Full Of Hot Air

Once again this year, we got up early and headed to Sandy for the Balloon Festival.  The Storm Mountain Park is filled with hot air balloons each August.  This year Kendall came with us.  Riley and I had our cameras in tow and Kendall kept asking when we could play on the playground or go for donuts.  I don't think she liked be woken up so early - hmm, now she knows how I feel!  ;)

Here are some of our favorites from last Saturday:

I loved the moon and star on the tops of these two balloons

Pigs really do fly!

Smiling to try to earn a trip to Daylight Donuts!

Ready to take pics on his DS - gotta get this boy his own camera

Lift off!

This guy was sitting in a harness instead of in a basket

Up, up and away!

I remember they use to have hot air balloons at Comet Field near our house as kids.  Our dog Hannibal use to go nuts every time he heard them go overhead.  The sound of them firing up their balloons drove him nuts!  I think both kids are now interested in going for a hot air balloon ride after spending the morning seeing how beautiful the looked in the sky.  Maybe someday...

Happy #4!

I posted a little out of order, but I was too excited to get our vacation pictures up since I just spent most of last night and part of today editing them.  Kendall celebrated her birthday with her girlfriends in Utah before we left on our vacation.  I think I was nuts to plan her party for Thursday with us leaving on Friday.  Oh well!  It was a success and she had a blast with her friends and that's all that matters.

We got the slip & slide out as well as filled up the pool at the bottom of the sliding board and had the Hello Kitty sprinkler on standby

We had all ocean/beach themed goodies to eat

Life preservers, beach balls, salt water taffy, flip flop cookies, crab legs and fish eggs were all on the menu!

We even had some jelly fish hanging around

Kendall with all her mermaid friends

We made "sand" dessert instead of having cake - it's just dirt dessert but with vanilla oreos instead of chocolate

Making a wish

Here are all the mermaids in their tail towels I made for them

Having fun in the pool

Getting ready to splash into the pool at the bottom

Refueling with some snacks

Bubble fun

Kendall is so fortunate to have such incredible little girlfriends.  I am so lucky to be friends with all of their moms! 

Zipping Through The Trees

Surprisingly, my dad suggested we all go zip lining at The Beanstalk Journey which is located in a local park about 5 minutes from their house.  The surprising part is that my dad doesn't really enjoy heights but I was all in!  Thankfully the youngest age they accept for the course is FOUR!  What luck!

We were able to book a tour for all 5 of us and got it at a steal for $40/person!  Their course is a combination of zip lines and adventure course, so those of you who know me and my love for adventure education, I was in pure heaven!!!  It was awesome to be able to share that love with my kids.  I think they now have an appreciation for it as well.  If they were able to conquer their fears of participating and even during a thunderstorm, they can conquer just about anything!

Kendall had her freak out while we were putting on our harnesses and helmets.  Poor thing!  It was heavy and didn't fit her very well - I asked why they didn't just tie Studebaker wraps on the kids and use chest harnesses, but I think they were slightly embarrassed by their lack of knowledge of Studebaker wrap harnesses and that it was my area of expertise.  Opps!

She hasn't even walked outside to start the course yet and this is how scared she is!  

Trying to put on a happy face for mom - not very successful, huh?

Little man all harnessed up and ready to go!

Now she's wearing a smile!  Whew!

This is the beginning of the course - you can see the first part of it is a ropes course before getting to the zip lines

There she goes!  She climbed up all by herself!  I was so proud of her.

Riley did well, but when his Nanny started to climb behind him he didn't like how it shook.  I was proud of how brave he was too!

Here comes Pappy!

Challenge #2 - sky bridge

Riley did a great job - thankfully his feet could touch.  Kendall was able to do it but just barely

Challenge #3 - rope sky bridge.  Riley was a champ, but poor Kendall needed help - she was just too short so I had to push her most of the way across while it was wobbling.  Talk about an extra challenge for mom - trying to hold on, push Kendall and watch my own step!  I loved every minute of it!

Still smiling!  That's a good sign - oh wait, we haven't zipped yet!  Once the kids were hooked up, they were standing on a stool because they were so short, so I gave them each a good push from behind and off they went!  Think our guide was a little shocked how I sent them on their way.  Another opps?  Why give them a chance to freak out, right?

Here's Riley finishing one of his zips

All finished!  Kendall and I crossed the last one in tandem.  We had so much fun regardless of the rain/thunderstorm that passed through as we were literally half way through the experience.  It stopped by the time we were finished but we were all soaked by then!  The storm added an extra element of challenge for my kids since they are both scared of thunderstorms anyway! Nothing like being 200 feet up in a bunch of trees during a thunderstorm, right?

Riley and my mom went tandem for the last one too.  This last zip was about 520 feet long and the kids didn't weigh enough to get across all by themselves.  

Being belayed down after we were finished

Done!

My dad decided to go for the extra challenge and did his last zip backwards.  I was slightly jealous but glad I got to experience it with my kids and have them learn to love it as much as I do.

Here's the video version of our zip line experience:

After this experience, it made me start to think about what I might want to do after the kids are both in school full time.  I kept thinking the whole time we were on the course that our guides had the best jobs.  I use to teach adventure education as a part of my PE curriculum.  At Bethlehem Central, we had both a high and low ropes course at our middle school where I taught and a huge full blown high and low ropes course at the high school.  I was fortunate enough to be sent to Project Adventure in Mass. to be trained for a week in adventure education.  I also have had the pleasure of meeting and being trained by Karl Rohnke himself while at BC.  What an thrill and honor that was to meet one of the founders of PA and High 5!  When I was teaching at CV in Pennsylvania, I brought my love for adventure with me and wrote two grants for 6 low ropes elements at the middle school and spent a year writing an entire adventure curriculum for our school for my professional development project.  Maybe I need to start to consider a future in adventure instead of going back into the classroom or the gym.  If I'm going to do something outside of the home, it's gotta be something I really love and coaching doesn't work well with our family after school schedule or I'd be coaching lacrosse in a heartbeat!  It's all just food for thought right now...