Chasing Balloons

So, what would possibly make you run out of the house in a housedress, no shower, no makeup, toss the kids in the car, and go tearing down the road?  A fire?  A quake?
A hot air balloon?
Yup.  My husband calls me barely five minutes out the door.  My first thought was, of course, "uh-oh, he's broken down or had another accident!"  Then he tells me "I see a bunch of hot air balloons!  Five, six.....no, seven or eight....no, wait, there must be a dozen out here!  If you go outside, you'll probably see them!"
Of course, by the time I made myself decent to go outside, they were out of sight.  Sad little girls.  So I thought what the heck, let's go see if we can find them!  I caught just a glimpse of an American flag one in the distance.  Naturally, I thought it must be close to BYU campus, so I chased the girls inside and make them get dressed while I loaded the baby into a car seat.  We got in the car and headed down to State Street.  By the time I'd reached Bulldog, where I would normall turn off to go toward campus, I could tell they were in the other direction.
Strange, I thought.  They almost look like they're trying to land in the neighborhood!  Are they nuts?  So we turn off to head toward a shopping complex to watch from the parking lot, but they've disappeared again.  We drive up the hill toward the mall, and the girls just barely catch sight of one of them in the neighborhood south.  I find a road that heads in that direction, weave in and out of streets, trying my darndest not to hit anyone, and we finally find one.
It was a big, glorious American Flag on the side of a real hot air balloon!
In someone's back yard.
Drat.
No way I was going to try to get them out at that point.  We were close enough for a good glimpse of it anyway, so I promise them some coloring pages and we turn around to leave.  I flip around and head back to State Street.
"Mommy, I see a rainbow balloon!"
Like a hound on the hunt, I whip my head around, looking, and there it was.  Once again, in the middle of a block.  How the heck was I supposed to get to it now?
Oh well, I had to try! 
So I dive across five lanes of traffic and turn onto a side street.  I drive a ways, looking, and can't see it.
"Mommy, it's behind us, you passed it!"
Drat.  Thank goodness Utah is an enlightened state.  They allow U-turns.  So I flip a U-ey and head back up the hill.  I can see it, but...
Is that an apartment complex?
It is.  We turn into the side street, approach the parking lot....
And there it is.
Settled nearly on the ground, in the parking lot, is a big, beautiful, rainbow hot air balloon.
I didn't know anyone there.  But I didn't care.  There was plenty of room in the visitor parking.  I parked the car, got all the girls out, and we followed the ballooners back out to the street where there was room to drop the balloon without landing it on someone's Mercedes.  The girls got to get within about fifteen feet of a real, actual hot air balloon!  Then the owners and their crew started the takedown process.  It was a lot more complicated then I thought.  I thought once you stopped the hot air, the whole thing would just collapse under it's own weight, you roll it up, and be done with it. 
Not even close. 
Imagine wrestling a fifty foot wide beach ball that wants to keep flying into the air!  One of the crewmen pulled on a long rope to drop the top down, where another crewman got hold of the ring that held all the structural ropes (you can tell I am well versed in balloon parlance!) and they held it in place as two of the other crewmen started from the bottom, squeezed air towards the top, and in five foot sections, collapsed the balloon into a tight roll and tied it off.  The thing kept a big bubble of air and kept bucking the whole time.  By the time they were done, it looked vaguely like a string of half-filled rainbow sausages!
Well, the exciting part was over, and I still haven't had breakfast.  I was tired and I didn't want to sugar crash, so I decided it was time to head home.  We turned back towards the car.
"Hey, hey girls, wait!"
We stop.  The balloon owner came around the car with her hands clenched closed.  She said "I have something for you, hold out your hands."
The girls did.  And each of the three older girls received a stick on balloon applique just like the real one!
Happiness!
Taea of course immediately stuck hers to her shirt.  I explained that they were meant to be permanent, and so I gathered them up and promised to find a suitable home for them.  A hat, a bag, something they can keep forever as a memory of our balloon chase.
We thanked her and headed to the car, the girls chattering excitedly.  They reminded me of the coloring page promise, and I agreed I would look as soon as we got home.
So we arrive home, and while I cannot find the flag balloon as a coloring page, I did find the rainbow, which is a fairly common design.  I print out three rainbow balloons, and three blank balloon sihouettes, and the girls settle down happily with their crayons to create their own balloon masterpieces.
Why the heck would I go to so much trouble?  Well, two reasons.  The most obvious is that I love my kids and I wanted to share a special experience with them.  It's not every day you get to see a real life hot air balloon!  The other is that they have a favorite movie where one of the characters, Peanut, tells the rest of the characters that she has a special surprise for them.  The rest of the characters spend the whole day trying to locate one girl, Pillow, who is unaware of the surprise.  Of course they find her in the nick of time and they get to the surprise.  A big hot air balloon.  Ever since they saw that movie, they've been nuts about balloons!
So the next time you see an opportunity to make a memory with your kids, take it.  Chasing balloons is a lot more fun than I expected!  Even if I did nearly sideswipe a few cars in the process.