This summer our favorite past time has been hot air balloon chasing. I don't remember a summer where there were so many hot air balloons that would fly over our house but this summer we would see "herds" of them at least twice a month. Jason and the girls would chase the balloons where ever they would go and saw many actually land (some in fields, some in parks, some in backyards).
Well Sunday night was a fantastic balloon watch. As I was cooking dinner, Laney looked out the window and said mom, there is the yellow balloon. It was close to our house so I thought we should go outside and see it. As we were looking at that one, right over the nearby elementary school was the rainbow balloon (one of our favorites). I got Matthew in the car seat and told the girls they had 1 minute to get their shoes on to chase the balloon. They didn't mess around and I bet within 2 minutes we were in the car and on our way (our neighbor Jackie and her son, Sam, were driving right behind us).
A funny story about this balloon: I ran into the pilot of the rainbow balloon about 3 weeks ago. I told him my daughters love to "chase" the hot air balloons and he said since he lived near us, he often is the one flying over the nearby elementary school.
Well, his balloon was the one that landed in the subdivision just north of us. The crowd of people was awesome and the kids were all so excited. Ok, who are we kidding...I was excited to see a balloon land about 30 feet in front of me. The pilot recognized me and we had a chuckle about how close he came to landing on our street (which I begged him to do when I met him).
As we were driving the 1/4 mile home wouldn't you know another balloon was close to landing at the elementary school. We pulled into the parking lot and start "talking" to the pilot. He was still high in the air but yet close enough to hear us. We were begging him to land at the elementary school but he decided to land a few streets over.
What an awesome summer for balloon watching and a fun topic for the girls to learn about :)
Laney and her balloon
Watching the balloon land
Jackie and Laney (to the left of the balloon)
Although Laney and Ella are expert balloon spotters and
chasers, once we got to the balloon basket
it was a little too loud (and hot) for them.
The balloon team
Looking inside the balloon
Here is the other balloon flying over the elementary school.
Although they decided not to land at the school
it was fun to talk to them as they were flying overhead :)
4 comments:
I have seen so many of those balloons! Once we watched a bunch take off, but I have never seen them land. How cool!
How funny! We saw these same balloons take off on Sunday afternoon from 146th St. I had my camera with me, and we pulled off the road to take some pics. How funny that we could've seen them land if we had been home that night. :)
That is so neat that they were so close to your house! We've seen them, too, but from our house they are fairly far away and hard to see. It looks like that balloon could have landed on you all! How cool! I'm sure the girls loved seeing them!
Balloon watching was a big event in Louisville when you and Cindy were little. Our favorite was the Ehrler's Dairy balloon. Urban legend had it that if that balloon landed in your yard, you would be rewarded with oodles of dairy products including ice cream. As much as we yelled encouragement for the balloon to land in our backyard, it never did. But we all did our best to bring it down to us.....
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