Lantern Fest

I read about this fundraiser called Lantern Fest that was coming to Gastonia, and decided to buy tickets for us because it was raising money for the American Cancer Society, and because it looked like a lot of fun.  The price you pay includes a biodegradable paper lantern, markers and crayons to decorate it, and ingredients to make s'mores.

If you've seen Disney's Tangled, you know all about the floating lanterns that Rapunzel sees every year on her birthday--we of course saw the lights near the Rapunzel tower at Disney World, but I knew Em would love the opportunity to set off her own floating lantern.

We got there in plenty of time and took our blanket and chairs down to the field--it was in the middle of a speedway, and they had hundreds of fire pits and tiki torches set up.  They sold food and drinks, and we got to work decorating our two lanterns.

Rapunzel and Flynn made a guest appearance!

Em was super proud of our lanterns that we decorated with pictures, our names and the date.

When it got dark, the lanterns started going up!

They say they have a crew of "lantern chasers" that gather about 90% of the lanterns after they fall that night--the other small percentage just biodegrade or are picked up later.

There were thousands of people and hard to even estimate how many lanterns in all.

Toward the end of the night, a couple of lanterns got caught on the cell phone tower you see in the back here, and started a pretty big fire.  As we were leaving, the fire department was there to put it out, and the story made headlines everywhere.  It was really a super cool event, and beautiful to see all of those lanterns.  Em loved it!