Bristol Balloon Fiesta

We ventured to Bristol (2hours away) for the day to attend the Bristol Balloon Fiesta for the day. We were were really only going there because of the festival and were just expecting a big city. But we were pleasantly surprised by Bristol! It actually has a lot of character. After doing a scenic tour of the city in the car trying to locate parking, we finally ended up parking at the Gallery (mall) parking garage. Nearby was the St. Nicholas Market on the pedestrian street, in the old church and stalls nearby with antiques, handmade items and lovely smelling street food (unfortunately we didn't discover this hidden isle until after we had eaten). 

Check out this sheep we saw decorated around town for charity (my Favorite is the hot air balloon one):

Exploring around town:

Next we walked along the river which had a bunch of cool vendors and hip restaurants. And saw this awesome whale sculpture (The waves are made out of plastic water bottles and bubble wrap

water dripping off the tail is bottle caps. Water also came out the blowhole sometimes, which was a fun surprise.)

The restaurant in this old barge looked cool! (What a great idea!)

A few of these sailboats came close to careening into each other (I think some of them had to be out on beginner sailing lessons!).

It was about a 2.5mike walk to the park we watched the festivities from. And we hiked up this large hill path from the riverside up to the suspension bridge (I may have been glad that Chris was pushing the stroller for that little hike). 

Such a sweet few moments while enjoying Popsicles at the park:

Gourmet picnic spread and rose wine for the 6pm mass ascent viewing from the park:

The first balloon has been spotted!

So excited!

The balloons seemed to pop up out of nowhere all the way up in the sky and we realized that they were ascending from behind these trees:

Mass ascent:

I counted 16 in this photo:

Check out the Penguins--our favorite:

Square balloon with a dragon:

We didn't get home until 10:40pm but it was a great day and well worth it!

On Sunday we didn't do much but I did manage to make Toll House recipe chocolate chip cookies. This craving started a few weeks ago when I found some Ben and Jerry's cookie dough ice cream. Well, three tubs later... All of the cookies here are hard and crunchy so some soft chewy cookies sounded so good. It was a little complicated doing some conversions from cups to mg and trying to figure out the baking temperature (in Celsius and also using a fan convection oven) but luckily they turned out well--nice and chewy! They sold chocolate chips in these little tiny bags (took 4 or 5 bags) and some things like baking soda had a slightly different name but we managed. :) Ethan was all excited to put his apron on and help.