We had been reading the American Girl book, "Saige Paints the Sky". Saige lives in Albuquerque, NM and celebrates her birthday at the annual International Hot Air Balloon Fiesta. This was one of the first longer chapter books that Darcy had been really into, and we got such a kick out of it. We read the last chapter to the kids in the car one day, and the kids were all talking about the Hot Air Balloon Fiesta. I asked Siri how long it was to Albuquerque and she lied to me and told me it was a shorter distance than it really was. Then, I googled the hot air balloon fiesta and found out that the first day of it this year happened to be Darcy's birthday (October 5)! So based on mis-information from Siri, we booked a hotel and decided to surprise the kids with a trip down.
The best part was that we didn't tell them what we were doing. We woke them up for school on a Friday, got them all ready, and Lance mentioned he would drive them to school... we pulled into the parking lot and then announced, "You know what? Instead of going to school today, let's go on an adventure!". So Gwen ran in to turn in her homework and we pulled out of the parking lot yelling "Not today, school! See ya later!". The kids couldn't believe it. It was so much fun just to see the looks on their faces. Then, we put in the "Saige Paints the Sky" movie, and at the end of it we told them where we were going.
We were driving through a snow storm, but we finally got there 8 hours later. We ate dinner and turned in early b/c we had to get up at 4:45 to make the "Dawn Patrol" - the first set of hot air balloons that go off when it is still dark. Traffic was horrible, so lance got out with the kids and they walked 1 mile+ to the field while I waited to park the car. Things were delayed though, so we all got to see the Dawn Patrol, followed by the Mass Ascension, where 500+ hot air balloons take off over about 2 hours. I think hot air balloons are cool, just like anyone else, but I'm not nuts over them. But, this was really, really cool. Something about a beautiful day, with your 4 favorite people, and your daughter wearing a Happy Birthday hat and talking all about Saige and her both celebrating their birthdays, it was just really special. Lance was totally crazy about the hot air balloons and kept saying 'This is so cool! This is one of the neatest things I've ever seen!"
Saige is also an artist, so we brought art pads and crayons/colored pencils/markers to the field and we all sketched our best impression of the event. It is fun now to have those pieces of "art" as souvenirs of our trip.
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