Balloon Fiesta!

Since none of the boys had ever been to The Balloon Fiesta, we decided this was the year to do it! So on Wednesday October 8th, as soon as Kimball got home from school, we drove to New Mexico. This was my first time leaving our city since Mother's Day, and Lily's first road trip. We only had to stop once to feed Lily on the way there and we got there in the wee hours of the morning. It was raining and I started panicking that The Balloon Fiesta would be cancelled the whole time we were there!

On Thursday we rested and recuperated from the drive. On Friday morning, we woke up at 4:30 (?) and headed down to The Balloon Fiesta field. It started raining lightly and I panicked again, but the rain stopped and we got there in time for dawn patrol (the first balloons to go up to check wind, etc). I had forgotten how incredible it was to see hundreds and hundreds of balloons go up and Dale seemed to be in awe of the sight as well.

 

 The boys got bored and were tired until they saw Darth Vader and Yoda take off, then they got really into looking for special shape balloons.

Later that day we went to a pumpkin patch where they had tons of kid activities from sling-shots to pumpkin bowling, etc.

Dale told the boys they could each pick a pumpkin they were willing to carry. Kimball did really well with his until he got out the gate and dropped it. His pumpkin had a huge split and Dale taped it for the ride home, but sadly it did not survive until Halloween.

Saturday we just hung out and shopped. Sunday we went to Sacrament meeting then were on our way. At a random gas station in New Mexico, there was a free car museum. It was hilarious listening to the boys ooh and ah over the antique toy cars they had.

In Oklahoma we hit a massive storm where we could barely see the road through the rain, but we were blessed to see an incredible double rainbow and got to chase it down the freeway for a while...sadly no pot of gold.

We made it home safely and it was a quick trip, but so much fun!