yeah, it's worth it

This weekend our big activity (after baking some granola) was checking out the annual Ballunar Liftoff Festival at NASA. Spencer and I drove down on Saturday afternoon and he had fun on carnival games (slides and jumping!) before we met up with one of his favorite pals, Landon. We staked out a spot at the edge of the field and had a great view of everything in the sky: parachuters, power parachuters, formation flyers, and, of course, balloons. Unfortunately, throughout the afternoon and evening Spencer spent a decent portion of the time with his hands on his ears. He seems to be so sensitive to low, loud noises. And balloons are noisy. After sunset was the much-anticipated balloon glow, and we were sitting right next to the feature balloon: Airabelle the cow. The whole glow event was simply amazing. Afterwards Jim met us at our hotel near NASA, so we could go back to the field bright and early in the morning to check out the competitve part of the festival. Here are our pictures from the weekend.

When we left, things were starting to go downhill for Spencer. He usually sleeps about 14 hours a day: 11 1/2 - 12 hours overnight and a 2 - 2 1/2 hour nap . But Saturday he fought his nap and never went down. And between staying up late for the nighttime events and getting up early again on Sunday he only racked up about nine hours over night. So, by ten in the morning, he had been up for a while already, several hours short of sleep, and severe crankiness set in. He perked up when we stopped at Central Market on the way home, but fought his nap again for nearly an hour before giving in for just a one hour nap. After Spencer's (early) bath we were all relaxing on the bed together putting on his PJ's and he turned to Jim and announced "I like you." Then he turned to me and said "I like you too mommy." He continued, "you're my friend daddy!" Awwww. It really does erase the memory of the frustrations dealing with a cranky 2 1/2 year old all day, and makes being a parent so worth it.