Balloon Fiesta 2011 - ABQ Aloft

I think I need to separate the balloon posts.  So, we'll start with the early festivities.  For my non-local blog readers, the city of Albuquerque hosts ABQ Aloft the day before Balloon Fiesta starts.  Balloonists volunteer to launch their balloons from dozens of different schools throughout the area at roughly the same time.  It's so cool to see them all go up from so many different places (we can see the whole city from our spot on the mesa.)  We are lucky at our school, as one of our teachers is also a balloon pilot, and apparently, so is her husband.  We were even more lucky this year because Harriet is in her class!   It seems like something right out of a story book - watching your school teacher launch and rise into the sky in a hot air balloon.  That's exactly what happened to Hattie a couple weeks ago.

Harriet's teacher and her husband are both pilots, and so, for a rare treat, brought TWO balloons to school and launched them both.

 There she goes!  She actually did an awesome job of flying and went out over the open desert and was able to come right back to the school, landed in the parking lot, and was on time to class.  Quite a teacher!!!

 There goes her husband...

It's an early morning to get to the school for the balloon launch and makes for a long day for the kiddos, but is so worth it.  It might be my favorite part of balloon fiesta week.

The day was made even longer by the school carnival that night.   I am not a model PTA mom.  I like to volunteer and help, but I'm pretty picky about it.  I have traditionally avoided evening school activities.  I feel like we are involved in so much and the kids spend so much time away from home that it doesn't really interest me to go back to school for a few more hours.  But, my little offspring serving on student council reminded me that they needed to set a good example and support all school activities this year and would be attending the festival.  I have to admit, I wasn't very excited to go, but I was pleasantly surprised with how great the activity turned out.  It was extremely well organized and so easy to navigate.  Each teacher had his/her own booth and they were all great and pretty unique too.  The kids really had a blast, and I was reminded of one of the reasons I have kept my kids at the neighborhood school, rather than opt for a charter school or some alternative form of education.  I really do value community and I like knowing the people in my neighborhood and I like feeling that we are all working together for a common, local, good.   It was awesome to run into so many people we know and also to meet parents of Grace and Harriet's friends that I didn't know already.

Staying with the balloon theme... Harriet's teacher brought an old hot air balloon for her booth and inflated it so that the kids could go inside and play in it.  I went in too and thought it was a pretty unique experience to be inside a hot air balloon.

Another favorite was the hair dye booth.  I was super nervous about this one because school pictures were to be taken only 3 days away...  I thought for sure Grace would still have black streaks in her hair.  Thankfully, it washed out.  

All in all... a great start to balloon fiesta with incredible weather as expected.  Little did we know that it would go down hill from here... I'll save that for the next post.