Friday, January 27, 2017

Balloon Festival

8-5

Sometimes I worry that we don't have enough traditions in our family - but then I remember events like the Indianola Balloon Festival. We go every year and I just love it! Peacefully sitting there watching as the balloons take flight, games for the kids, greasy food!

This year was AWESOME because my kids were old enough to stay until dark! I felt like every year we were rushing out of there to get home for bedtime....

The boys (josh and spencer) were working so the girls and the kids all went pretty early on a Friday. We were worried for a while, as the announcer kept saying the winds were too strong to safely inflate the balloons...that would be a let down! The kids enjoyed all the inflatables. Was fun to see Zach try new things this year and he was freakishly good at the joust! I think his precision and flexibility coupled by his light weight made him a formidable opponent! 

Zach and Kenna enjoyed competing in some of the inflatable games. Grayson enjoyed throwing a football through an inflatable ring. I allowed the kids to each buy one treat (we always sneak snacks in.) They were all excited about corn dogs. I, of course, pick the line that take about 30 minutes to get 3 corn dogs...later in the evening I rewarded them with a funnel cake to share as well, because they were all being so good!
















They handed out coloring and activity books to all the kids, so the boys stayed pretty busy with those until we finally got the word that the wind was calm enough to send the balloons up!

Its fun sharing this with Lily as she gets sooooo excited for the balloons! She danced almost all evening as the music played!








The final hurrah was the lighting of the balloons - this is something I had never seen before because we are always early leavers! It was really cool - they all turn their flames on at once - such a cool finale!

Then we and the hundreds of other festival goers all leave mass exodus style. We sat stuck for nearly half an hour before we finally got out of that parking lot....oh well, the craziness was worth it!


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