blueberry

Labor Day weekend marks the Blueberry Festival here in town, so there's plenty to do. So much, in fact, that I think I need another holiday weekend to get over the holiday weekend. Saturday morning, the boys and I walked around and hit up all the local yard sales (of which there were many, to catch the biggest tourist weekend of the year here). Other than that, we had a mostly low-key day to get ready for Sunday.



Too early to even be bright on Sunday morning, I snuck upstairs to wake Liam up to see the hot air balloon launch. Of course, Liam didn't want to wake up, but Max (who wasn't scheduled to attend) sprung right up out of his bed shouting, "Mommy! I had such a good sleep!" so he ended up coming along too. We got to the field (conveniently located at a school with a playground) and watched all 17 balloons take off. We even ran into Liam's BFF Evan, who was there because his grandparents were actually riding in a couple of the balloons. After all of the balloons had finally launched, the boys and I went out to breakfast while we waited for the festival to open at 9. Yeah, did I mention that we got up early? At 9, we headed over to the festival grounds and walked around for an hour, checking out booths and waiting for the rides to open at 10. When they did, the boys had the pleasure of having Klaudia along as they went on all of the rides in the kiddie section (with the exception of the dreaded dragon roller coaster, which Liam is still scared of).


After riding their fill, it was back home for a quick lunch, and then out again (this time with Mike, too!) to my grandparents' house to hang out with out-of-town family members. Then back home for naps, then out again at sunset. We staggered into the field and squeezed ourselves in between blankets and folding chairs to watch the balloon glow, a synchronized lighting of the hot air balloons. And after that came the fireworks. I don't know if I've ever been that close to fireworks, honestly. They were right over us. The boys were thrilled, but we all were blowing firework debris out of our noses (and washing it out of our hair and clothes) for the next 24 hours. By the time we got home, it was almost 11:00 and we were all exhausted. Luckily, we had Monday to hang around the house and try to avoid doing much of anything.





More pictures can be found here if you want them.