My Trip to California

My story begins in April of 2008. My husband and I were sitting at his aunt Tammy's house and were discussing their upcoming trip to San Diego. They were going to see their son ( my husbands cousin) Cody graduate from Marine Academy. My husband is orignally from California so when they asked if we wanted to go he automatically jumped at the idea and I was close behind to okay it. So after we got home we started planning the trip by packing and buying the tickets. My husband was so excited Im surprised I didn't see him skipping and jumping around like a little child.
When it was finally time to go we loaded up in the explorer and headed out at about 3:00 and let me tell you that waking a 5 month old up at 3 am is so stressful not to mentiona hassle because it was so cold outside i had to bundle him up in like five different layers. We drove for 4 hours to get to the Kansas City Airport to catch our flight. Little did we know that when we got there all the flights were delayed thanks to a nasty snow storm and we would have to wait there for 2 hours before our flight finally came back on the board.
So after standing around for 2 hours we were finally able to board the plane, after dealing with the whole security situation, and get seated. Surprisingly my son handled the situation really well so when the nice stewardess came up to us and told us that there was a first class seat available up front for the mothers with children ( my husbands cousin was with us with her baby) my husbands aunt told them that the babies were behaving so we were passing on the offer ( im still a little ticked at that).
Anyways, we sat on the plane for roughly 2 hours before reaching our next stop which was in Fort Worth, Texas. We had to hurry and gather up our luggage because the connecting flight was leaving 10 minutes after we got there and it was at the other end of the airport. That was a fun little run through the airport there. We got to that flight just in time and was able to board without any hassles. The plan ride was different because the plane was much bigger and seemed a little cold, not temperature wise but the way it looked. It was almost all metal inside, almost what you would picture a military airplane would be.The airplane engines we very loud so it made it difficult to enjoy that airplane ride.
It was beautiful flying over Los Angelos, the glow of the lights against the dark background of the sky was reaasuring that we would be landing at any point. We could see the sun setting just on the horizon of the ocean. Watching the waves hit the sandy beach made it to where you could almost feel the warm, breezy air hitting your face. Deboarding the plane there was a little different because by then the babies were sleeping so unloading the luggage and strollers was a bit frustrating, then having to wait for his aunt and uncle to make it back with the rental car was even more annoying. We had to of sat in that airport for an hour before they finally came back!
Getting to the hotel was such a relief, to be able to lay down was amazing after being on those planes for so long. That night we didnt do anything but take showers and relax in the piece and quiet of the hotel room. The next morning it was sunny and hot out. We drove down to the Marine base and watched Cody graduate with his troop- it was so awesome seeing that kind of thing, the whole base so uniformed in the way they moved.  After the graduation we made it back to the hotel and started exploring the area to find the trolley station- easier said then done. We could see the trolley going back and forth behind the hotel but finding the actual place to buy tickets was very confusing because the ticket booth is hidden behind every other building in the area. Hauling a stroller onto the trolley was a little difficult, the aisle way was very narrow when climbing on. Cj was content though with the whole situation. We took the long ride on the trolley all the way to downtown San Diego where we finally got off and started to explore on foot. I had my camera on me so we were stopping about every five minutes so I could take random pictures of random stuff . We went to Old Town, which is about 10 or 15 miles from downtown San Diego, and walked around the shops there. They were old time shops so everything had a homestyle  feeling to it. All the buildings were made from wood and there lights had a soft glow to them. You could smell the food as you were walking down the streets past the resturants, people were sitting out on the patios just having friendly conversations. When night finally hit everything livened up, young people were walking around to all the bar and grills and having a good time catching up with friends and drinking. The streets got packed and at that point we all agreed that it was time to get back to the hotel and get the babies in bed for the night. The ride back was full of more random pictures and plans for tomorrow.
The next day we woke up and headed out to Oceanside. My husbands grandpa used to own a hotel near there so he knew the beaches were great. We got there and lugged the stroller through the sand and made our way down to the water. CT ( my husband) and Cody went and rented a surf board. They got to try out the surf board first because they had done it along time ago but when it came to my turn I thought that it looked easy so therefore it would be easy, boy was I wrong. I got out there and got ran over twice by another girl trying to learn how to surf. The stupid girl bailed off her board the first time because she freaked out and the second time she stayed on but none-the-less still ran over me. I was done surfing after that. I went up onto the beach and watched my husband and his cousin play in the water and took CJ out to the water every once in a while to swim. The pier was about a quarter of a mile down from us and you could see all the carnival- style rides on it. It would have been fun to try it out but we didnt have enough time before it closed down for the day. We left the beach around dusk and made the long drive back to the hotel. We were so sunburnt after that day, my husband literally looked like a lobster.
The next day is when we decided to go to Tijuana, Mexico. The hot air was blowing all through the trolley, making for a very enjoyable ride to the border. It was when we were getting off the trolley is when i realized that I didnt bring any of our birth certificates. My husband went to go ask a border patrol agent that he saw smoking a cigarette if we could still cross back over if we just had our social security cards but nothing else, he said it would be fine. So off we went into Mexico. We walked down the streets exploring all the shops. They had all kinds of stuff there, my husband bought me a pretty braclet that was way overpriced and we bought a little colorful maraca for our son. We walked down farther down the street, salespeople would stand outside their shops yelling at us to come see their merchandise. There were little kids running around yelling " chicla", trying to sell little things of chewing gum. We bought some and I am proud to say that American gum is so much better. We ate a taco of some sort, my husband swears that it was dog, we couldnt understand what the street vendor was saying so I guess we will never know what it was and then decided to go back and find some American food.
You would not believe the line there was leading back into the U.S., we stood for along time before we finally made it up to the point where everybody was crossing into the U.S. and got our identification and social security cards ready. The border patrol guard that we went to was the rudest person I have ever met. We got to his booth and handed him our id's, he looked at them, frowned, and then asked us for our passports. We told him about the other agent said and he just flew off the handle. He yelled at us, calling us stupid, " What you dont watch the television," he said, " Surely you arent stupid enough to know that you would need more to get back through!"
I stood there, worry just settling in my stomach, listening to my husband yelling at this guys and thinking " oh my god, hes going to go to Mexican jail."
This is when the border agent decided to tell us that for all he knew, we had bought our baby over there and was trying to smuggle him into the U.S., I just stared at the guy and was thinking" are you f-ing kidding me, this child is white as snow!" At this point I wanted to cry, all i could think is that we were going to be stuck in Mexico until we could get our birth certificates. Finally the border patrol agent decided to give up chewing our butts and let us back through. Needless to say it will be a while before we go back there.
We got back to hotel around 8 that night and decided to pack our stuff and get some sleep, knowing that we had to get up early to catch the flight home.
The flight home was uneventful and the drive was very boring, seeing the same dull weather that we were so happy to get away from. Someday soon I am hoping that we can go back, maybe even move to California.
That is, in a hurried nutshell, my story about going to California.