Plano Balloon Festival

Sunday we headed out to the Plano Balloon Festival to watch the balloon launch. And I must share that we went in very "green" fashion...a first for us, using local mass transit! We drove the mile from our house to the train station, road the train 12 miles, hoped on a shuttle for another mile and then did the reverse coming back. It was nice not to use our gas, or to sit in traffic on the exit ramp and service road, and Sam loved it much more than he would've liked sitting in his car seat in traffic. It was John's first time using the train, and the only other time Sam and I have been on it was just for fun. I was quite embarrassed though when I was purchasing our tickets. It took me 5 minutes to figure out what to buy and how to buy it...I mean, I can navigate my way through the New York City mass transit system better than I can my own city!
We also had another first when we got there...John and Sam had their first funnel cake! Yes, it was John's first too. He says he'd never had a funnel cake. This is the same man who hasn't had McDonald's in over 20 years.
The balloon festival was fun, but not without stress. They had those inflatable slides and bounce houses and there was, of course, no way to keep Sam off of them. But, we almost had a disaster on his first slide. First I have to say, I knew better than to let him on this slide. It was big! And these folks operating the inflatables didn't much care about what's going on. I did ask if the kids should be a certain height or weight, to which I was told, "No." However, Sam was probably too little. He made it up the slide on his own pretty well, but ended up flipping a few times coming down...probably because he didn't weigh enough for his butt to sink into the slide enough. He's had this happen before at a birthday party (which is why I say I knew better) and I've also seen news reports about how dangerous these inflatables are and the lack of government regulations regarding the use of them. I'm grateful that Sam wasn't seriously hurt, and/or that he's young enough to still be so durable and resilient. But, we got a few gasps from other parents and people coming up to check on him. And so, we stuck to the enclosed, 3 feet off the ground, bounce house after that.
The other tragedy occurred when, after taking only 20 pictures, and none of the balloons, my camera battery died! Oh, and the back up I made sure to bring along, was also not charged! I think I just lost my job as resident photographer! Horrible mistake! Soooo, the balloon pictures all had to be taken with my cell phone camera. I didn't even have my point-and-shoot with me! Ugh! I was so looking forward to beautiful balloon pictures.
But, what we experienced and were able to see was beautiful. It was my first time at a balloon festival and I was very impressed. Maybe next year I'll have good pictures to share.

(More photos on our photo website, password is our last name.)