Memorial Day 2011

One of my favorite things about Memorial Day Weekend is the war movies that are on TV. This weekend we watched (parts of) Pearl Harbor, Kelley's Heroes, a Vietnam documentary, and recorded Midway. D and I both love war movies, and I'm definitely super super grateful that I get to watch them on the comfort of my couch and never have had to experience them in real life. Sooo grateful to those who have fought for my freedom! We watched The Pacific a couple of weekends ago, so right now I am just extra aware of the atrocity of war (although I know I have no idea when it actually comes down to it. Grateful for that too).

Sooo....what better way to celebrate our war heroes than with hot air balloons!!? Freedom Weekend Aloft was this weekend, and we've never participated, or even heard of it. We decided to take the kids down to see the balloons so we went down to the park at 8am on Monday morning (because the balloons were to be in the air from 7am-9am). Well.... when we got there, everyone was leaving! We saw one balloon disappear behind the trees while we were heading that way, but didn't realize it was ending so early! We walked around the fairgrounds anyway and eventually found where the balloon people were (as they were driving away, all packed up). Oh well. We decided to drive to the airport and watch the planes land and take off...just as exciting I suppose.
That evening was the big-time party at the balloon festival with the band and fireworks and another balloon launching. It was free that day to go to the festival, so we figured the place would be swamped. D decided that he could find a place for us to watch outside of the gate (since we are somewhat party poopers when it comes to fighting large crowds of people in nasty heat with small children at bedtime). The balloons were to be up from 6pm-8pm so we found an empty, abandoned parking lot at 5:55pm. It was perfect! But, then 5:55pm turned into 6:15 which turned into 6:45 etc etc. We finally found out from a car who had joined us at the lot that the balloons would be up between 6pm-8pm. Ahhhh! Gotcha. "Between" was the word we had missed. So we waited some more and at 7:15ish, the balloons started appearing above the tree tops. And boy, was it worth it! The kids were soooo excited! It was all said and done ten minutes later, but I'm so glad we did it. Here are some pictures of our adventures...

Picnic in the back of the van.

We played some ball to kill some time.

It was a scorcher! (and Eli found mommy's water)

Our parking lot had an old rail road track next to it, so D took the kids on a mini adventure

"THE BALLOONS!!! THE BALLOONS!!!" This was after the first ones appeared. She was excited.

The first one.

"Wook!!"

There were like 15-20 balloons (we lost count) but it was hard to get them in one shot. By the time the last ones came up, the first ones were way far away!

In Africa...

Charley likes talking about Africa. Actually, she likes telling us what is going on there, in her little mind. D has had several opportunities to serve in Africa in Charley's short little life, so she has heard us talk of it quite often. She used to think Africa was at the top of the elevator at the GSP Airport, because that is where we last saw daddy as he left for his last trip. When we returned to get him, we rode the escalator to the second floor and Charley said, "Hey! We're in Africa now. Where's daddy?!"
Anyways, more recently, she has randomly said the following "enlightening" things about Africa:

Me: "Charley please shut the door"
Charley (while shutting the door): "why do we have doors? In Africa, people don't have doors on their houses."

Charley (out of the blue): "in Africa, Daddy's friends don't have mommies or daddies."

Charley: "hey Mommy! There's Eli's doctor!... In Africa, the boys and girls don't have doctors"

Charley (at the dinner table): "In Africa, the boys and girls don't have any food."
Me: Exactly! So we should eat all of ours and be grateful for what God has blessed us with!" (hey, can you blame me?)

Charley turned three last week, and my parents gave her a toy cash register, which she calls her "pay thing." The night she got it, she pretended to fly to Africa to give the boys and girls all of her money so they could buy some food at her pay thing. She left the basket of food on the table when she went to bed so they could come out from their hiding places and get it. She was very concerned that Eli was going to take it, but I assured her it would be okay. Other than hating on her brother, this act of generosity was refreshing to see, even if it was pretend! Putting others first isn't high on her list, which we are constantly working on. "Me" paired with "First" are bad words in our house!

For the things she says that aren't entirely true (no doors, no mommies, no food), we try to correct her but also use it as an opportunity to point her towards generosity, sacrifice, service, etc. Donald wants to take us all there one day, so hopefully Charley will be able to see that there are some doors and mommies and food, but more importantly, give her real money away so the boys and girls can buy real food at the pay thing!