We opted to go the first morning of the fiesta, which was Saturday. We woke up at 4 am and gathered the kids together. P was not thrilled about waking up that early, but Devry was quite chipper when I mentioned balloons. She LOVES seeing hot air balloons. We have them float over our house all the time and whenever we are in the car you always know when she has spotted one because she will start shrieking "Moooooon!" She used to say balloon perfectly, but lately just has shortened it to just "moon." She does know what the moon is, but it's pretty much the same word now. Sometimes is "amoon." Oh well.
We headed to the mall parking lot to catch the park and ride bus. We arrived around 4:40 and there wasn't much of a wait, but shortly after we arrived the line exploded. Glad Ryan was in charge and said we should be up by 4. If it was up to me I wouldn't have gotten up until 5. :)
We got the park around 5:15. We wandered for a while. You wouldn't believe the number of people there. I know it sounds insane to get up that early, but this is the biggest balloon festival anywhere and every session is attended by thousands and thousands of people. It's crazy!
At 6 am Dawn Patrol began their show. Dawn Patrol is the first 10 balloons to lift off, and they do so in the pitch dark. They have lights that hang below the basket, kind of like lights on an air plane wing. The other balloonists watch them and determine wind direction and other such things. It is pretty cool actually.
I really like these pictures. The dawn was just barely breaking and you can make out their hanging lights more than anything.
Admittedly, at this point Ryan's parents thought it was cool and all, but they weren't sure what the big fuss was. Oma said later at this point she thought, "Are we just going to watch them go up 10 at a time?" No, no, my friend. Just you wait.
At 7 am, the official Fiesta balloon followed by the Cannon balloon lifted off. Both carried an American flag. (Cannon sponsors this thing, so that's why it gets to take off at the beginning.) *Side note - a few days later I was on Facebook and noticed an advertisement for Cannon and all the pictures were from the Balloon Fiesta. For some reason it made me incredibly excited. I felt almost famous. I was there! I was taking pictures of that very balloon! People all around the world are seeing these adds and "liking" Cannon and that's MY city! That's MY Fiesta! Strange, I know. :)
I have no idea who sung the National Anthem for this, but wow. She was incredible!
From this point forward all I can say is that there is no way to do this justice. You can take a million pictures and you can post a dozen videos, but there is no way to capture what this is like in person. Hundreds and hundreds of balloons on the ground and in the sky. They go up in waves, dozens of them at a time. It is sheer magic. And yes, Oma and Opa were VERY impressed. Now they get it. It is absolutely worth that 4 am wake up call - even when your kids realize just how early they got up and desperately need a nap starting at oh... 6:30 am. It was difficult. But worth it.
At one point Oma and Opa disappeared to go get a closer look. When we found them, they were DEFINITELY getting a closer look. They were right up by a basket and they were sandwiched in between a couple balloons. They must have timed it just right - or wrong - because they were stuck there for a while until the balloons launched. But they loved it! Pierscen was just very frustrated that we couldn't get to them.
Dev was pretty excited about this cow. As soon as she spotted it she yelled, "Cow! Moooo!"
Despite being tired, everyone had a great time. Oh! And we got to see our friends Matt and Elise for about 30 seconds at the very beginning. I worked with Matt in the ER for years and now they live in Denver. We should have taken a picture in the dark before they ran off to find their family. :)
We headed back to the buses around 9 am. We made it home with enough time to change and grab a few things. Then it was off to Pierscen's soccer game. I still don't know how Devry didn't fall asleep during the travel, but she kept going.
This game was amazing! The other team had a lot of hustle and they definitely gave our little Red Robins a run for their money. They were the first team to score against us. But we won! (Not that anyone is keeping score. haha). But honestly, this game was intense! It was fun and energetic and well fought.
Love our boy's trying to block the goal. Haha. Not sure if this is really allowed...
The kids played great. P didn't get a score this game, but he was a tough player. This game was also awesome because for the first time the boys were stopping the ball before it went out of bounds, they were able to turn the ball around and head in a different direction, and they were even passing to each other!
At the end, Devry laid down on the blanket and refused to get up. Opa dragged the blanket all the way to the hill. She was so tired she legitimately almost fell asleep. She would have too if she didn't start sliding off the blanket once we made it to the hill. Haha.
We headed home from the game and turned on the afternoon session of Conference. Everyone was pretty tired, but it was wonderful to be able to listen to the prophet and his counselors. Following conference we went to the park for a little while, then headed home for dinner and we sent the boys off to Priesthood. The kids crashed pretty early. When the boys got home none of us were functioning terribly well so we all went to bed nice and early. :)
It was a fantastic day!
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