If you’ve seen Tangled, you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about when I share my excitement about the Lantern Festival in Casa Grande last night! I’ve literally been dreaming of going to one of these awesome events for years, and I just so happened to come across it one day while on the internet. Man was it magical, and slightly dangerous I might add.

When you think of a lantern festival, you think it will be this piece of cake thing right? Oh, you just light up this thing and the paper will start flying beautifully up in the air, right? Nope. Completely not true. For one, if you’re unlucky like me, your toddler son will rip the paper lantern right before the lighting ceremony begins, and you’ll be disqualified from the show. Not really, you can’t really get disqualified, but it had zero way of holding in hot air… thus no flying lantern.

Since I couldn’t fly my own lantern, I decided to take some photos and some short clips of the festival. What I quickly observed was the struggle. The struggle was real folks! People left and right were trying to light these things for 10-15 minutes. Lanterns were nearly hitting people to and fro. It was a danger zone out there, a beautiful, and gorgeously lit danger zone. Maybe it was just the first timer in me, but I was so nervous that something was going to catch on fire the second one lantern landed on a blanket, or nearly hit someone’s head!! The good news? Neither of those things caught on fire. Apparently it’s a little bit more safe than one might have thought.

I have to be honest, photos do not do this thing justice. Seriously. It was an amazing experience, and the view was just awe-worthy! It was everything I could have imagined a lantern festival would be like and more! Sure, I didn’t get to enjoy the lighting of the lantern that I paid for, but it was a beautiful sight, with delicious smores to enjoy while waiting for sunset!  Oh yea, and my toddler son the expeditioner and rock collector.

Enjoy!
<3

Here’s a short clip I put together from the evening!! <3