Hot Air Balloon Festival

At the end of July, Logan invited the girls to go see the hot air balloons with him out in Longview.  We were having a very lazy Saturday and jumped at the invite to go do something!  The girls were pretty excited about seeing some really big balloons! 

On our way to Longview we stopped and at some BBQ and Ribs at the Country Tavern in Kilgore.  We had been told for the last six years that this was the best place ever to get ribs.  I don't do meat that well, but Andy and Keith confirmed that the ribs were amazing and decided we should take Grandma there for her birthday because she would love them!

Turned out that the balloons were a lot bigger deal than we had anticipated and we did not regret bringing the stroller with us!  We made up for our lazy Saturday and got our exercise in while walking from the parking lot out to the balloons.

The kids immediately spotted their favorite balloon and secured our seats right in front of it.  They were pretty enthralled.

We got to watch several balloons air up and it was pretty cool to see.  We were amazed at how close they all were to each other.

 Family picture with the balloons.

Carli was not interested in being in a picture with us.

We had to wait for it to get dark before the light show began.  The kids didn't mind at all.  They played and played and played.

I love these pictures b/c it shows how much Carli and Logan love each other.  :) 

Especially love the first one.



My handsome nephew Logan. 

They ran, they chased, they fell, they hugged and Carli twirled.

Turned out being in front of one of the biggest balloons wasn't the best idea when it came to seeing the lights of all the other balloons.  :)  Lesson learned.  It was pretty amazing to see and there were a lot more balloons than we imagined!  We would have loved to have seen them fly but apparently they only do that in the morning, very early in the mornings and that wasn't going to happen.  :)

It turned out that Keith's cousin Jeremy and his family were all at the festival.  Jeremy runs a company that sets up stages for concerts and events.  They were there doing the stage for the concert that night.  Small world.  We got to visit for a few minutes before the combined six kids had had enough standing around and we had to get going!  :)