This morning I remembered that it is the beginning of "The Colorado River Balloon Festival" so the kids ran outside to watch the hot air balloons in the sky. They took off about 5 miles from our house and went over the area. It's so fun to see.
I dropped Autumn off at her carpool house and noticed a balloon going over the neighborhood kinda low and then over the adjacent lettuce field. I quickly went home and had the other three kids get in the van so we could "chase" the balloon and see where it would go.
We ended up chasing it past the fields below our house and down into the next town. It was fun. At point we parked and watched it go past us as the kids stuck their heads out of the sunroof on the van and waved. We proceeded to follow it a bit more and saw it landing on a road. We decided to see it up close again and went down the road.
By the time we had gotten there the wind had grabbed the balloon and drug the basket across the road, over a burm, through an irrigation ditch, and into the edge of a lettuce field. People were pulling at the ropes to keep the balloon from landing on the field also. Ryan and I ran up to help. I went barefoot since Ryan needed shoes (all those times running on gravel while growing up came in handy ;) ). With help we all got the balloon down on the road and all four people got out of the basket safely although muddy from the knees down.
Ryan and I helped get the balloon into the bag....no small feet let me tell you!! We certainly got a workout as did all the others! After that was done we stayed to make sure the basket was safely retrieved from the field.
I dropped Autumn off at her carpool house and noticed a balloon going over the neighborhood kinda low and then over the adjacent lettuce field. I quickly went home and had the other three kids get in the van so we could "chase" the balloon and see where it would go.
We ended up chasing it past the fields below our house and down into the next town. It was fun. At point we parked and watched it go past us as the kids stuck their heads out of the sunroof on the van and waved. We proceeded to follow it a bit more and saw it landing on a road. We decided to see it up close again and went down the road.
By the time we had gotten there the wind had grabbed the balloon and drug the basket across the road, over a burm, through an irrigation ditch, and into the edge of a lettuce field. People were pulling at the ropes to keep the balloon from landing on the field also. Ryan and I ran up to help. I went barefoot since Ryan needed shoes (all those times running on gravel while growing up came in handy ;) ). With help we all got the balloon down on the road and all four people got out of the basket safely although muddy from the knees down.
Ryan and I helped get the balloon into the bag....no small feet let me tell you!! We certainly got a workout as did all the others! After that was done we stayed to make sure the basket was safely retrieved from the field.
As we were leaving the owners of the balloon gave the kids and I each a pin of their balloon and told me to bring the kids up to the high school (2 blocks from our house) in the morning to see the balloon again and watch them take off. We're definatly going and seeing!
It was an experience that we will not soon forget.
The news channel ended up coming down and we'll link that story when it gets up on their site. We'll also get some pictures of the balloon tomorrow morning.
I love homeschooling! Because we homeschool our children got this wonderful experience :)
Hope you had an exciting day too!
3 comments:
sounds like you guys had a busy day, it would have been neat to see the ballons, always wanted to get up close. Did you's get a chance to get inside the basket and check it out when you went up to the school? Would have been fun to have a ride even for a short distance.
We got to look inside the basket when it was on the road after we helped them.
Ryan & Jessica have gone up in a balloon once before a few years ago. It was tetherd to the ground but went up higher than a 3 story building. They had fun and would like to do it again.
Wow that sounds really cool! What a great experience!
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