Balloon Glow

On Friday we went to Balloon Glow.  Nate and I had gone several years ago, pre-kids, and it was kind of a mess.  We met friends at 630, drove around for probably over and hour looking for somewhere to park, ran about 3 miles from our spot to the event, then got there with about 5 minutes left.  Needless to say, we have not been back, and when I approached Nate with the idea he was less than thrilled. 

But I had a game plan, and praise the Lord, it worked...even better than I had planned! 

We left here around 420 with a picnic dinner, a blanket, the jog stroller, and a soccer ball.  When we got to Forest Park, it was still pretty empty.  We randomly headed in the general direction of the event, and randomly parked in the Science Center parking lot, which was PERFECT because we were able to kiill 45 minutes playing at the outside part of the Science Center, which the little boys have never been to, and Z hadn't been in over a year.  Plus, last time I hadn't seen the life size dinosaurs hiding behind the bushes/trees (seriously, I missed them!).  The boys had a great time playing there!

I love that Nate, my husband who HATES pictures, is the only one coopeating with me here!  Bless him :)

After we played, we hiked a bit closer to where the balloons were. We set up our picnic at the bottom of the hill so we couldn't even see the balloons...why hand them distractions when I want them to eat?  As we ate, helicopters were all over reporting on the balloons and traffic, I guess.  The boys loved them!  They pointed and stared and babbled at them.  Pretty cute. 

Here we are staring down a helicopter :)

We went up to the actual site, where the balloons weren't yet blown up.  We walked up and down the rows of food and got a funnel cake "to share".  In this instance, it was me doing the hogging...hey, mama's gotta have a treat every now and then!  We were kind of nervous to just stake out a section of the grass with our stroller and blanket like everyone else was doing.  I believe Nate used the term "herding cats" in reference to our fear.  So we kept walking.  We finally bit the bullet and were blown away by how well the kids did.  They stayed very close to us (but not fearfully, thank goodness!) and just looked around at what was going on.  There was a lot of people watching going on (both us watching "people" and "people" watching us..."TRIPLETS!!!").  It also helped that they each had a huge cup full of goldfish!   

When they finally started to blow up the balloons, the boys loved it.
Here is what we saw...see in the bottom picture the balloon "glowing"?

Here are some of the boys enjoying the action. 

By this time it was after 7 (bedtime).  Nate made me promise that I would agree to go BEFORE it was time so that we wouldn't have 3 (or 4) screaming kids for the hike back and ride home.  That is something I have a tendency to do :) So when the balloons were all up, we packed up and started walking thru them.  And then we stopped.  The loud noises of the gas tanks and the fire filling up the balloons were too much for 3 tired boys...and even Z was a little wary.  So we checked out a few, then headed out by 725. 

The great news was that as we left, we walked past hordes of people coming.  A car waited probably 5 minutes for our awesome parking spot.  The streets and highways were jammed just trying to get in.  And we were going the opposite way with 4 happy, tired boys. 

What a fun, fun time we had...and this is something we can do again and again, now that we've got one trip under our belts!