The Darth Vader balloon will be coming from Belgium. While the balloon has participated in other United States balloon festivals, this will be its first Nevada flight. For more information on this year’s participating balloons and sponsorship options, log on to www. Other special shapes for this year’s race include the Bonanza Casino-sponsored soccer ball and the Wilbur May Foundation’s Hopper T. Frog and Betty Jean, a new butterfly balloon. To celebrate its attendance, spectators will be encouraged to wear their favorite “Star Wars” gear at the Balloon Race. Pilots Benoit and Michel Lambert have traveled all over the world with the balloon, making appearances in France, Thailand and Canada.

If you were to picture Darth Vader without the helmet and just the facemask, you wouldn’t be far off. After buying it, we were dismayed (although not entirely shocked) to learn that the vast majority of the painted surfaces in our 2,700-square-foot home are slathered in aging lead paint. I wear this contraption because my 100-year-old house is undergoing an elaborate procedure to remove or encapsulate lead paint. Making the place lead-safe is just one component of my multi-pronged effort to create  an environment fit for raising an asthma-, cancer-, and cognitive impairment–free kid. Over the course of days, weeks, months, and even years, science is finding, exposure to these chemicals can create a range of health problems from asthma and hyperactivity disorders to liver and kidney damage, and even cancer. I’m pregnant, so I don’t really want to be trolling around the place huffing lead dust all day.