Saturday morning my alarm clock was set for 5am. Why, you might ask? Colorado Springs hosts a Balloon Classic Festival every Labor Day weekend and last year for the first time we decided to go check it out. Unfortunately, we tried to go on the last day and missed the balloons taking off because of wind. So to make sure that we saw the balloons launch this year, we got up early on the first day of the event. By the time we were in the car heading out, the winds were picking up so we tuned in the radio and heard that they were cancelling the launch for Saturday morning. But, since we were already dressed and in our cars, we decided to drive up to the mountains and visit Helen Hunt Falls. We romped around and took pictures for about 45 minutes and then headed back down the mountains for our next adventure of the weekend: helping some friends move.
We got to the north side of town a little early and stopped for coffee and to play at the playground. Unfortunately, the wind was pretty bad and it was a very cool morning and I had forgotten my jacket, so I stayed in the car drinking my coffee until we left to help our friends move. We spent about three and a half hours helping them move and Camden was pretty cute wanting to help! I wish I had taken some pictures of him carrying some small things onto the Uhaul. After lunch, we headed home to let Camden take a nap before we started our evening activities.
After Camden's nap we took dinner over to my friend, Vanessa's family. (Vanessa had surgery on Thursday.) After visiting at their home for half an hour, we went to Toys R Us to let Camden look at toys and see if we could get a feel for something he might want for his birthday. (This proved pretty futile, because he wanted about 20 different things.) We then headed over to the balloon glow. This is where the pilots of the balloons inflate their balloons but stay anchored to the ground, then they periodically light up the balloons with the hot air. We found some food to eat and then got hot cocoa from the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory. So yummy! By then, it was dark and they were inflating balloons. We wandered around and enjoyed the sights of dozens of balloons lighting up. Camden really enjoyed it, but he said the fire scared him a little bit.
Sunday morning, my alarm was once again set for 5am. I noticed that there seemed to be no breeze outside, so we got up and tried to get to the balloon launch again. (Side note: When Camden woke up that morning, the first thing he asked was "Can I bring my money so I can ride on the bouncy slide?" So we let him get a few dollars out of his piggy bank to put in his pocket.)As we got there, one balloon was already launching so we continued on into the park. We got another cup of hot chocolate to drink as we walked around and watched the balloons inflate and launch off into the sky! After a while of doing this, Camden changed his mind about sliding on the bouncy slide and wanted to try the hamster ball race. Kevin and Camden both did this! We watched as a few more balloons inflated and launched. They said that 64 balloons were registered in this year's balloon classic. And that Colorado Springs' Annual Balloon Classic was the third largest in the nation. We then were getting hungry, so we left the park and headed to breakfast and then church.
After church, we came home for a much needed nap. Camden and I slept and Kevin relaxed and watched television. That evening we ate dinner at Pei Wei.
Monday morning, we slept in. When we are all up and dressed, we spent a couple of hours house cleaning and then headed to Denver after lunch. We decided to visit the new Ikea that opened up about a month ago. I've heard that it is the second largest after the one in Chicago. When we first got there, we waited in line to let Camden play in the play place. They allow potty-trained children who are between 37 and 52 inches to play for one hour while parents shop. We stood Camden up next to the height limit sign and he was right at 37 inches, so we got in line. We waited for about 15 minutes and as we got closer to the front, I thought that they would measure him with his shoes off and that would make him a little bit shorter. We put his shoes back on him, just in case. Of course, when it was our turn, the lady got out her measuring stick and measured him with his shoes off and he was barely under the limit. I felt so bad, because Camden was very sad and was crying a very sad cry. Poor guy. If only we hadn't set him up like that. Thankfully, after a few minutes of being really sad, he calmed down. We got a snack at the cafe and then started our window shopping expedition. It was fun! I like walking around stores like Ikea, Pottery Barn and Crate and Barrel. I think Kevin and Camden had fun too. We even bought a couple of table lamps for our bedroom. We finished off our night in Denver by eating at Maggianno's Little Italy.
So that was our weekend, how was yours?
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