August

August has gone by so fast.  It is hard to believe that we have less than a week left.  We have been enjoying a little bit of a cool down here in Albany from the uncharacteristic heat wave we had in July.  The change has been very welcomed since all we have in our house is a single window AC unit.  It is still pretty warm in the day, but at least it has been cooling down at night for the past week or two.  

Some heat reprieve in the back yard

We've kept ourselves cool playing outside and eating otter pops

Enjoying the sun and an otter pop

This last weekend was the annual Air Festival in Albany.  We woke up on Friday morning and watched the hot air balloons from our front yard.  We decided to head over to the festival on Friday night for the night glow.  Ellie and Christian had so much fun watching the balloon crews set up and fill the balloons with air and heat.  It was a really fun activity for the family.

Christian called the balloons on their sides "cement mixers."  He loves his construction site trucks. 

The family enjoying the festival

Ellie loved to watch the balloons glow and was literally jumping up and down with excitement about the balloons.  She even gave her favorite balloons names like "America" "Star" "Dragon" and "Rainbow".

Ellie and me with "America" in the background

Here is the night glow.  The glow with all the different colored balloons was created a beautiful effect.  

 This morning we woke up early to make sure and catch the last launch of the festival.  We had a great view from the top of the swing set in the back yard.  I think we saw over 20 balloons pass over our house this morning.  It was so fun and the kids just loved it!

The favorite balloons by far were the family of 3 bumble bees.  I was only able to catch 2 of them in the picture today.  Ellie and Christian just thought they were so cute and silly floating in the sky.  

Cute picture of the kiddos after a walk at the Talking Waters Garden in Albany where we saw tons of frogs in the water.