Tijuana/San Diego - Day 8

Today was a most horrible day. Not the most horrible day I have ever had, but one that ranks in the top 5. We got out of bed at 4:30am and I could immediately tell that my stomach was upset. Three trips to the bathroom and a bunch of Imodium and Pepto later, I was somewhat ready to go. Sandra had the kids up and dressed Xander. We had decided not to change Evan's clothes, but as we left the hotel room with the first load of luggage, I could feel that his clothes were soaking wet. There wasn't time to do anything about that, as we were already late for the 5:00am shuttle, which we ended up missing. When it returned, I helped the driver load our luggage while Sandra secured the car seats. We were finally off, though there were other people on the shuttle, so we did not go straight to our terminal, and it was 5:30am by the time we got to the United terminal.

A couple of United employees brought over a luggage cart, loaded our luggage on it, and walked it up to the ticket counter. We quickly discovered that despite assurances from the United employee in Edmonton that the ticket problem had been taken care of, it had not. Their computer still said we had paper tickets and this employee was not going to let us board, and as there isn't an Air Canada ticket counter in San Diego, we would have been stranded. I had to stand there holding a wet, stinky baby, as he and Sandra discussed the problem. Finally, he asked if we had our boarding cards from the trip down. Luckily, as Sandra never throws anything away, we did. He found the ticket number on the cards and got us on the planes. I was left wondering how their computer system works, since it sounded like he could not search for us by name, but he could search for us by ticket number, and once he found us in the computer, all was good.

All of this meant that we were getting to be late for our flight. We stopped outside security so that I could change Evan, as I did not want to unload all our stuff while juggling a wet baby. Security took some time, but there were no problems - Xander even walked through on his own without any prompting. Once aboard the flight, we settled in and took off. There were no real problems with the flight (except my stomach) until we started to land in Denver. The seatbelt light went on early and there was no friendly announcement that there might be turbulence, so I figured that meant there was going to be turbulence, and I was right. Thunderstorms were moving through the area and the landing was extremely rough - the plane bounced around, turned a couple of times and then Xander threw up. We couldn't call a stewardess, due to the turbulence, so Sandra tried to clean him up as best she could with one of Evan's spit up blankets, while we waited for the plane to land. Once on the ground, we stopped outside the terminal, as we were 20 minutes early, so our gate was occupied for the next 20 minutes. That left us sitting on the plane with a sick, stinky child. At least the lack of movement allowed us to contact a stewardess, get a plastic bag and change Xander's clothes.

Once we were finally off the plane, we went to a washroom, cleaned everyone up, got a muffin for Xander and Sandra to eat and went to wait for our next flight. The problems continued once we boarded, as once we got onboard, a thunderstorm passed over the airport and they closed the ramp, which meant that we sat there for almost an hour waiting for the rain and fairly large hail to stop falling. After that long wait, we got in the air and flew to Winnipeg, where the landing was a bit rough, likely just because our nerves were raw and we were sitting near the very back of the airplane.

We were the last ones off the plane, and as we were heading towards the elevator, another flight arrived, so a United employee took us to a different elevator to get down to customs. I'm not certain that helped, as we ended up last in line behind two airplanes worth of people. Evan was quite tired at this point, so someone had to hold him, which made for a very long line. At long last, we went through customs, where we collected our checked baggage and, once again, left the secure area. ARRRGGHHH! Why can't these airports design it so that you don't have to leave a secure area and go back through security once you have cleared customs? With four carry-on bags, liquids, a laptop, two digital cameras, two kids and two strollers, it takes forever to unpack everything, go through security and then repack everything.

So, we dragged all the checked baggage, as well as the carry on and two kids all the way to the Air Canada ticket counter, where they took our checked bags and gave us new boarding passes. We then went up to security, dumped out all the water bottles we had purchased for ourselves and for Evan's formula, went back through security, bought new bottles of water, changed the kid's diapers and got on the last airplane of the day.

I had hoped to let Evan sleep while sitting around in Winnipeg, but due to the long customs line and the security hassle, there wasn't time, so he was extremely tired once we got on the plane, and he started screaming immediately. Now Evan doesn't cry - he just lets loose with loud, blood-curdling screams, and this was not a large aircraft. Luckily Sandra was able to force him to go to sleep, and we took off. Xander fell asleep while the plane taxied and did not wake up until we landed in Regina. Evan slept the entire time as well, so the final flight was fairly uneventful, except that we were early again, so our gate was occupied when we arrived. That one confused me, as there was only one plane at the Regina airport at that time. I guess they only use one gate.

In Regina, we met Mom and Dad, overheard comments from the other passengers regarding the lucky fact that "the baby had fallen asleep, or the flight would have been awful", got our luggage and drove home.

Thus ends our adventure in Mexico.

Tijuana/San Diego - Day 7

We got up at 6:30am to try and be on the road at 7:00am. That didn't work, but we did leave the house around 7:30am, on our way to Legoland in California. We were early enough that we ran into rush hour traffic in Tijuana, and the line at the border was longer than the last time we crossed. It did move quickly, though, and after about an hour we were at the front of the line. The border guard took more time than the last guy, as he opened all the doors, checked our faces against our passports and asked a bunch of questions about where we were going and what we were bringing back from Mexico. All the questions turned out to be a good thing, as he let us through without a secondary search, unlike the first time we went through the border.

Unfortunately, as soon as we left the border area and entered the highway, Colette tried to get everyone's attention, as she realized we only had 7 passports. A quick check showed that Sandra's was missing, so we took the first exit and drove through the border town to the pedestrian border crossing. There weren't any obvious parking spots, so we let Sandra and Colette out, while Rick found a parking spot in a very small Jack in the Box parking lot. It did not take very long and they were back with the missing passport.

With that problem out of the way, we were on our way to Legoland, which is a little bit north of San Diego. We arrived around 11:00am, so decided to go to Taco Bell for an early lunch. We may as well have been in Mexico, as no one in the restaurant spoke English. The lady who was taking my order got it wrong twice and I ended up going through the line a second time in order to get everything I wanted. Our next stop was Legoland.

The first thing we saw in the park was a life size Darth Vader and R2-D2, made out of Lego, so I had my picture taken with them. We then went on a safari ride, where you sat in a small jeep that went around a track. Arranged around the track were large animals made out of Lego. The next ride was fairly similar, just with the jeeps replaced by boats and the animals replaced by fairy tale people and creatures. After that was the first store, which contained a lot of Star Wars Lego, so Xander and I toured it. I bought Xander a shirt with a Lego Darth Vader on it that says "The Force is strong in this one", and I bought myself a keychain with a Lego Darth Vader on the end.

The rest of the day was a filled with various rides, either with the kids (if they were tall enough) or Rick and Colette would go on their own and leave the kids with us. Frankly, I was expecting more than just a theme park with a few Lego statues scattered around, but I guess it is the rides that keeps normal people interested. In the castle area, which had no kid rides, I bought a chess set made up of knight and skeleton mini-figures and a Lego photo frame. While Legoland wasn't what I was expecting, Xander had a great time. He loved all the rides, though he would never admit it. Whenever I asked him if he liked a ride he would say "No. Again?".

Near the end of the day we toured Miniland USA, which is more of what I was expecting. There were miniature versions of Washington D.C., New York, Las Vegas, Southern California, New Orleans, San Francisco and Daytona (the NASCAR racetrack). Xander was enthralled by the moving vehicles and spent a very long time standing in front of the Daytona model, watching the race cars move around the track. I was really impressed with how all the various buildings and landmarks had been recreated in Lego, though I was disappointed with the fact that they had been outside for a long time and were starting to show their age - the bricks were faded and peeling in spots.

With just under 15 minutes before the park closed, I quickly ran over to the shop that sold Lego in bulk ($7.99 per quarter pound) and filled a plastic bag with various bits of Lego from the bins that were there. I wished I had more time to actually browse and think about what pieces I wanted, but the store was closing in five minutes, so I basically just grabbed handfuls of Lego bricks and shoved them in the bag. I left with 4/10ths of a pound of assorted Lego bricks and a book on building Lego models.

We left Legoland, with Evan screaming because he was hungry and headed towards San Diego. As it was 5:30pm, we encountered the famous California freeway traffic - six to eight lanes of stopped cars. We actually were never stopped for very long, but there were parts of the trip where we were not traveling very fast. We finally arrived at our hotel, unpacked everything and ordered a pizza. Rick and Colette stayed for supper and then left around 8:30pm to return to Mexico. We are getting up at 4:30am tomorrow to get to the airport around 5:30am for our flights back home to Regina.

Tijuana/San Diego - Day 6

Today was a very slow day. I slept in and then spent the morning downloading pictures off of Sandra's camera and then posting some of the pictures on Facebook and the blog posts. Sandra's new camera takes huge pictures, and my old iBook just doesn't have the horsepower to easily display them within iPhoto. That means that in order to view them, I have to import them into iPhoto and then export them all out of iPhoto at a smaller resolution, which takes a lot of time. If we take any longer vacations, I'm going to need a new laptop.

After lunch, we packed the kids in the van and drove back to the beach. It was a nice day, sunny but not too warm and the waves were huge (at least to a Saskatchewan boy like me). They couldn't have been too small, as there were four or five people surfing and wake boarding. We set up some chairs, put the babies on the sand and let the two year olds run around in the waves. Xander was fairly scared of the water at first, but soon opened up and had a lot of fun running around in the water, though he had to hold my hand the entire time. It wasn't until we were getting ready to leave that he was willing to run through the waves on his own.

While Xander and I splashed in the waves, Rick wandered deeper into the ocean and noticed that as the waves came and went, they moved the sand and exposed some small crabs that would quickly scurry back into the sand. It took some time, but he was able to quickly grab some sand that contained a crab, which he brought closer to shore and showed the kids. It was pretty neat how quickly the little crab would dig into the ground as soon as it was able to.

As we played in the water, Evan sat on the sand and proceeded to eat large amounts of it. That wasn't a huge deal, as what kid doesn't eat sand? However, cleaning him up required using wipes on his face, which took off his sunscreen, but no one thought of that at the time. Right now, his cheeks look fairly red, so hopefully he did not get sunburned too badly.

We then went home and proceeded to make supper. Sandra is currently packing things up, while the kids are eating ice cream for their night lunch. Early tomorrow morning we leave Mexico for the last time, as we are going to spend the day at Legoland in California. At the end of the day, Rick and Colette will drop us off at a hotel near the San Diego airport, where we are going to spend the night.

Tijuana/San Diego - Day 5

Today we drove to Ensenada, a tourist town south of Rosarito. There are two roads to Ensenada, a toll road and a free road. On the way there we took the free road, though the roads run right beside each other for half the way there. It is at the point where they separate that things get interesting, as the free road starts curving through a number of large hills/small mountains and small villages. The road was very narrow and steep, with no shoulders or guard rails and we kept meeting semis coming from the other direction. I was a little scared and more than glad that I wasn't driving.

We survived the road and arrived at Ensenada around lunch time. We weren't sure where we were going to stop for lunch, as we did not have a lot of information about restaurants in Ensenada. In the end, we played it safe and went to McDonald's. Mexican McDonald's are very similar to ours, except there are fewer food options, the Coke was sickeningly sweet, though it may have been Coke Zero, and the kid's playland consisted of three video games. I'm pretty certain the video games were boxes containing an N64 with an arcade style controller hooked up to the machine, as the games were regular N64 games. The biggest pain was that the bathroom at McDonald's was for customers only, so you had to show your receipt to get the door unlocked. That meant that Sandra and Colette took all four kids to get their diapers changed at once, just to prevent us from having to ask for the bathroom to be opened multiple times.

After lunch, we walked down to the harbour, where there was a cruise ship docked. We wandered past the regular boats, and were approached a couple of times regarding taking a ride out around the harbour. Rick was interested in doing that, but the first price we were given was $75, which was a bit expensive. A little while later the same boat operator came walking up to us on the dock and said that he had some other people already on the boat, so we could all ride for $10. I guess he just wanted $75 in total for a trip. Xander wasn't very happy at first, due to the loudness of the engine and the fact that the operator had to lift him on board, as Sandra wasn't able to step from the dock to the boat carrying him. Passing the cruise ship calmed him down. The big draw of the boat trip was a bunch of derelict ships that were strung together in the harbour and used as a habitat for a large number of sea lions. They were on top of and inside the old boats, and our boat stopped right beside a large number of sea lions sleeping in the sun. The rest of the trip was fairly uneventful, though Xander was quite excited by the cranes and semis that were on the container ship unloading dock.

Once we were off the boat, we just wandered around Ensenada for a little bit. Evan was extremely tired and would not go to sleep in the stroller, so we walked along with him screaming as loud as he possibly could. I found the zoning laws, or lack thereof interesting, as the main street along the harbour had a strip club next door to a Nextel store and a fairly seedy looking bar next door to a FedEx store. We walked back to the van, where we stored the strollers and walked to a nearby street where we had been harassed regarding horse drawn carriage rides. (Note: I do mean harassed - they shout at you from the other side of the street.) The tour just took us around the main harbour road, but it was a nice and relaxing ride.

We then left Ensenada and went to a tide pool area that Mike had shown to Rick. Sandra had confirmed that low tide was around 4:00pm, which was roughly when we arrived. I thought the entire thing was a bust at first, as the kids had fallen asleep on the way there and were extremely cranky when we woke them up. I also could not find any sea animals except for some anemones in the shallow pools of water. However, after dumping a screaming Evan on Sandra, Xander and I started tossing small rocks into the water. As he dropped one into a pool, I noticed a moving shell. I looked closer and saw a whole bunch of moving shells, as there were lots of hermit crabs moving around in the water. When everyone else arrived, Rick and I carefully picked them up out of the water and placed them on a nearby rock so the kids could watch them scurry back into the water. The kids had woken up by this point, so everyone had a good time.

Our last stop of the day was a hotel restaurant back in Rosarito for supper. It was extremely good. Our waiter was very friendly, especially with the kids, and the food was awesome. Sandra had beef tacos, I had chicken enchiladas and Xander had a quesadilla. The beef tacos were a lot like the ones from the taco stand, chopped beef in a soft tortilla, though these had lettuce, tomatoes and cheese (which looked like goat cheese or feta cheese). Again, they weren't very spicy, but a plate of peppers and onions was delivered to the table. The enchiladas were spicy, and I added some hot sauce to them, which made them extremely good. I'm not certain how authentic the hot sauce was, though, as it was from California. The entire meal was also extremely cheap - it was only $41 for four adult meals, one kid meal and six drinks.

It sounds like we are actually relaxing tomorrow, as the kids are becoming difficult to manage due to the lack of naps and disrupted schedules. On Friday we'll head to San Diego, possibly to Legoland, after which we will stay the night in a hotel before flying out Saturday morning.

Tijuana/San Diego - Day 4

Today started off slowly, as we were all recovering from yesterday. Sandra slept in, as Evan was awake for an hour early in the morning, while I ensured all our pictures were downloaded onto the laptop. It also gave me time to add some pictures to the blog and to Facebook. I wanted to expand what we did at SeaWorld, but ran out of time. Maybe I'll update yesterday's post after I finish this post.

We went out for lunch at a taco stand in Rosarito, so I have now had an official Mexican taco. The stand had a wood grill where they cooked the meat and peppers. When the meat was done, it was chopped up and placed on a soft tortilla with beans, tomatoes and guacamole. It was very good, though it wasn't spicy. I found out later that there were peppers available to put on the taco, which would have made it a lot spicier. We also had quesadillas, which were a lot like the tacos, just with the beans and guacamole replaced with cheese.

After lunch, we drove over to the beach and showed Xander and Evan the ocean for the first time. I stuck Evan's hand in the water, while Sandra did the same for Xander. At one point, Colette had walked out towards the waves and Xander started to follow her. As she was standing in an area where waves regularly arrived, I told Xander to come back to me, but he didn't listen. A bunch of water then arrived - Colette walked away from it, but Xander stood rooted to the spot, even as she tried pulling him along with one arm (as she was holding Jordan with the other). Xander ended up getting his legs fairly wet, as did Colette and myself. Everyone else took that as an opportunity to roll up their pant legs and wade in the ocean, while I stayed behind guarding our stuff and holding a sleeping Evan. We finally left and returned home to change everyone's clothes.

Once everyone was dry, we went to a market to do a little shopping. I wasn't looking to buy anything, but I guess my wife was. She looked at some jewelry, but most of it was too expensive. However, at the one shop she was able to get the price for a necklace to $120 USD, down from the starting price of $500 for the necklace and matching earrings. She decided to buy the necklace at that price, so we did, though she really has no idea whether it was a bargain or not. Regardless, she now owns a very pretty necklace. I tried to get Xander excited about a rain stick, but he didn't want one. Instead, he wanted a ukelele, so I bought him one of each, though I bought a cheap ukelele and not the real nice one that the lady also showed me.

We wandered around the market a bit while Rick and Colette continued to shop, but Evan was extremely cranky, and I was not interested in shopping in such a high pressure situation. The shop owners would pounce on you the moment you walked by and try to convince you to enter the shop. Once you were in the shop, it was extremely difficult to leave without having something forced on you. One guy kept putting a hat on Rick's head to try and get him to buy it. Given that everything that was for sale was touristy junk, I didn't feel like repeatedly refusing to buy things just to browse.

We then did some grocery shopping and returned home for "Mexican" spaghetti and meat sauce, in that we made and ate the spaghetti in Mexico. Tomorrow, I believe we are headed to Ensenada, but I'm not sure exactly what we are going to see and do.

Tijuana/San Diego - Day 3

We got everyone out of bed early and packed into the van so that we could leave Rosarito just before 8:00am. Things sort of went downhill from there. We quickly arrived in Tijuana and got stuck in a traffic jam. For some reason the road we were on was not moving at all. There were police directing traffic, but they were just allowing traffic to move in the other direction, so we sat for quite a long time doing nothing. At the same time there was a marathon going on, possibly due to the fact that today was Cinco de Mayo. After a long wait, our traffic suddenly moved forward, though as we drove past, the policeman was trying to stop the people behind us, so I'm not certain if we were supposed to go or not.



After that long wait, we quickly arrived at the traffic jam for the border. Twenty-four lanes of traffic stretching for a very long way. It only took about one and half hours to reach the border, which was faster than Rick expected. Unfortunately, the border official tagged the van, which meant that we had to pull ahead to get searched. The customs official who did the searching was very strict and official until she asked us to get out the van and realized that there were four small children inside. She did not seem impressed that we had been tagged for searching, so she went as fast as she could. Once that was done, we were back in the US and on our way to SeaWorld.

The main attractions at SeaWorld are the shows, so we headed towards the sea lion and otter show, stopping to view the sea lions, dolphins and star fish as we walked by their pools. The star fish were the biggest hit, as you were allowed to pick them up and briefly take them out of the water. The sea lion and otter show was somewhat interesting, as the sea lions are very well trained, but they aren't elegant or attractive creatures. That goes double for the big ugly walrus that arrives at the end of the show. After the show, we went to a pizza/pasta place for lunch that "only" cost us $32. It never ceases to amaze me the prices that are charged inside theme parks. A small coffee cost $2.19!

Our first stop after lunch was the sharks. This was the first aquarium we went to where you could look through glass and see the animals underwater, and Xander was extremely excited about it. He really enjoyed the tunnel where the large sharks swim around and above you. The same cannot be said for me. After another aquarium, we went to see the penguins. By this point, the lack of a nap was beginning to take its toll on Xander, and Sandra had to take him along the moving sidewalk twice before he became interested in looking at the penguins. The next attraction was the arctic exhibit, which had a ride attached to it. Rick and Colette took the ride, while Sandra and I took the four kids into the exhibit. As we were entering, someone behind Sandra asked if we had two sets of twins (as our kids and Rick and Colette's kids are the same age). Sandra told me later that if we had two sets of twins, the last place we would be would be SeaWorld. The big hit of the arctic exhibition was a glass window where a giant walrus kept swimming past. It kept the kids occupied until Rick and Colette were done, which was good, as holding a baby and chasing after a two year old was becoming very tiring. The big disappointment of the arctic exhibition was the lack of polar bears. There was a mother and cub in a small area, but it was so crowded, there was no way were getting the kids to see the bear.

The next stop was one of the few that actually interested me. It was a pool full of rays that you were allowed to touch, and feed, if you were brave enough. To feed one, you held the food underwater on the flat of your palm and let a ray swim over top of your hand and eat the fish. I don't think I could have done it. However, I did touch quite a few of the rays - they are a bit slimy. I think rays are one of the coolest sea creatures. They just look neat as they swim along. The ones in the pool often stuck their heads out of the water to look at the humans surrounding the pool, which was pretty cool. Xander refused to touch the rays. I think the fact that they were moving scared him a bit, compared to the star fish.

After seeing some extremely icky moray eels, we took a break among the flamingos and then went into another aquarium. This one was ocean fish, so it had an aquarium with Nemo and Dory in it, which was a big hit with Xander. It was quite difficult to get him away from that tank. Due to popular request (of the two year olds), we returned to the star fish pool. This time, Xander was even more adventurous and actually picked up the star fish and took them out of the water. Many pictures later, it was time to go to the Shamu show.


While watching the killer whales perform was very cool, the cloying "Believe" message that was broadcast on the screens and through the words of the trainers really annoyed me. It was an obvious ploy to pull at the heartstrings of the people there, to make them think that something special was happening, rather than just watching captured animals perform tricks for our enjoyment. I mean, I'm not against captured animals performing tricks, but I don't think it is necessary to wrap that in some weird eco-message that implies that the performance is helping us bridge the gap between the two species.

After the entire day at SeaWorld, we found a fast food restaurant ($12, versus the $32 we paid inside SeaWorld for lunch) before heading back to Mexico. Unfortunately, due to Cinco de Mayo, the border crossing into Mexico was also very busy and it took longer to get back than we expected.

Everyone is really tired at the moment, and the kids aren't even in bed yet, so I'm pretty certain tomorrow is just going to be a relaxing day in Mexico.

Tijuana/San Diego - Day 2

Today was a fairly relaxing day. We started off the day by going to church in Rosarito. It was very energetic, with 45 minutes of singing, mostly in Spanish, but switching to English for some verses and choruses. After that there was a 45 minute sermon, given in English, but translated into Spanish after each line. I found some things in the church odd, such as the fact that they forbid children from being in the sanctuary (or at least they will forbid children starting next week when their downstairs room with closed circuit television is done). Ostensibly it is being done due to overcrowding, but it seems anti-Christian to forbid someone from attending the main worship service just because they have children. While our church does something similar, in that we provide age appropriate teaching for children, it is not something that is forced upon anyone, and children are welcome to stay in the sanctuary the entire service. I'm certain that faced with the same overcrowding situation, our church would approach specific leaders and long-term attendees of the church and ask them to move to the basement, leaving the main sanctuary for newcomers.

But, I digress. After church we went to a restaurant that served BBQ chicken. The meal consisted of an entire chicken, rice, beans, cole slaw and hot corn tortillas. Chips and salsa was served as an appetizer. The salsa was nice and spicy and the whole meal was extremely good. We ate outside, where there was a play structure with slides. Xander wanted to go down them, so I helped him up, only to realize that the level with the slides was about 7 feet off the ground, with no railings of any kind. Quite different from our uber-safety conscious society.

We then returned home so that the kids could have their naps. We had thought of going to the beach when they woke up, but it wasn't that warm today (only about 16 degrees) and it was supper time once everyone was awake.

Just before supper, Rick and I drove through Rosarito to ensure he could find his way from the house to the orphanage where he will be doing some mechanical work, without taking any of the main roads. This meant bouncing around on "roads" that make northern Saskatchewan grids look like freeways. The area we are staying in is not poor by Mexican standards, but it is by Canadian ones, which makes the entire area look poor and unkempt to my eyes.

Tomorrow we are planning to go to Sea World in San Diego, which means getting up fairly early, since there is an almost 2 hour wait to get across the border.

Tijuana/San Diego - Day 1

Today started at the crazy hour of 4:45am, when we got everyone up and dressed, loaded up the car and had Dad drive us to the airport, despite the fact that he wasn't feeling very well. We checked in our three bags, two car seats and then immediately went through security, with two kids, a stroller and four carry on bags. It wasn't easy getting the electronics out of the bags, while carrying the kid and explaining which bags contained liquids, but we somehow managed. The flight from Regina to Edmonton was uneventful - both kids flew just fine.

In Edmonton, we had to leave security to change to a United flight, though the Air Canada agent in Regina had told us we did not, so we were confused for a bit. The big problem came when we went to check in, as the United computers showed that we had paper tickets, when we only had a paper ticket for Evan. I think that if we hadn't looked completely overloaded, holding a baby and with four carry on bags, the agent would have sent us to Air Canada. Luckily, he went by himself and straightened everything out, though we had to stand in line at the United ticket counter for 15 or 20 minutes. Another United agent helped us take our checked baggage through customs, which was extremely easy. The customs official didn't even ask any questions and all four of us got US stamps in our passports. Next was another security checkpoint, where things were a bit stricter than in Regina. We had to take off our shoes and hats, Xander had to walk through by himself, which took a bit of coaching, they swabbed every carry on that contained liquids and the one official spent five minutes pawing through Evan's toys before asking us which one contained electronics. When we turned it on (a plush toy that giggles), he joked with us for a bit and then we were done.

Xander fell asleep while the plane taxied in Edmonton and slept for half the flight to Denver. Evan fell asleep during the flight and slept through the entire landing. Upon arrival in Denver, our flight to San Diego was already boarding, so we walked really fast through four moving sidewalks to get to the gate. It wasn't long after we boarded before we were on our way to San Diego. We arrived in San Diego at 5:30pm Regina time (4:30 pm local time), 12 hours after arriving at the Regina airport.

In San Diego, we quickly found Colette and her kids and then went to pick up our luggage. However, after waiting for quite some time, I realized that our luggage likely did not make it. At United baggage services, I was informed that our luggage was still in Denver and was scheduled to arrive on an 8:00pm flight. They loaned us a couple of car seats, and we went to Wal-Mart to buy a few things and to a fast food restaurant for supper. At 8:00pm we were back at the airport, where our luggage arrived. United gave us $30 in gift certificates for food in the airport, so we bought $27 worth of coffee and juice at Starbucks before leaving.

We then drove down into Mexico, where you aren't even stopped crossing the border, passed over a mile of four lanes of cars waiting to get into the US, and after a short trip arrived at the McDonald's house in Rosarito. While getting stuff out for bed, Sandra discovered why our luggage had not made the flight to San Diego, as my luggage had a notice in it that it had been opened and searched by the TSA. The time stamp on the notice was 2:50pm, which was exactly when we were getting on the flight to San Diego and our luggage was not.

So, we are now in Mexico, the kids travelled extremely well, and except for the luggage mishap, everything went fine.

Tijuana/San Diego - Day 0

At approximately 7:00am tomorrow morning, we will be taking off on our first flight of the day, starting a day long trip to San Diego, where we will meet with Sandra's sister and brother-in-law and their family. They are spending the month of May house-sitting for a missionary family, who live just south of Tijuana, and we are going to spend a week visiting them and sight-seeing in the San Diego and Tijuana area.

Tomorrow will be a long day of flying, as it will require three flights to get to San Diego. Regina to Edmonton, Edmonton to Denver and finally Denver to San Diego. It could also be a very interesting set of flights, as this will be the first time that we have flown with small children, and all the difficulties that that involves. Since I do not travel well at the best of times, tomorrow could be very stressful. However, both of our children travel extremely well, and Xander is already excited about the plane trip, so it is very likely that everything will go just fine.

Tonight will be extremely busy, as we have to pack everything up, figure out exactly what we are taking as carry on, ensure we have all the right papers and passports, clean the house and somehow get to bed in enough time to get some sleep before my parents arrive at 5:00am to take us to the airport.

My plan is to post to this blog every evening, including pictures and information on what we did during the day. Hopefully I will have the time and the energy to actually do that.