2nd annual hot air balloon watching picnic

Melissa and her kids picked Reid and me up Friday night and we all went to Rockcliffe Park - it’s the one with the Scouts’ Dairy Bar  -to watch the hot air balloons at the Gatineau Hot Air Balloon Festival / Festival montgolfieres de Gatineau. The cloudy sky was trying very hard to rain as we got into the van but since we’d skipped the beach the night before, and we had to feed the kids one way or the other, we went to our lookout anyway. No one can remember when we left to watch the hot air balloons last year but I bet it was about the same time. There were only three cars on the side of the road when we arrived at the park, instead of the dozens from last year. I guess most people weren’t as optimistic as we were.

We got a prime picnic/hot air balloon watching spot and ate our supper. The kids played with the Phlat ball, which is a ball that collapses to make a Frisbee sort of thing, picked at each other as kids do and bugged their moms, too. We stretched out bathroom trips by going in shifts. Sarah was kind enough to help Reid, who would have kicked me out of the stall but humoured Sarah. Afterwards, Melissa tookthe kids to buy ice cream cones while I watched our stuff - and the sky with increasing desperation. Reid came back with her single scoop of vanilla, announced she had to go back to the bathroom and handed me her cone. “It’s not mines. It’s yours,” she said. “Au contraire,” thought I. I would have chosen mint chocolate, or cherry cheesecake or even strawberry. I only buy vanilla for home but at a dairy bar … Surprisingly enough, I took only a couple of licks before pitching the cone. I didn’t want it and so I shouldn’t eat it. And I didn’t.

Once the ice cream cones were gone, Melissa and I agreed that the skies weren’t going to clear in time for the hot air ballons to launch. The kids kept pointing to tiny breaks in the clouds where the blue sky peeked through but it was getting dark too fast.  The kids - even Reid - played a game that seemed to be a sort of cross between hide-and-seek and tag. Reid and Stephen were on a team for a while. He carried her around on his back. She smiled so big I thought her face might break.  It was a bit nerve-wracking, though, trying to keep track of kids who were trying to stay out of sight of each other. It’s hard to know how long a rope to give them, to let them be active and independent and trusted and how to keep them safe.

Reid and I got home at bed time. She had time to tell Ken a couple stories and have him read a couple, too. The picnic was good. The company was good. We’ll hope for hot air balloon sightings next year.

This entry was posted on September 2, 2007 at 4:29 pm and is filed under Pastimes, Mama, Melissa and Peter. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.

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