Thanks for that reply. I now know where the error was in my assumption. I assumed the objects were actually moving rather than space expanding, which would have meant we had to be on the surface of the balloon rather than within the balloon in order to achieve the red shifts that we see. But this brings up a new problem, which maybe again is just my stupidity or lack of knowledge...
If the space of the universe is expanding, but the objects in the universe are not moving (or moving very little when compared to the expansion), then a light year is a calculation of distance, but not age. Everything I see in the press says that an object is x light years away from earth, meaning it is x years old. But this is impossible using the expanding space theory because when the light first leaves the object, the space between it and where "earth" was at that time is much less than today. While we assume the speed of light is constant, the ratio of the distance traveled during a period of time, to the total distance between the objects is constantly decreasing as space is expanded between the objects. If the objects in the universe were actually moving away from each other, rather than the space expanding, then using the light year distance as a measurement of age is valid, but if the space is expanding, then this correspondence is not valid.
So if an astronomer says an object was discovered that is 13.2 billion light years away, and we assume that means that the positiion of the object, when a photon of light was emitted from it, is 13.2 billion light years away from the earth at its present location, then the time for this photon of light to travel that distance is actually much less than 13.2 billion years. On the other hand, if you say we are just now seeing the light from an object that was emitted 13.2 billion years ago, it means that the distance between us and the object at the time of emmission is much more than 13.2 billion light years. But this is not at all what is being reported in the press. So either the press has got it all wrong, or (more likely) once again I have missed something really basic. Can someone please straighten me out on this. I'm sorry, maybe this is the wrong place to be asking this question because it is meant for debating the issues.