Day in St Louie ~ Zoo and Great Balloon Race

We had a wonderful day in St Louis yesterday. We started with a lunch picnic in the park. Tori got her favorite, strawberries and blueberries. Then we spent a few hours at the zoo. Tori is getting adventurous!Then we headed to the Great Forest Park Balloon Race! They started with sky divers.Then Tori got just ONE Oreo from daddy, and this is what happened! How does she make such a mess with just ONE Oreo! :)Then the balloon race started! The first was the Energizer bunny, and it was one huge bunny! The rabbit's ears are the size an average hot air balloon! It took forever for this thing to get off the ground.But Tori got very excited! It was a very hot day and we had a very long walk from the car and we were covered in sweat by the time the race started but it was all worth it to see her face when those balloons started filling up! :)There were SO many! There were 67 hot air balloons! We took a video on Brian's phone because they were all over! The balloons took off in waves and it was AWESOME! Tori loved it! She mastered "whooooooa!" She laughed, clapped, and waved the whole time!This was my favorite balloon.And we even got some snacks! :)Then as we were leaving a balloon had landed right by where we parked (I told you we had to park quite a ways from central field!) We walked to it for a close-up view and some pictures. The pilot asked Brian for help breaking down the balloon since his crew was stuck in all the traffic. So he had to pull on a large rope to keep the air vent open while the pilot pulled the rope on the top of the balloon down and made sure it didn't get stuck on anything. The balloon tried to attack the stroller as it was coming down! The pilot was such a cool guy, he let all the kids standing around roll on the balloon once it was down to get the rest of the air out. A very cool end to a great day!Tori was asleep before we even got out of the park! Lastly we had to stop and eat dinner at chick-fil-a before we headed home (Brian's idea of course). Tori loved the race so much, we are planning on making this a yearly thing!