Balloon Festival 2014

The hot air balloon festival in our town this year was just as much fun as always. This is always one of my favorite weekends of the year. I just love everything about waking up early to see the balloons with my little family. We started our weekend off with the Balloon Glow Friday night. We ended up staying on our town's side of the river because the festival on the other side of the river was really expensive to get in for just a couple of hours. We're talking $20 bucks a person. That just wasn't going to happen, so we were thrilled when we found a balloon pilot on our side of the river. Eli got to watch this balloon go up and then the balloon pilot was nice to let people take when he fired the balloon up. It was super fun! 

This was the best I could do. It was SOO bright! 

After the Balloon Glow was over, all the kids that were around got to help take the balloon down. Eli loved every minute of this and really got into it. 

Last up for the Balloon Glow night were the fireworks. They were beautiful as always! I love watching fireworks shows over the river. 

The next morning we were up very early when I received a text from our local paper saying the balloons were headed to the mall for the target drop (a competition they do for the pilots). We grabbed some coffee, bundled up, and headed to grab our spot at the mall. 

Usually this is when I get the best pictures of all the balloons because they are all so close. It's so much fun to watch them fly over the trees and drop their bean bags to try to get the closest to the target. 

At the end of the competition we found Sarah and her group of kiddos. Eli and Cooper are in the same class this year and love playing together. They quickly found a chair, snagged my phone when I wasn't looking, and started playing. I think I have several Eli and Cooper "selfies" on my camera roll now :)

Clayton, Avery, Eli and Cooper

We didn't know it at the time but this was the last time we'd get to see the balloons fly over the course of the weekend. Sunday morning the winds were gusting way too much and then the same thing that afternoon. I was really sad, but I'm glad we got to see one good flight! Hopefully next year the weather will cooperate a little better!