Well, the Bobbett family tradition continues. We took Amai to the balloon festival last night and had a great time. For nostalgia, here’s a picture from last year- a week before I had Ashe. It brought back such sweet memories being there this year, remembering that a year ago I was there doing the same- having to stop every 10 minutes or so for pre-labor contractions to stop. We took pictures last year specifically to mark our last outing as a family of three. Though I wouldn’t have dared to keep him up with us this year, I missed him so much and found myself looking forward to next year when we will be bringing him too!

A year ago I had no idea what I would do with two kids, let alone what I would do with a boy. The moment he was born though, he looked me straight in the eye and I was filled with wonder yet again as my heart expanded in ways I didn’t know it could. I love having my little boy! It’s so hard to believe that he will be one in less than a week. The second child’s first year seems to go by about ten times faster than the first, in my book at least. If/when we have a third, I am quite certain that I will have to make a serious effort to stop moving long enough to dwell in the innocence of that baby’s first year of life.

It was insanity in the parking lots. In the five or six years that we’ve been going, it has never been that packed. I mean, seriously people! Last year, we leisurely pulled into the “prime parking” lot and found a space about halfway in. This year, it took about fifteen minutes to get from 75 to Jupiter (about half a mile), and we got one of the very last parking spaces in the field aptly called “value parking”.

Then we started walking. We thought it would be smart to cut across a large field since we are so knowledgeable about the geography of the festival grounds. Well well, someone must have known that everyone in the DFW area would be coming this year and they had placed temporary chain link fences around every area where we might be able to cut through. So- once we made our shortcut, we had to make a sharp turn and truck it back to where all the other herds of people where walking (and basically go back to where we started). So much for trying to think outside the box.

After a bit of walking, a bit of swinging Amai forward and backward between us, a bit of carrying her on our shoulders, a quick stop at a porta-potty that had no toilet paper, and several calls to locate the friends we were trying to meet there, we finally arrived. We found a fairly level spot and put down our blanket. Our friends arrived and we got settled in time to get some barbecue sandwiches before the balloons lit up after dark.

For all the effort of battling the cars for parking and trecking across God’s green earth, the Plano Balloon Festival remains one of my favorite Bobbett family traditions. The weather was great this year. The balloons are so much fun to watch- as they take off and as they light up. Amai loves going and seeing it all and it’s just too much fun seeing that look of wonder on her face as she takes it all in. There are corndogs and funnel cakes (though we had neither this year). And at the end of it all they even had a big fireworks show.

To top it all off, we got to spend some time with some new friends from church- who have a son in Amai’s class at Mother’s Day Out. Josiah and Amai ran around chasing each other and playing the whole time. I really expected her to get exhausted by the end of the evening, but I must have forgotten that she shares genes with the energizer bunny. She didn’t even fall asleep on the way home (at 10:30 pm!!!!)

Awesome night for us, thanks to Nanny and PawPaw who came to stay with Ashe while we went out with our girl!