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.