There I was met with my first and only Dutch Brothers Coffee (Thank You Tyler, for looking out for my caffeinated needs). It was great if you're looking for a rapid sugar/caffeine buzzed high. Which is exactly what I needed for running my bronchitis-y, flat footed, sportless out of shape ass down that hill (twice) to get a shot of that balloon touching the water. Twice. Did I mention I was in the mountains with bronchitis? Yeah. Anyway:
This guy was NUTS! How do you fly without a basket?
and then DIP INTO THE FREEZING LAKE!?
Here you see the Sunshine balloon:
When I saw this I looked at my Uncle John who is irritatingly a morning person (yuck...morning people) and I told him "LOOK! THE SUN IS NOT UP YET! WHAT THE HELL AM I DOING OUT OF BED!?"
Once the sun was "up" I gave him a big hug and said "GOOD MORNING!!"
It was funny, and probably irritated him, but that's okay, because that's what we do.
That was all fun and awesome, and honestly worth waking my sorry tired butt up for. It was a fantastic way to start our day.
Then, that night, when we went back for the glowing balloons, that is where the real memories happened.
Here they don't launch the balloons, they just count down and everyone fires off the balloons at once for an "All Glow" and it's a field of glowing balloons and It is BEAUTIFUL!
When we got to our spot to watch, we were down among the balloons and right next to a particular balloon. Millie was in the stroller and hadn't paid attention to where we were until the countdown for an all glow happened and the "KKSSSSHHHHHH" of the balloons firing off and the blast of heat hitting her face got her attention to where she looked up and saw a
GIANT...GLOWING....SHOE! which the wind caught a hold of and brought tilting right at us....
Needless to say the traumatized 2 year old grabbed my face and with wide terrified eyes said in a controlled firm tone,
"WE GO HOME. RIGHT NOW....Mommy....HOME....HOME"
we stayed for a few more minutes then left for ice cream. Every conversation after that went like this:
"What flavor ice cream do you have?"
"BIG SHOE. IT WAS HUGE. HUGE SHOE ALMOST GET ME. BIG. SHOE. IT WAS CREEPY."
"What color is your ice cream?"
"BIG SHOE!"
"How old are you Millie?"
"IT was HUGE! AND IT GET ME! THE BIG SHOE!"
For weeks. she still talks about the big balloon shoe. It sounds more now like a grand adventure she went on, not so much a terrified little kid that was traumatized for life...or at least for the night.
What better way to share this moment with Adam than revisit the big shoe...though it was not a balloon shoe, it was at a local farm and a slide, but when she saw it and immediately started with the "BIG SHOE" story, her little face was lit up in amazement that there was another one...and this one was PURPLE!
