Happy Birthday to my guy!
Thursday, August 13, 2009 at 12:21PM Yup, today's Nathan's birthday! We're not doing anything huge today, though...did our gift to him last week during vacation...by surprising him with a hot air balloon ride over Steamboat Springs! Now, don't get your hopes up, because I've still only made it completely through the morning of the first day of vacation (sad, I know, but I took a LOT of photos, lol). But. The morning of our first day of vacation was Nathan's balloon ride (okay, Nathan and I both went...obviously I needed to go with him, right? LOL! The boys and their grandparents came with us to watch the launch...with Asher and Micah anxious to be tall enough to go on a ride of their own).
After much debate and indecision, here is a small selection of my favorite pictures from that morning (we had to be at the launch site at 6:45 am)...
Getting ready to launch...this particular balloon held 8 of us, plus a very fun pilot...
The view looking south after we first got airborne.
The view looking north.
The fire mechanism thingie (yeah, I wasn't pay attention to the lingo)...very cool...and it helped warm us up on the brisk morning. Glad I'm short, though...(the top of my head was warm enough as it was, lol!).
Our shadow looking to the west...
The cool winding river...
Us. Taken by the fun guy from the Virgin Islands that we chatted with during the ride...
Love this one...see our reflection down below?
When it came time to land, we were at the mercy of the winds to some extent. We thought we might end up landing in the middle of the highway. That's part of the balloon team down below, scurrying across the highway.
We ended up landing right next to the road on an off-ramp...had our Virgin Islands friend snap this shot before the second launch for the day took off. (Very impressed by the balloon team and the smooth exchange...they drove the new passengers to the landing, got us out and loaded them in...all without disrupting traffic too much and keeping everyone safe.)
A final shot of the balloon, itself, as it was taking off again. (I had Noah take some pictures as we were launching initially but neglected to adjust the ISO on my purse camera, so they're pretty grainy. Drat.)
Ta da. :)
So, happiest of birthdays to you, my love! Hope this one was one to remember!!
And. Stay tuned the next couple of days...exciting announcements both tomorrow and Saturday!
Reader Comments (9)
Happy birthday, Nathan! Awesome pics! Can't wait to see more....
wow! How totally cool -- a hot air balloon flew over our neighborhood last night and my neighbors and I were talking about what an incredible experience that must be -- very cool gift.
Also -- I know you are swamped, but I would be interested to know your process for wading through such a large number of photos --- how much planning you do when going through photos to develop --etc.
Looking forward to hearing your big news :)
Great pictures Amanda! What a wonderful idea for a birthday present.
Happy Birthday Nathan ... hope you're having a fabulous day. And I'm excited for your announcements, too! :)
wow! happy birthday and what a ride!
So cool! I loved the picture with the balloon reflection from the lake/pond/water. Happy belated birthday to Nathan.
awesome, awesome present, amanda!!!
if i was not so afraid of heights, i would love to take a ride in a hot air balloon!!! how brave you two are!! ;)
enjoy the memory!!
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How cool is that...looks like he had an awesome birthday!
This is too cool Amanda! Happy birthday to your guy !