It’s Balloon Festival time in these here parts!  🙂   The weekend will bring the big launch of over 90 balloons, but all eyes are trained to the sky during this week, because there are always a few early birds who come and take advantage of the quiet evening skies…you never know when one (or a few) will turn up.

Last weekend was a mini-launch of the Black Sheep Squadron, a group of balloonist who choose not to participate in the organized festival for reasons I won’t go into here.  About 20 balloons were launched, so we had a little preview of things to come.  Zan, the kids, and Neighbors chased one around the corner and even helped take it down.  I have no photos since I was home making sure dinner didn’t burn, but we got a bottle of champaign as a souvenir since Zan was the first on the scene where the balloon landed on school grounds!  (For those of you who don’t know, it is customary for the Balloonist to gift the landowner a bottle of champaign as a “thank you” for allowing the use of their land for touch-down and take-down.) 

So here’s the first of what is sure to be *many* hot air balloon shots over the next week.  Enjoy!