The afternoon after Emily left, Wilford came! Wednesday evening, and Thursday were not super exciting. Wilford and I just hung out and did some yard work. Wilford was a champ and helped out tons. Scott loved having Wilford here :)
We've been having quite a time with a crabapple tree in the backyard. I've spent hours picking up those silly little thing. Finally, two weeks ago, we bought a shop vacuum that has ended all my woes. What used to take hours, takes less than an hour. I LOVE it! (Thanks Stan!!) Wilford was so nice and helped to shake the tree and vacuum some up.
Friday evening, we went and saw "Meet the Mormons" and loved it. We came home and got ready for a real adventure the next morning!
We arose early and headed off to the balloon fiesta!!
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| It was really neat to see the fire in the balloons |
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| Stan and Wilford as we walked into the park |
We took a million pictures and here they are in no particular order of occurrence:
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| We are proud Arizonans! |
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| We were just standing here and all of sudden this balloon started to pop up! |
The blue and red checkered white balloon behind us in all of it's stages:
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| just starting it's blow up process... |
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| A little bigger... |
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| All up and ready to take off... |
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| Getting ready, the referee man on the left was helping them direct up and out... |
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| He was giving them a thumbs up to go... |
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| And off they went! |
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| there were some really random balloons |
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| Wells Fargo! |
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| Sometimes you wonder what inspired the shapes... |
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| As the day went on, some of the bigger balloons struggled to get up and out because the temperature was too warm, but it was neat to see them blown up. |
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| It was quite the sight! |
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| Spidey-pig?? |
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| The back of Darth Vader |
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| These bees can maneuver in the air so that they all hold hands. Sadly, only one of them was able to get up |
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| We were able to meet up with our dear friends! Thanks Leanne and Thomas for finding us in the MASSIVE crowd! |
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| Here's the astronaut with the moon to his left. He never was able to leave the ground :( |
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| Yoda it is |
We headed home and packed up the car then to lunch and the delicious El Pinto:
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| Red Chile Ribs....yummmmmmmmmmm |
Then we went on a drive down to 4th of July area, named such because of the colors during the fall.
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| This picture was on accident but it does show that we have plenty of electronics going on :) |
After having that very large lunch, we decided we ought to hike at least a little :) Stan chose a three mile hike for us to do that took us up to a saddle in the mountain.
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| The beginning |
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| My two leaders |
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| There were beautiful colors the whole way |
Scott got a little fussy during the hike. I'm sure he felt like he had well done his time in the Ergo that day. He was so happy to reach the saddle and be able to get out for a few. He found a leaf and loved playing with it:
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| The view |
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| family pic |
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| A boy and his leaf and a man and his toy :) We found that Scott hasn't quite figured out that if he wants to put something in his mouth, his pacifier can't be there too. He kept holding the leaf against his face. |
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| We let him lay down and play for a few, he had plenty to say to us. |
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| Wilford frolicking at the end of the trail. It was just so beautiful, it deserved to be frolicked in |
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| Wilford found this guy on his leg |
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| It had recently rained in the area which left a beautiful blanket of colorful leaves on the ground |
We decided to keep driving and see what we could find:
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| Some deer! |
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| Some beautiful yellow aspens! |
And as we drove along, Wilford said "Whoa! What is that?!"
We have since learned, it is called a Barbary Sheep and is from Africa, introduced here for hunting. Way neat!! The boys got out to look at it while I stayed with Scott. They saw some beautiful views:
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| I'm in there smiling |
And as we drove to the top of this mountain, we came across a beautiful sunset:
It was a perfect ending to a perfect day. So happy Wilford was able to come and visit. It was a true adventure that day!
