Wine and Hot Air Balloon Festival

Upper 70s and sunny, it sounded like the perfect day for a wine festival featuring the lift off of hot air balloons at it's conclusion. We got there mid-afternoon, after church and it was, well, WINDY! Beautiful and WINDY! Not just a little windy, but why would I even waste my time trying to put my hair even in a pony tail, windy. Much to windy for the lift off of hot air balloons. So, we had to adjust our expectations for the day and make the best of the 1.5 hour drive to get there.

After our picnic, Miriam led the way to the merry-go-round which she'd spotted on our way in (the excitement from which kept her from eating her lunch, if you know my kids very well, that doesn't happen very often). Wow, the merry-go-round was, hmm, breathtaking? The clown's light bulb noses and eyes were busted, gone completely, or my favorites, halfway hanging out. I'm sure there was enough chipped off lead paint to poison all the kids there. The wooden "beams" holding the structure together were all but ducked taped together (there might have actually been some duck tape in the region... I just chose to ignore it). The 150 yr old Carnie that was in charge of the ride was lighting up his cigarettes in his chair which sat next to all the electrical equipment. This of course was after he would start the ride before making sure all the kids were seated (kids these days, just need to speed up). All that said, the kids LOVED it, and so did we.

We walked around and looked at all the junk for sale... you can carve anything out of anything and people will buy it... if it's little, then you put it on a piece of jewelry... if it's edible, you put it in jam... where these fail, a t-shirt works best. Deidrah honed in on the Appalachian Trail booth and spoke with them for quit awhile about a school project... she's so shy... Since it wasn't looking like we were going to see any balloons launch (wind speed had to be below 10mph) we walked around looking at some of the baskets used for the balloons. Big surprise, Deidrah talked her way into one with Miriam and a few others. She got a nice little lesson on hot air balloons.

Ben wanted to go tour the home on the estate we were at, Historic Long Branch. The kids weren't so into it, so I took them for yes, another ride on the merry-go-round and to do some arts and crafts. During this (now an hour past when the balloons were supposed to take off) we looked over to one side and saw what appeared to be a giant soccer ball. We all took off running to see this hot air balloon filling up, then up, up and way!! It was so cool! As soon as this balloon made it safely up, the trucks started coming in with other balloons and one by one they'd fill up and lift off. They did it from different locations, so as soon as the girls finished waving good bye to one balloon, we'd run to where the next one was and see it fill up, then lift off too. We stopped counting at 10 balloons and focused on getting as close as we could to the next.

A great end to a great day!

I think this link will take you to the rest of our photos:
http://picasaweb.google.com/stevievelker/WineAndHotAirBalloonFestivalOct07

fire safety...

A friend of ours, who is a firefighter, was asking Deidrah after church one day where our meeting spot was in case of a fire in our home. She didn't have an answer and was rather displeased with my not having taught her such a thing. He also was displeased and instructed Deidrah to instruct me to bring her and Miriam by his fire station for a tour and fire safety lesson one day. All dressed in pink leotards, coming from dance lessons, we decided to go have a course in EDITH (exit drills in the home... see, I learned something too). The girls had a blast climbing around on three different trucks while learning what the job(s) of each truck was. Miriam was pretty timid of "Fireman David" (as the girls call him) as he started putting on all of his uniform (it all weighs over 100 pounds!). I must say it did look and sound intimidating. He got on the floor with her and Deidrah and had them practice crawling to him and just not being afraid of him, which ended in the girls hitting him to see if they could hurt him. I was instructed in "change your clocks, change your batteries" meaning, when the time changes, change the batteries in all your smoke alarms. We were all instructed on what we needed to do in case of a fire in our home. The drive home consisted of the girls discussing which tree in our front yard should be our "meeting tree" in case of an emergency and my being put through a check list of "home fire hazards" (I passed). All in all, I think we are ready; our tree has been picked out, we know what a firefighter looks and sounds like, and both girls picked out a new color for their new rooms once our home is rebuilt after being burned down (never hurts to be prepared).