HOT AIR BALLOON FESTIVAL

Last year, for the first year ever, there was a hot air balloon festival right here in Little Rock - in fact, it was very close to our CFA.  (Here's last year's post about it.)  And, it came back this year, which was thrilling for us.  I really do find balloons to be magical, and our children definitely agree.

As we headed out for the little adventure, the rain was pouring  down.  I wasn't super hopeful that we would get to see balloons, but we needed to get out of the house, so out we went.  John and I picked up subs that we had ordered online, and we had dinner on the go.  Actually, on the way to the balloon festival, we stopped in and saw some people that we have gotten to know because they eat at our restaurant all. the. time.  They are really into Ham radio, and it was the North American Ham radio festival day.  They had been mostly rained out, but we got to stop in and learn a bit about Ham radio where you can talk to people all over the world.  It was fascinating.

By that time, the rain had stopped, and we made our way to the festival location.  They decided to do it after all, which was so exciting.  It was worth staying out late for.  We watched as the balloons were inflated.  (while feeding babies, of course.)

The babies enjoyed the white noise of the fans and fire.  They really are beginning to be awake more often, which is fun to see.  William gave us a little smile for the picture!




Bella decided to photo bomb Violet and I.

I tried for a picture of all four and got some results that I really like.  Sweet children.  Most of the time.

The "glow," where they all fire at once after dark, was really neat to see.  I especially liked when they "twinkled" and glowed at different times.




We try to leave activities while they are still fun, and we did pretty good on this one.  However, on the way to the car, it was clear that the girls were up past bed time as the whining began.  We were parked near a giant, sort of lit up, inflatable triceratops.  Naturally.  The girls wanted to go play with it, but it was more for looks.  Once we were in the car, Lily didn't feel like she could see it well enough and kept wailing, "I can't see the triceratops!"  On that strange note, we were glad to be headed home and headed for bed.



The babies slept from 12:30-7:30 last night, and have been doing similar long stretches for many nights in a row.  It makes us feel like new people to be getting more consistent sleep.  Hooray and Happy Monday.