Hot Air Balloon Festival

Every once in a while we see hot air balloons flying over our house and Claire gets soooo excited!  She yells, "HABOON, HABOON!!""  So, when the Hot Air Balloon Festival rolled around this year we knew she would love it!  Even though it was the end of September, temps were still in the mid 90's and we weren't looking forward to sweating it out in the heat...soooooo we decided to wake up at 5:00am and go the the Balloon Glow and Sunrise Balloon Lift!  We knew we were kind of crazy, but we figured it would be fun and we would make some great memories so we went for it!

Claire had no idea why we were waking her up in what I am pretty sure she thought was the middle of the night.  We got her dressed and in the car and drove out to the festival!  It was still dark when we arrived and entered the festival, but there were probably 1,000 people there...mostly all with young children.  I was concerned to see that there were not ANY hot air balloons down on the field.  We later learned that without any explanation they just decided not to do the glow that morning.  BIG BUMMER!  So, then the sun started rising and still nooooo balloons.  Claire enjoyed breakfast in her stroller and I am pretty sure she thought we had come all this way to watch the sunrise and eat outside, LOL!  

Finally, around 7:30 they arrived and starting airing up. Woo-Hoo!!  Claire was so patient and was such a good girl all morning.  

I was just so  happy the hot air balloons showed up...but then there was the possibility that it was too windy to fly so we had to wait about 30 minutes while the pilots had a meeting....and then...finally....we were told that the balloons would be able to fly after all!

Claire was getting really excited as the balloons all filled up and prepared for flight!

Here she is showing us how the hot air balloons go up into the sky...

Then finally, (with the sun blinding us all) the "haboons" were flying high into the sky!

It was an early morning, but also a great time together and Claire loved it!  We followed up the hot air balloon festival with a trip to our favorite breakfast spot where Claire ordered Mickey Mouse Pancakes and I am pretty sure she thought it was the coolest meal ever!  We will definitely have to make them like that at home for her!