Anniversary Surprise!

Just before I drifted off to sleep on Thursday night, Rob told me that he had a surprise for me for today - our 6th wedding anniversary. Now I know Rob and I know he's not a candlelight and roses kind of guy, but he does have interesting surprises from time to time. He said it would involve getting up around 5:30 and include IHOP pancakes made by Mr. Ram*.

Rob's taken me to all sorts of surprising places. One Sunday after church he said we were going to a picnic, when we got there it was a inaugural picnic for the governor! I remember the first time he took me to the Everglades at night to see the alligator feeding frenzies. He took me to see a night launch of a space shuttle. He even took me to a media event in the Gables that was hosted by the Rev. Sun Myoung Moon...although that was kind of an accident. We didn't find out that until we got there. It was also funny because the menu clearly said we were getting salmon, but my salmon tasted (and looked) strangely like chicken. We snuck out early.

Because Mr. Ram's IHOP is south of here, I assumed he was taking us to the Everglades. I figured there was a shooting star or meteor shower. I'd also heard the alligators are especially concentrated this year and thought maybe we'd go see them. Then he let it slip that the pancakes wouldn't actually be AT the IHOP. So I was completely bewildered.

Well 5:30 became 4:45, as we needed to BE THERE at 5:30. Caleb was really confused when we pulled him out of bed!

What was the surprise? It was a Hot Air Balloon Race! The Sunrise Community Balloon Race, which is a fund raiser for Sunrise Community - a center for disabled people in Miami. Mr. Ram's IHOP was there providing breakfast, just like he said. Anyway, it was amazing, and here are the pictures to prove it!

They flew right over the field - yes it's daylight. We found out the parking opened at 5:30am, but the events started at 6:30 and because of the weather, the balloons took off closer to 7:30. I tried to block that out of my tired mind though.

Can you imagine seeing hot air balloons for the first time and not knowing what they were? Caleb was delighted.

The Mayflower balloon in the distance didn't fly, the ones that flew took off from a different part of the airport.

Eleven ballons in the sky - there were probably 15 or 20 total. The objective was to drop a marker on an X on the ground. So it wasn't exactly a race, more like a game of archery. We don't know who won.

There were a few corporate balloons, one was the Curves balloon - do you think it's just coincidence that it's slimmer than the other balloons? :)

Energizer had a balloon shaped like their famous bunny - it was a big hit.

Our little Energizer bunny - he keeps on going and going and going!

Who would have dreamed there'd be a duckie balloon!



*Mr. Ram is the owner of the Naranja IHOP. He opened it about a week before Hurricane Andrew in 1992. At the time it was a good investment, but the hurricane destroyed that part of Miami. IHOP survived, but most of the population left and developers pulled out of plans to build new housing there. During the days after the hurricane, Mr. Ram gave away food to the people. He's been seen as a sort of local hero ever since. Even today Naranja is sort of wedged between a swelling Cutler Bay and an expanding Homestead. It hasn't really caught up with the rest of Miami. But even though his IHOP isn't the busiest, he's always volunteering to help people out.