Distance and space expansion

[Jacques]

... Now measure the distance between the 2 grains... the distance has grown. Without moving 'through space', the distance between the 2 grains has increased.

...

How do you mesure the distance between the two grain ?

In the analogy you are like God living outside of the balloon, but if you use the grid you traced on the ballon distance didn't change. It is why I think that the mesurement of distant galaxy won't change over time. We don't have an external ruler to make our mesurement, we only have the redshift. If it was possible to pull a mesurement tape all the way to the distant galaxy, for sure we would get different mesurement with time. But we only have ligth that is expanding (redshift) with space itself.