The unfortunately balloon-free zone

Hey, Blaine here (Just saved you 3 seconds of your life from having to scroll to the bottom to see who it was, and then took them back and then some making you read this paranthetical...) This is great! I hadn't even heard about the blog until I was just going through my personal email (something I get around to doing less and less frequently now since my work email keeps me busy enough) and found an invitation to join. I went through and read everything so far and I express my excitement with everyone else that I think this is a great idea and will be best the more people are into it. I also express my gratitude to Andrea for setting it up and to all those who have posted so far.

Anyway, I figured the best way to show my support was to actually create a post but I wasn't sure what I'd say (is that not the problem we all have?) But I liked Clay's recommendation--to post tidbits from our lives. So I thought I'd throw in something funny from church today.

So we were sitting in the cultural hall overflow which in our crowded ward is nearly full every week, and Gwen suddenly points up to the ceiling excitedly: Surely from some event the night before, there are about six helium filled balloons with long dangly strings in the corner of the gym. Now you could see how this would happen--kids let balloons go, they fly up out of reach, what are you going to do? But what made it funny is that they were right at that point where they were still buoyant enough to overcome gravity, but just barely. Also they were congregating right by the air conditioning vent. So for the most part they would just hang out there, reverent and still, until, about every ten minutes the air conditioner would kick on. At this point something different happened each time. Some times they would just blow around in a circle or blow off into the chapel (pretty entertaining, er, distracting in and of itself...). But some balloons caught a downdraft and that's where things got interesting. You never really saw it coming but you suddenly notice that every eye of every kid is fixed on something. There it was, the infamous red balloon with the extra long string, gliding lazily overhead, meandering slowly down, taunting the children, just begging to be grabbed, swooping low but never quite low enough. You watch the kid in the front row suddenly stand up on his chair and reach with all his might. He knows fierce whispers then threats and forced takedowns will ensue but he doesn't care anymore. AL-MOST! But the red balloon continues to elude. Red makes his way back up but soon Mr. Yellow comes out to play. This one gets particularly close to us and Gwen begged me to get it but, though I had no doubt I could jump high enough to snag it, I don't know, I guess it just didn't feel appropriate during the sacrament. Anyway, eventually I think they all blew down to some lucky kid or other. Poor Gwen, none ever came to her. It didn't matter though because, wouldn't you just know it, the parents were deflating the balloons and throwing them away. Much to their kids' diasappointment of course. It's something I guess we all have to learn at some point: that even when church is at its most fun, it's still a balloon-free zone.