Balloons, Balloons everywhere!

So R called me out on my last post about not posting pictures of balloons.  My dear readers, I apologize if you have been anxiously awaiting pictures of ballons.  This post will be sure to quench your thirst.  If this isn't enough, call me...I have hundreds more where these came from!

Going to the Balloon Fiesta means early mornings.  Like before the sun  comes up early.  Like, 4:30 AM early.  I don't want to talk about it. But, you gotta get there early to get parking, get a good spot on the grounds and see the balloons up close and personal.

The first morning we saw the balloons was the Shapes Rodeo.  Although it was too windy to actually lift the balloons, they did all get blown up that morning.  The picture above is the start of the process of laying out the "big cow" balloon.  I was blown away at how big some of these hot air balloons were!

There were all kinds of shapes.  Avery kept calling this guy Mickey Mouse.

There were so typical hot air ballons on the Shapes rodeo day too. 

This is the start of blowing up the "big cow".  Huge i tell ya!

Udderly beautiful.  Ha, ha.  Get it.  Alright, i promise no more inappropriate cow comments.  See those little people?  Those aren't figurines, the hot air balloon is just that big!

One of my favorites. This gives the patriotic side of me goose bumps!

So many fun things to see!

Each of the balloon crews handed our trading cards.  We had to collect as many as possible. 

Avery liked to show her cards to the balloons.

Bye bye balloons!

Like I said, we had some early mornings!  This morning was a Mass Ascention.  This meant the round balloons would all lift off. 

The balloons were laid out and then blown up. 

After the national anthem was sung, balloons were released.  Pretty cool.

There wasn't a lot of time to fix hair.

Thousands of ballons in the sky!

The haunted house was one of Avery's favorite.

Darth Vader was one of R's favorite.

The evenings included a glowdeo.  What was supposed to happen were all the balloons were to be on the field and lit up.  However, the wind did not cooperate and only some of the balloons went ahead and blew up.  However, the ones that did were very lovely. 

The evening ended with a great fireworks show.  The best I've ever seen!  I'm no expert of photographing fireworks so there aren't a lot of pictures of the show.

We really enjoyed our time at the Balloon Fiesta despite the windy conditions.  I kept finding myself saying "Next time we come..." so I think there might be another trip to the ABQ in the future. 

If you'd like to see more pictures of the balloons check out my friend JDM designs blog about the balloon experience. 

A good time was had by all.  Despite the early morning wake up calls!

More adventures to come!