The Hot Air Balloon Festival in Albuquerque was definitely one of our trickier trips. Matt wasn’t able to take time off during the week of the festival. So we had to get creative on how we would do the New Mexico trip.

This reminded me of our first Christmas we were married. I had to work at the hospital Christmas Day. We were living in Utah at the time. Matt flew from Salt Lake City to Long Beach on Christmas morning (after I left for work) and then flew back on the same day and he arrived home before I got home from work. He got to spend Christmas Day with his family. Christmas night we were able to have our own little Christmas and I didn’t even realize he was gone. That was nice that the flights worked out where he could fly to California and back in the same day.

Anyways, so back to our Albuquerque trip. The kids and I drove to Albuquerque on a Friday October 11th. Matt went to work on Friday and then caught a flight from Phoenix to Albuquerque that night. He was supposed to get in at 11pm and then we were going to have to wake up at 3:45am the next day to see the Hot Air Balloons take off. He was then going to drive back with us to Phoenix on Sunday. My kids travel pretty well. Here are some tips on how to make the festival more enjoyable.