jason and i went to iowa for the annual balloon festival last weekend. i also got a little more friendly with instagram and camera+ on my iphone, so please forgive all of the artsy-fartsy photos that may follow.

balloons were landing as we drove into town, which was a nice sight. as we pulled into renee’s driveway, we discovered that we had just missed a balloon landing in her yard! we watched as the pilot dismantled and packed the whole thing up, which was neat, but not as neat as seeing it float towards us and land would have been.

the balloon we missed is the lower left one in this photo. (and i collected three trading cards this weekend! i know people.)

later in the evening, we enjoyed the red moon rise. i tried to get photos but either i don’t know how to use cameras or it just wasn’t cooperating. this is the best i could do. you can kinda see the man in the moon, right?

a storm kept us from the farmers market on saturday morning, but we ventured out to the town square in the afternoon.

cheese and crackers for dinner! basically.

it was wine night at the balloon festival, which is good because it was too windy for balloons to fly! a few inflated and showed off, but it’s not the same as trying to count how many balloons you can see in the sky.

we were introduced to wine mojitos almost as soon as we started perusing the options. i will have to remember this one for next summer — 2013: the summer of wine mojitos. and zero dental surgeries.

two saints, summerset, snus hill and rosey acres were the wineries in attendance. i have to admit that i felt quite partial to snus hill, simply because they were so cat-lady-friendly.

me and my sweetie. aww.

renee had just taken a bite of her dinner. oops!

ok, instagram. you win this round.

this was camera+’s hdr mode. i’m not so sure i like it, but whatever.

purple people eater is gonna get ya!

jason’s nephews, christopher and alex, were on balloon crews this year! go, dudes! (right after jason snapped this photo, christopher spotted him and asked him to help pull.)

we got a tiny bit of a night glow, which was nice.

it was nice to finally really see some fireworks up close — after being too unmotivated to find fireworks on july 4th and being too forgetful to catch the three weekends of fireworks in and around my neighborhood.

then we went home on sunday. perhaps we’ll return on a less windy weekend for next year’s festival!