Lincoln Balloon Festival

This past Saturday we attended the Lincoln Hot Air Balloon Festival. It was the first time that any of us had attended, and we all had a good time. Other than being inappropriately dressed for the very cool evening, that is! Here is Olivia on the one carnival ride we would allow (because it was the one free one!). We (meaning Joe and I) still had carnival ride fatigue from the State Fair!

The kids won these wonderful trumpets from the duck pond game. The lovely noise they made would either elicit laughs or glares from people around us. Both kids loved them, though.

We were able to watch the hot air balloons inflate and launch. There were about 20-25 balloons at the festival, but only 5 launched. If we had attended the festival in the early morning, we could have gone on a tethered balloon ride. Maybe next time.

The kids with their own hot air balloons. Or, according to Ethan, just another form of a baseball bat.

Here is the kids' favorite balloon...the Beaver.

And my favorite balloon, the penguin and its chick.

The big event of the festival is the "glow". This is held at dusk and the balloons will light up and attempt to play "games" like flickering their light and attempting to do the wave. I must say that it was really beautiful to see all of them lit up!

Here we are approaching a balloon to give the kids a closer look at the basket. During the glow the crowd is able to walk around the balloons and watch the process. Olivia was very impressed by all of the fire! We were told that the balloon part costs $25k and the basket is $15k, making for one expensive hobby!