Sunday, November 20, 2011

AZ Balloon Festival

Today we took the girls to the Inaugural AZ Balloon Classic.



My girls love Hot Air Balloons so this was something I knew they were going to love. We arrived at 7am just as the National Anthem was beginning and we were able to see the balloons start inflating.





The kids were so excited!




Then before we knew it they were starting to take off.



One by one





Before we knew it the sky was full of them






And my children's eyes were filled with wonder and awe (they look SO alike here!)



There is just something about hot air balloons that brings out the kid in everyone and is magical (except my husband who was asking me if there is some hot air balloon cult following that he is not aware of, lol!) It was a great family day!





We bumped into our friend Alexa who was VERY excited as you can see :)



Ella was too! :)



We warmed up by the heat of this balloon that we were standing only feet from




And we watched this balloon take off right over our head. Literally!



Then Paulina called and told us one balloon was letting people get in for photo ops. We ran over and got in line and this was this was a big highlight for my girls!



Next we were off to find donuts and coffee, but where are they? Right over there pointed the monster, (hee hee)



Yummy donuts!!!




Next it was bounce house time!!





It was an amazing fun filled morning and I can't wait to go back next year.


Saturday, November 19, 2011

Lighting the Night and Lighting up Faces!

The past two weekends the girls and I participated in two charity walks. The first was the annual Light The Night Walk benefiting the Lymphoma and Luekemia society. This was in memory of precious Baby Violette, and in honor of little Brady Wein who has been battling AML since infancy (but has been in remission since January, woo hoo!!)

Here is Brady. So cute, I just want to steal him ;)



The girls loved the light up balloons (what kid wouldn't??)



Peek-A-Boo



We watched the musicians perform and danced a bit :)




We got their faces painted!! (worst face painting ever- but free teenage volunteers so you can't complain, lol) They are supposed to be a butterfly on the left and a dog on the right...



Next we headed over to the bounce houses.






It was nice to have some time to play and do fun stuff before the walk started. Made it more fun for the girls then just showing up and walking. But soon it was time to get ready to go, so we hit the LONG bathroom lines and the girls were hugging and loving on each other while we waited. And I was lucky enough to find someone to take a photo of me and the girls :)




Excited and READY to start :)



Afterwards the kids played with Brady's favorite thing on Earth... a Ball!! LOL



then they were super excited when the fireworks began!!



It was a really great fireworks show and a real great night.



The girls are already asking about next year.



This past weekend we participated in the Hope Walk for Huntington's Disease. HD is a very scary and non-curable disease that is completely devastating to those who have it. A positive diagnosis is often viewed by most as a horrible death sentence. So those with HD can only do one thing and that is hope... hope they don't get the gene from their family members and HOPE there is a cure soon.



They love these walks!



The cool thing was, Ella's Daisy Girl Scout Troop decided to walk together as a troop for this event.



We all wore our tie dyed shirts and beaded necklaces.



The troop made the beaded "Hope" necklaces to pass out to people at the walk. Our goal was as often as possible, to choose people who looked like they could use some hope, or a smile, or something to brighten their day. And we definitely LIT up some faces with those necklaces.

We got some cool face painting done.



But nobody was as cool as our fellow girl scout sister, Bailey!



We had a dance party while we waited for all the kids to get their face painted...



Ryen was shy around her "boyfriend" Leo.



Her and Leo then took turns taking pics of each other with Trish's camera in the wagon while waiting for the walk to start. Too cute!!




But not bad huh? And check out this flirt!!!



And we're OFF!






Afterwards we let the kids play at the playground and gave them all lollipops for being so good and for passing out all the necklaces, even though some of them wanted to keep them :)







We had a great time and it was even more fun being with our Girl Scout troop. :) And I had fun with my bestie :)