October

October was the busiest month EVER!

It started out with the annual International Balloon Fiesta, one of our favorite events of the year!  This year we went twice....once in the evening for a Balloon Glow (they don't take off but light their burners at coordinated times so they all light up at once) and another in the early morning for a Mass Ascension (they all take off at the same time).  Josh and Aurora were even interviewed by the local news, although we never saw them air it.

The next weekend we went to the the kids' first airshow at Kirtland Air Force Base.  Alex was SO excited to see the big airplanes, jets and helicopters.  We got to see the Thunderbirds perform and it was amazing!  However, Alex did not realize how loud jets actually are and was a bit scared at first and covered his ears the whole time!

The weekend after that we went to McCalls' Pumpkin Patch with Megan and Sean!  We had a blast doing the various events there...checking out the 'old town', racing ducks and go karts, bouncing on the giant pumpkin pillow, etc.  We also had a great time going out to the pumpkin patch and picking out our pumpkins to carve!

After that we had Alex's 5th birthday, which I will do a separate post on.

Before we knew it, it was Halloween!  We carved pumpkins with Grandma S.  Both kids scooped out their own pumpkins this year and Aurora carved her own!  Alex drew his design and I carved it for him.  I think they came out great!

This year Aurora decided to reprise her jester costume, and Alex decided to be Megatron!!  With his current Tranformer obsession, I was not surprised.  We went to both Fall Festivals and the kids' schools, and on Halloween night we Trick or Treated both sets of grandparents and then went around Grandma and Grandpa K's neighborhood.  They got lots of good loot!

This month went buy in a flash!

Catching Up

I'm a little behind on updating the blog!  This is the busiest time of the year for us, and definitely my favorite!  I love all of the Fall activities.  We just got back from a pretty cool trip, and I'll post more on that later.  But first I didn't want to forget some of the other things we did the first weekend of October.

The first weekend of October marks the opening of the International Balloon Fiesta.  On the first Friday, they do something called "Albuquerque Aloft," where the hot air balloons launch from various schools around the area.  We took the kids to Aurora's school first thing on the morning to see two balloons go up.  They got yummy hot chocolate and had an up close view of the balloon crews putting the balloons together, blowing them up, and taking off.  It was fun!

I'm really glad we were able to do that because the Balloon Fiesta was a bit of a bust for us this year.  Since we had our trip planned for the second half of the Fiesta, that weekend was our only chance to go and weather just didn't cooperate.  So at least they got to see a couple from her school!

This is Alex's impression of a balloon with his hands.  I didn't have the heart to tell him that it looks like he's doing the sign for 'poop'!

We also had fun decorating for Halloween.  I'm big on decorating for holidays so we had a great time putting everything out and playing dress-up with some of the old costumes.  Afterwards we watched "Spookley the Square Pumpkin" and read, "If You're a Monster and You Know It."  

Even Freddie got in on the fun!

Since Balloon Fiesta was a bust, we decided to go with Grandma S to see "The Legend of the Guardians."  The movie seemed a bit dark to me but the kids loved it and Alex pretended to be an owl for days afterwards!  It was pretty cute!

Overall it was a great weekend!  I will post about our awesome trip soon!

Balloon Fiesta 2009!!

Thursday night we went to the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta. The weather was perfect! There was no wind and it was nice and cool. We did the Park and Ride so Alex was super excited about riding a "yellow school bus" to Fiesta Park! We met Grandma S. at the parking lot and she went with us.

After arriving, we immediately headed to the food stands. The kids had pizza and lemonade and of course, a funnel cake! As we sat and ate, they started blowing the balloons up. Last night was the Special Shapes Glowdeo, so all of the balloons going up were special shapes! Aurora's favorite balloons were Darth Vader (which is guarded by storm troopers) and Noah's Ark. Alex's were the elephant and the jack-o-lantern. Mine is the Haunted House and the Bumblebees that kiss!

After they get them all blown up, it's almost dark, and they start doing coordinated 'burns', where they all run their fires at the same time and glow in the night sky. Everyone counts backwards from 10 and then yells, "BURN!!!!" and they all light up! They do it over and over for about an hour. The Albuquerque Fiesta is one of the few remaining balloon events where people can go out on the field, touch the balloons and baskets, and talk to the handlers. Afterwards they do fireworks!

The kids had a blast! We can't wait to go again next year! Here are pics, and a short video of the burn.