Balloon Race

On Saturday Alyce had her second trip to the balloon race.  Last year we attended the event and Alyce enjoyed herself.  This year she liked it even more.  For the past week and maybe longer Alyce has been all about hot air balloons.  This all started when a balloon flew over Gram's and PaPa's house since then it has been "ride in hot air balloon", "go see hot air balloon"?  When the day finally came Alyce was giddy.

We arrived at the race about half an hour before the balloons started so Mom, Grams, and I took Alyce to ride the ponies where Alyce did a very good job of waiting her turn.  Alyce had a great time on her pony.  I had every intention of standing next to her on the pony but I didn't get a chance to get inside the ring before the worker picked her up and put her on a pony.  Alyce didn't seem to have a problem with me not being next to her as she was fixated on her pony.

After the pony ride we look around and see that the balloons started inflating.  Our location this year was really cool because we were maybe 20 feet away from a balloon crew and got to see how a balloon is inflated.  First they use a gas powered fan to fill up the empty balloon and this only fills up the balloon partially.  Once the balloon is half full they use a propane burner to shoot some hot air into the balloon.  It doesn't take a lot of hot air to make a balloon rise.  I'd say after 5 seconds of fire the balloon was already lifting off the ground.  It still took a lot of additional heat to generate enough lift to actually pick people off the ground.  Alyce wasn't a big fan of the propane torches.  At one point she hid behind me when they were shooting flame and making lots of noise.

Not counting the balloons inflating Alyce seemed to enjoy them going up into the sky.  While she was on my shoulders we both waved bye to the balloons as they took off and flew away.

Balloon Race Followup

Now that we are back at the house I can write about the balloon race. On Saturday the family went to the balloon race. The race happens every year around this time. I'm not exactly sure how a balloon race is run and most people in attendance don't know either. Mostly people show up to see a bunch of hot air balloons up close and we were no exception.


We wanted to bring Alyce to the race this year as it was the first time she would really understand what she was seeing. At first she wasn't really impressed as the balloons weren't filled up when we got there. But after walking around a bit, setting up a picnic area, eating a funnel cake, and getting some free swag she got to see what we came for.

While the balloons were going up Alyce was at her cutest. For starters this was the first time she got to sit on my shoulders because she couldn't see from her vantage point. Her first comment when she saw the balloons was "Big Balloons!"; We didn't even prompt her to say balloons. Too add to the cuteness she was waving bye bye to all of the balloons as they were rising off the ground.

After a while she got tired of sitting on my shoulders and moved to the ground. When we got there we set out a blanket and we told Alyce that as long as she stayed on the blanket she wouldn't have to go back in her stroller. We were very pleased that she stayed on the blanket with only a few gentle reminders. I think the large number of people deterred her from moving too far away.


When the last balloon was launched it was time to go home. Alyce had enough balloons for one day and quietly rode back to the car in her stroller. As the day came to a close both Mom and I commented about how well Alyce behaved and how cute she was. Some days you have good days other days you can bad days. Luckily some days you can have great days and today was one of them.

Come back later for a slide show and some videos of the race.