Up Up & Away!

This week has been so busy with work and family it was nice to spend a night out and enjoy the beautiful fall air that has slowly crept it's way through Michigan. A year ago us kids were trying to come up with ideas as to what to get Jerek's parents for Christmas. They are some hard people to buy for as they both have different hobbies and tell you "I want nothing" when you ask. sweet, NOT helpful guys! We decided that we would all go in on a big gift together instead of small, somewhat meaningless gifts.

Well last year I came up with the bucket list gift, and was pretty proud of it if I do say so myself! Jerek's dad was just recently forced to sell his share in a small airplane he owned with 4 other people. The other men were older and decided to sell the plane, meaning he was SOL and was selling his share as well. With that coming to an end and I knew I had a great idea up my sleeve; a hot air balloon ride!!! Yep, I nailed it, everyone thought it was a great idea! I did some research and found a place about 45 minutes away that my grandparents had used years ago.  I've been OCD mildly obsessed with reading reviews ever since I found out I was pregnant last winter and the reviews about this company were great! Here is the place we ended up going through if you live in the mitten or will be visiting any time in the near future!  The customer service was amazing, the balloon owners were so knowledgeable and mother nature was a perfect lady.

When it came time to giving the actual gift we didn't just want to hand them a gift card and say Merry Christmas, no we wanted something more than that! Jer's sister made this awesome scaled down version of a hot air balloon.  We had every intention of "flying" it over to his parents sitting on the couch but shit happens and that balloon ended up on the kitchen counter sitting nicely.

We all dipped out of work a tad early and met up in Oxford where we followed our balloon man/team and headed to the take off site. I was a little antsy because I was about to eat my arm off a little hungry, but Jer said we were staying in downtown Oxford to eat dinner so I put my big girl panties back on and womened up. The site was beautiful and the sun was just starting to go night night, as Tracen would say.

After the three balloons took off we got into our cars and followed the "chase car." It was like a movie and the balloon just flew over us and we stopped and waved and were acting all touristy and shit!

The ride was about 45 minutes long, which was the perfect amount of time for the riders and the follows if you ask me. Tracen wanted out of the car and I was still "hungry." We all thought that there was some calculated landing point but it was far from that. We landed in someones back yard..and the kids living there were on cloud nine. It was like a movie as they saw this balloon descending from the sky into their backyard as they ran out of the house barefoot, to take in all the excitement. This picture is taken by Jerek's sister's husband, in other words, my brother-in-law (if Jer and I were married that is) *wink wink* He hates on the iphone so bad and we all hate on his whateverthehellphonehehas but damn...the picture quality is on point!

We ended the night with some dinner at a place in downtown Oxford called Red Knapps. It had THE most amazing chili I've ever had I'm going to write a review on Yelp for it, and I never do that!

So if you need Christmas ideas, and I know we all do as it's October 12th and Christmas is only 74 days away, a hot air balloon ride might just make you the gift giver of the year, I'm just sayin!