Bealton Hot Air Balloon Festival and Lego Sculptures

Once a year in August the "Flying Circus" air show that's held at a small airfield near where we live has a balloon festival. We'd never gone before, so we decided to go this year.

                                                                            It was perfect weather for the hot air balloons.

We arrived at 7:30am since early morning is the best time for balloons to go up.

I took this picture because it shows a few of the bi-planes that regularly perform in the flying circus.

There weren't ever very many balloons in the air at one time.

Some of the hot air balloons came from other locations and landed at the air field.

I'm not sure why we didn't get any pictures of us with the hot air balloons.

The bi-planes were also flying as the hot air balloons were floating around.

The picture below was as the balloons were landing and being taken down.

Kent saw that people could pay for a ride in a bi-plane, and is now hoping to do it someday. It's pretty pricey, though.

After the balloon festival we drove to Winchester, Virginia, to the Museum of the Shenandoah Valley.

They had an art installation on the grounds of their garden.

All the "sculptures" were made with lego bricks!

These deer sculptures were life-sized.

Gardener Kent posing in the garden by the lego wheelbarrow.

Except for the hat, notice how Kent's clothes match the grandpa gardener in the lego sculpture below!

This bee and pansy were MUCH larger than life-sized.

There was a sign by each sculpture telling how many lego bricks it took to build each one.

This spider hanging in the tree would be a perfect Halloween decoration.

                              
The gardens themselves were very nice, and even had a small section with a Japanese garden. Kent was quite enthralled with the place, and the lego sculptures were unique and fun to see.

It was a lovely August day for an outing in the countryside of Virginia!

Matthew's Blessing in Kansas

After the reunion in Texas Kent and I flew up to Kansas at the beginning of August to spend time with Garrett and Krystal's family before Matthew's blessing.

The Carson home in Kansas is on a hill and has a great deck overlooking the surrounding area.

The kids had fun playing with the fairy garden Granddad gave them at the family reunion.

I took the chance to hold my adorable grandchildren whenever I could!

Granddad with little Matthew.

This is a mattress in the playroom in the basement. Daniel and Adam are playing with some of the micro machines their Daddy played with when he was a boy.

Daniel really took a shine to the calezedors that Kent had brought.

Alexa is very good at folding washcloths, so I took a picture of her doing her work.

A group hug is included after family prayer, which they have every evening before bedtime.

Here's little Matthew, the star of the weekend, on his blessing day.

               

                                  I   I couldn't decide on my favorite photo, so I put in several. I made Matthew's blessing outfit, but I kept it pretty simple.

I LOVE this family photo of the seven Kansas Carsons. 

Krystal's parents also came for the blessing, so it was a busy weekend!

Family Reunion in Galveston!

In the spring we started planning a family reunion at a beach house in Galveston. I think Adrianne made the reservation in April. We planned it at the end of July, around when Garrett would be home from his Air Force camp and before Tyler had to leave for his Army training. 

          
        

It was a good plan, but then Tyler learned that the week before his training (the dates of the reunion) was when he had to be preparing his company to go out in the field. So he was unable to attend the reunion. Rachel and the kids wanted to come, however. Kent and I flew to Houston in the evening on July 23rd, and the next morning I boarded a flight to El Paso.

      

As I got off the plane in El Paso I saw Rachel and the kids in the waiting area ready to get on the plane back to Houston. Each of us was flying with one of the twins on our laps, and we made the hour and a half flight back to Houston.

            

         
All of the kids did really well! Christian and Melody even took naps on our laps.

Rachel had everything very compact and organized so that she could walk through the airport with all of the kids. The double stroller for the twins was very helpful!

Kent picked us up from the airport in the Stinson's van and we drove directly to the beach house, after a stop at McDonald's for lunch.

 The beach house was nice and large, with enough bedrooms for every family.

 There was also a nice deck with some recliners and chairs.

          

      

The beach was about 200 yards away from the house.

The families went down to the beach in shifts on both of the full days we were there.

 All the grand kids had fun in the water and playing in the sand.

 Unfortunately we didn't get many pictures of the adults at the beach!

We were able to get a nice picture of Kent and me with all the grandkids. The photo I put at the top of this post was the best. We also tried to get one on one of the beds, but as you can see that photo wasn't as successful!!

       

Baby Matthew, age seven weeks, was a hit with his big girl cousins, who loved taking turns holding him.

Kent gave each family their own fairy garden to take home with them.

Adrianne organized a family jeopardy game, which was lots of fun. Garrett and Krystal's family won the game.

Another awesome thing that happened is that Adri took individual photos of the grandchildren each holding a wooden letter spelling out the words "CARSON GRANDS". The photos are on the wall of our kitchen.

 Adrianne and Rachel both turned 30 in July, so I baked them each a birthday cake. Adri's was chocolate peanut butter and Rachel's was lemon raspberry.

 As we were ready to leave the beach house, we set the camera on top of a van and set the timer to get this photo, which I've put at the top of the blog. It would have been perfect if Tyler had been in it!

After we got back to Houston, the guys went shooting. Kent took the photos, so he was there, too.

 Since I didn't get any pictures of Garrett, Jason or Russ at the beach house, I thought I'd add them in here!

We are so blessed to have such a wonderful family! We're so glad for everyone who made the effort to be at the reunion. 

After the reunion we went to church and had a family dinner at Adri's house in Cypress. Kent and I took our usual photo with Kiera and Savannah.

I had all the granddaughters who were still in town (Rachel had already left with her kids) pose wearing the smocked dresses I'd made for Lissa and Adri when they were young.

They were also holding the church bags I'd made for each of them.

There are LOTS of sewing hours represented in those dresses and church bags!!