Hot Air Balloon Ride

For Christmas this year, Erik surprised me with a reservation for a hot air balloon ride! If you're at all familiar with the Phoenix area, you'll know how popular hot air balloons are here; they're almost as iconic as the saguaro cactus. We've seen them floating around just north of us many, many times, mostly in the evenings (we're not up and out early enough to see the morning ones).  Once, we even had a balloon hover right above our backyard! As neat as it is to see a hot air balloon fairly closely, I still wanted to know what it is like to ride in one.  Going on a hot air balloon ride was one of my "bucket list" activities, like going to Europe and learning the violin. So it was awesome that I got to cross hot air-ballooning off the list! 

Erik made reservation for January 4th, a Saturday. We asked Erin, our go-to baby sitter, to watch the kids while we went on our 5-hour balloon excursion. We first drove to a parking lot in the airport off of Deer Valley (we just followed the signs for Hot Air Balloon Rides), parked, signed some papers, and loaded ourselves into a van with about 10 other people. That van then drove up north to a large plot of land with nothing on it but sage brush, lots of rocks, and the occasional cactus. We all got out of the van and watched as our hot air balloon was set up.  This was extremely interesting and entertaining for me. It took them about a half hour to set up the balloon.  They tipped the basket upright and had us all get in. It was kind of a tight squeeze and there was no sitting. We thought it would be cold up there, but it was actually pretty hot, at least for me since I was standing right under the burner. I was so close to the burner, that I could feel my hair getting hot.  The balloon ascended so gently and smoothly that it was almost a surprise when we were in above the ground. We spent an hour floating around in the air. It was an amazing view, quite loud, and felt like 15 minutes instead of a full hour. We got several videos of the ride. Hot air balloons don't have steering abilities, we just floated wherever the wind took us. The balloons can go up and down of course, depending on how often the burners are ignited, and the pilot was also able to turn the balloon around by pulling some strings (literally). The balloon also doesn't have landing gear, so we basically "crash-landed", but with our pilot being skilled and it being a nice, calm day, we were able gently drift down to the ground without much more than a bump. After getting ourselves out of the teeny tiny basket, we were all seated and treated to champagne (Martinelli's for us), hors d'oevres, and cake while the sun set. We paid, tipped, and got a certificate of flight in return.  Erik and I got plenty of pictures between the two of us:

The inside looked like a stained-glass cathedral 

Setting up the balloon.

We saw a pack of running javelinas that we must of spooked.

The sister balloon that was part of the same company

Packing up the balloon.  It looked like a lot of work, I can't believe the do this twice a day

Seated & treated.  No, Erik did not drink those champagnes.  He didn't drink any champagnes at all!

Lego Discovery Center

January 2nd

Finally into January! I'm slowly closing the gap of the time the events in the post actually occurred to when they are finally posted. Anyway...the kids were still on winter break and I wanted to take them somewhere so they're not just hanging around the house, rotting their brains with too much screen time. Since Ian has been so obsessed with Legos, I chose to take him (and Gabe and Elisa) to Lego Discovery Center in Tempe, not too far (also not super close) from our house. Erik coincidentally had work off that day so we all were able to go together as a family. I've been there once more with Elisa when she was on a Kindergarten field trip, but Ian was too little to remember anything, let alone enjoy the experience. 

 Ian enjoyed the experience this time! So did Gabe and Elisa. We participated in just about everything the Discovery Center had to offer, before we got hungry and ate at Rainforest Café for dinner before heading home. The pictures describe our experience best:

"I caught these two naughties makin' trouble!"

Entering the Discovery Center.  Elisa was excited that Ian was excited!

 

There was lots to see and look at in the Lego displays.  The displays were Arizona scenes. 

I helped Ian make a dinosaur

 

Ian made an Emmet car! It didn't race too well, but it sure looked neat.

 

Gabe made an awesome, fast car.

It was fun to race all of the kid's cars at once.

 

I took Ian to a step-by-step Lego building class. He followed the instructor and made a penguin using the Duplo Legos.

Elisa made some ducks. 

Just hangin' out with a friend

Gabe made an awesome 3D Lego Mario.  They let him display it in one of the rooms.

Gabe and Ian went to (another) step-by-step Lego penguin-making class, this time with regular-sized Legos. 

Gabe next to his Lego Mario Creation.  The others were there already.

Elisa in front her unicorn that they let her display on the big Lego clock

 

 

 

Riding the Wizard ride.  This is one of two rides in the Discovery Center.  The other is similar to (but not nearly as good as) Toy Story ride in California Adventure. I didn't get any pictures of that ride because it's too dark.

We ate at Rainforest Cafe since it was in the mall and we hadn't been there in forever.  The kids were slightly scared of the animatronic gorillas, but they sure enjoyed looking at all the stuff in the gift shop.  The food was--as usual--overpriced and just okay.

Kid's School Portraits

Here are the kids' school portraits (months and months after they were taken, of course). As you can see, Elisa's and Ian's are kind of ridiculous (still cute though).  Gabe's picture is the best out of the three--he's almost smiling! This is why I go to JCPenny.  

Post-Christmas Fun

Here are more pictures of some fun things we did after Christmas.  Grandpa Ron and Grandma Julie left a few days after Christmas, and Grandma and Grandpa Nelson stayed a few days after their departure:

Dec. 26

WoooOooOOoo! I went to use my bathroom, and look who I found in there! Haha, should I display this one at Ian's wedding?

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Also Dec. 26

This 800-piece Lego truck took forever and a year to build.  Okay not that long, but days. Ian did some, but it was too overwhelming for a 4/almost 5-year-old to handle.  Even for me. Ha.  I could only work on it in half-hour increments because it just went on forever and I got tired of it.

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Dec. 26

Some pictures of my dad and mom

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Dec. 28

I took a few pictures of my parents with the kids, before they headed back up to Cedar City, a 7-hour drive.

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later that day: Dec. 28

Elisa's heart had been acting funny (beating really fast for short increments of time), so Erik said she could use an EKG machine to check her heart.  She didn't have any of the "episodes" while she was hooked up, but the machine did big up a slightly irregular beat at some point.

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Dec. 29

Gabe and his messy room.  That huge car track is still there, waiting to trip someone.

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Also Dec. 29

I snuck a picture of these two playing with their new beanie boos in church.

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Dec. 30

We went out for lunch at Butter's with Grandma and Grandpa, before the left to go home (some pictures stolen from Grandma!).