Lot of Hot Air

Festivals can be hit or miss for family fun. They do have ambiance and entertainment, but they also have lots of crowds, overpriced goods from vendors, expensive or hard to find parking, and lots and lots of walking (not to mention a slim chance of pleasant, bug-free weather; we're talking Texas here). With small kids, we just haven't risked it very often.

So even though the Plano Balloon Festival takes place less than a mile from our house, we've never been. We know when it is because they block off roads, put streamers along medians to keep people from parking on them, and send traffic cops out to direct the enormous flow of incoming and outgoing people. We know that is the weekend to take the northern alternate route out of the neighborhood if we want to get anywhere on time.

One perk is we can see a lot of the balloons from our house. It is sort of fun to look up into the sky as we drive to church or the grocery store and see a REMAX balloon or generic rainbow balloon with Elliot's Hardware pasted on the side.

This year, we got an extra special treat. We were all inside lounging in the living room Friday night, when Michael interrupted a conversation to ask what was that noise?

It sounded like an airplane to me, but his face lit up, and he jumped from his seat and ran to the window. Sure enough, there was a Balloon landing in the culdesac behind our house.

We all ran outside and saw that a dozen or so balloons were lowering themselves into our neighborhood. Some were ordinary and some were fun like the shape of a pirate's head. They all found some large empty area, like an undeveloped lot, green belt, or park, and landed, deflated, and packed up and went home. The whole thing lasted about half an hour. It was amazing. And we got to see it all without leaving our driveway.

That night, Ansley thanked God in her prayers that hot air balloons could land in our neighborhood.