September...a wedding, Colts and a Hot Air Balloon Ride!

It is way past time for an update on the blog! Everyone keeps reminding me that I haven't put up new pictures to let you know what is going on in our lives!

Our September kept us pretty busy, starting with my brother's wedding in the middle of the month. I made the wedding cake. Below is the top of the cake:

And here is a picture of the entire cake. A lot of time people ask me how long it takes to make these? This was about 18 hours of baking, 2 hours of making frosting, and about 14 hours of assembly. *sigh* It makes me tired just thinking about it!



I always love capturing the groom's face when he catches the first glimpse of his bride on the wedding day. Here is Bruce:
Here is the happy couple during the ceremony.

On Sunday after the wedding, we ended up watching the Colts game with our neighbors, Tim, Brook and Colby. Brooke js a huge Sanders fan....yep....she loves our dog! She loves him so much that she earned herself a job that day. She is coming to our house on Tuesdays and Thursdays after school and letting Sanders out and playing with him. She is really good at working with him on his obedience commands.
Colby decided it would be funny to get in Sanders' crate during the game. I had to laugh when we put Sanders in the crate with Colby. What is it with kids wanting to get in Sanders' crate? Sanders is much happier having them in there than himself!

On September 25th, we finally redeemed the one raffle prize we've ever won! 2 years ago, we were at the Second Helpings' fundraiser and ended up winning a hot air balloon ride with Bill Oliver, the owner of Oliver Winery in Bloomington. We had a gorgeous afternoon for the ride.

I never realized just how BIG these balloons were until we were helping get it out and inflating it. First we unrolled the entire balloon. It was probably 100 feet long!

Then we used a generator powered fan to inflate the balloon from one end, while Bill and his buddy made sure the balloon was stretched out properly at the end. You can see Bill's silhouette at the end of the balloon:
I stepped inside of the balloon to take this picture. I thought it was kind of cool!

Here, Tony is posing with the balloon before we get in it. Bill is inside the basket using the burner to continue to fill the balloon.

Here, I'm getting into the basket...ready for take off! Luckily I didn't fall.
And, here we are shortly after takeoff. You can see our balloon shadow. Off to the right of the shadow is the truck/trailer we came in. If you look closely you can see the people who came over from across the street to watch us take off!
Looking up at the inside of the inflated balloon.
We gained elevation rapidly! We eventually got up over 1 mile in the air! Below is Tony's favorite picture from our trip. Assembly Hall at IU. It is off to the left of the football stadium.
I loved how our shadow looked as we traveled along!
Looking down from the basket to the trees which were just a few inches below:
Another shadow. The leaves were just starting to change in Bloomington! I bet this was an amazing ride for someone 2 weeks later!
This is the house where we rolled up the balloon. We actually landed in the middle of the street (stopping traffic only for a brief minute on this subdivision road). As we were coming down, the guy mowing his lawn at this house stopped immediately, ran inside and got his family, and came back out to watch the show. It was so funny!
After we landed, we had to start deflating the balloon. The top of the balloon had a little vent to allow the hot air to escape.
It didn't take long for the balloon to begin collapsing
Here, Tony helps Bill bring the sides of the balloon to the center.
And afterwards, I had to take pictures of the grapes that were growing in the Oliver Vineyards!