Every October

Jeff's birthday is this month, and if you know Jeff, you know he's ALL about his birthday month. That's right, he's claimed the entire month of October for his birthday. Jeff had an idea of how he wanted to spark off the month of celebrating this year, sooooo...

at 5:00 a.m. on Friday we said goodbye to our unsuspecting children...

and got on a plane for Albequerque, New Mexico. Why, there? You'll see.

Once in Albuquerque, we headed up to Santa Fe.

where we walked, took pictures, window shopped and ate delicious food.

The next morning at 4:00 a.m. (3 a.m. PST)...no, I'm not joking... we got up to go to Albuquerque's Annual Balloon Fiesta. We arrived at the fairgrounds at approx. 5:45 a.m. Okay I was dragging a little...and we hit some event traffic. We parked and grabbed some breakfast burritos and coffee, and then Jeff disappeared for about 30 minutes to take pictures of the "dawn patrol"...

No, there was no dawn at this point! But it's pretty spectacular, isn't it?

Then as the sun came up, we walked out on the field and watched the balloonists prepare for lift off...

We were pretty fascinated by this one row of balloons going up in front of us...

You could hear the sound of propane flames forcing hot air up into the balloons...

and people cheering wildly as each balloon lifts off into the sky...

and then we turn around...

and see this...

Okay, so now I feel like a kid in a candy shop. Everytime we turn around there are rows and rows of new balloons of every color, form and size taking shape around us.

and then this...

Neither words nor pictures can adequately describe the experience, but no wonder they say this is the most photographed event in the world.

We heard estimates of anywhere between 400 and 700 balloons at the event. I'm not sure of the number, but it was unbelievable!

Happy Birthday Honey!