate.
After the sun went down they had the balloon glow. It was really cool to see the balloons when the fire lit them up. There were two tricks, "all glow" where they left the burner on for about 10 seconds and "twinkle glow" where the lights would flicker.
I forgot to pack our tripod and this kind of photo is really hard to capture clearly without one. It is especially difficult because you can't set your exposure until the balloons are ignited and once they are ignited they don't stay that way long enough to mess with the exposure. I was lucky though to guess right and hold my camera still a few times.
We met up with Tara, Doug and kids Kyle and Lacey. Kyle and Katherine are in the same class at Mother's Day Out this year and they live in our neighborhood. Chrys, Mike and kids Oliver and Truett joined us for the balloon glow. Somehow I was able to capture photos of them with the glowing balloons in the background.

...and then a photo of us with no balloons glowing.
The evening finished with a fireworks show. When it started we decided to leave to catch the bus back to the train station. We thought we would be beating the crowd. WRONG! Apparently everyone else riding the bus had already decided to leave. The line to get on the bus was about 75 minutes long. Then when we got to the train station the train left while I was buying our tickets. It was 30 minutes until the next train got there. So, by the time we got home it was after 11pm. Katherine did great and stayed in her stroller while we were waiting and Caroline slept in the sling the entire time.