Happy Times at the 15th Hot Air Balloon Festival

I was picturing vibrant colors illuminating the bright blue sky. In my mind, it was the perfect day to watch hot air balloons because it was not too hot, and it was already midafternoon when we arrived at the venue.

We finally made it to the 15th Hot Air Balloon Festival! After burning liters of gas and a lot of wrong turns, we found ourselves in the makeshift tent where hordes of people are lining up to get tickets. They didn't mind the heat, or even the long wait because it was just a happy day! In seemingly happy dispositions, families came equipped with mats, portable chairs, coolers and other picnic paraphernalias.

Cousin O wanted to relive her childhood memories by flying a kite. Without batting an eyelash, she chose the butterfly kite because she figured that it must look great up in the sky. But after more than 45 minutes and plenty of failed attempts to get the kite flying, cousin O was already frustrated. We still had an hour or so wait before the organizers begin the preparations for the night glow, so we made kite flying a really serious business!

But no matter how hard we tried and what we did with the kite, it just wasn't meant for flying. We figured that it must be among those models that need to be included with the "kite recall". We blamed the faulty design as many other kites from the same vendor were floating effortlessly on air! We laughed hard when we saw a kid that just basically threw his batman kite on air just to get it to fly. He made it took so easy!



The organizers actually had plenty of activities in store for the day. One of the things that S enjoyed was watching the paratroopers. I am so afraid of heights, so I would never venture in any kind of extreme sports that had anything to do with jumping off planes, or cliffs even! But looking at those paratroopers in the late afternoon sky was just so relaxing.



It was already dark when the participants started to inflate the balloons. There were interesting designs like the sun, turtle and even a barn with peeking animals on the windows. They were really cute, but they were only halfway inflated because the wind was so strong, and it made the preparation really difficult. S counted the inflated balloons, and she said there were only 10. Sigh!



When the organizers decided not to force the night glow because of the winds, we called it a day. I can't bring myself to complain because we never made it on time for the hot air balloon flight. We were too late, and we ended up somewhere else. But seeing S happily waving at the paratroopers and saying hi to her favorite half inflated balloon designs, I felt that it was all worth it. That day, she reminded me that we need to be like kids sometimes. Because despite the day's twists and turns, in the eyes of S, it was still the perfect day.