Hot Air Balloon Landing

We had some major unexpected happenings this evening.  A hot air balloon dropped in our front yard for a visit.

We saw the balloon off to the west, and they were travelling slowly our way.  We thought they were going to land in the neighbor's open field, but the balloon went back up and made a little jump over some trees and my barn.  We watched them land right in our front yard - right between my willow tree stump and the flowering crab apple tree.

Kids were totally excited to see all this happen.

Since the balloon was between a couple of obstructions, the pilot wanted to scooch over closer to the creek.  He had the 3 kids climb inside the basket, he shot some hot air back in the balloon, and we floated them over about 30 feet.  Here's a picture of the 3 kids floating over - their first balloon ride ever:

 They landed 15 seconds later without incident.  

They tore the balloon down pretty quickly, and kids helped cram the balloon in a big bag.  

It was a super exciting evening for everybody!