Balloon Fiesta!

They say that the Balloon Fiesta is the most photographed event in the world. I have no idea if that is true or not (how would they even track that?), but based on the amount of photos we took, I believe it could be true.

So, here you go- a million pictures!

This is the Dawn Patrol. We had to get up at 4 AM to get to the field (oh my goodness- traffic was beyond a nightmare! It was so frustrating!). The Dawn Patrol goes up first to double check the wind to make sure all is well. That started a little after 6.

About 7:30 the rest of the balloons started blowing up, and then the real fun began. We went on Shapes Rodeo day- so a lot of the balloons were shapes which was fun. They let everybody walk around and get up really close to see them get blown up. It was pretty incredible.

There were hundreds of balloons that went up. It really was awe-inspiring. There is something magical about hot air balloons.

They had a great kids area where got passports and went to different stations to learn about ballooning.

Sadly, the evening Glo (they don't have the balloons go up at night, but they blow up and have a special fuel that lights the balloons and it looks cool) was cancelled due to wind. By then, however, we were all exhausted, so we didn't even stay for the full fireworks.

It was a lot of driving, a lot of traffic, and A LOT of people. It is not something that I want to do every year. BUT, it was definitely worth doing once. I am very glad that we came down for it- it really was amazing.