Our Summer Kick-off Vacation

To start out our summer we took a family vacation to
San Jose, Mexico, BCS (Baja California Sud).

Our good friends the Maitlands were our wonderful hosts.

Cindy and Mikol with Carolyn and Mike

They drove us from here to there and everywhere in Big Green. Have you ever parked with Cindy in Big Green? That is an experience all in itself. Life in Mexico is slow and easy going. Time is not of essence and the day rolls by without the second hand, minute hand or even the hour hand being noticed.

We ate when we were hungry...

...and slept when we were tired (afternoon siesta after much sun and water.)

With daily siestas, night time was fun time too (Savanna got an unscheduled performance to sing on stage with the lady that was scheduled to perform).

Time took a backseat and we enjoyed paradise like surroundings, scrumptious food and excellent company. Couldn't ask for a better beginning...

...well, actually, we could. You see, the flight to San Jose was much to be desired. Have you ever been in an airport evacuation? We got to experience one in San Diego. The funny part was we weren't scheduled to land in San Diego! Yeah, San Diego was not part of the flight plan. Our boarding passes said San Jose/Cabo San Lucas yet, we found ourselves in San Diego (it's kinda hard to tell the pilot that you don't want to land in San Diego and to fly straight to San Jose, since he is behind a secured door.) When we arrived in San Diego (our mystery stop), we disembarked, took all our carry on luggage and proceeded to wait for them to call us back which was estimated to be a mere 10 minutes. Well, 10 minutes turned into +1.5 hours. The entire airport was evacuated. K-9 units were called in and news reporters were wandering around. It is an eerie site to see an airport come to a stand still. Nobody coming or going and everyone standing in large crowds in the parking area and in breezeways between the parking and terminal. We found ourselves standing in a line with 200+ people ahead of us and even more behind us. All waiting for security to allow us back in. Apparently, someone slipped through security without being secured. How that happened, I couldn't guess. Security is so tight these days. Oh it gets better! You see, we left Sac at 4 am with limited snacks. It was now 2 pm and we hadn't had a decent meal. Talk about famished. Well as soon as we got pass security we headed to the much needed food stop at, oh our favorite, Mc Donald's (JK about the favorite, it is actually abhorred in our family -1.) Well, you got it, everyone else had the same idea. The food was ordered paid for and then wait, wait, wait. Well, the plane was ready to go--uh oh--no food! After little discussion to our situation with the airline personel, we are told to board and are whisked down the plank onto our airplane with crying, hungry kids. Due to a kind hearted older gentleman, we were paged on the airplane and Mike was allowed to go pick up our food. Praise God! Here is the clencher. Mikol our dear friend waiting in San Jose to pick us up, calls the airline to find out when our new arrival time is and he is told, "the plane is currently in the air and is about half way there". Hmmm, here we are choking down McDonalds on the ground in San Diego yet US Airways says we are almost to San Jose. Miscommunication at it's best! Okay, we arrive in San Jose and Mike and I have absolutely no idea where we are staying or going once we left the airport. Mikol had made all our reservations (and kept it all a secret. JK) I now realize the guy in immigration was very kind to us. He let us through even though we couldn't answer a single question to save our lives. He smiled and let us through. We cleared customs with a green light, literally. There is a big signaling light (like in an intercession when we are driving) and a button (just like the button to cross the street at a light). You press the button and it either lights up the green light or the red light. Our light was green which meant we could go through without inspection. So, off we go. As the automatic doors open, we see a friendly face in Mikol. Again, Praise God!

We are now on our way to a relaxing and fun vacation.

We stayed at Coral Baja for 8 restful days. A beautiful resort right on the beach. We swam, swam and swam some more.

We were either in the pool...

or in the Sea of Cortez.





In addition to swimming, we got in some shopping and the guys did some fishing. Mike and Mikol did some shore fishing at dawn. Not much fish in these waters.



The sole catch was by our hero Charles while deep sea fishing. He provided dinner for the two families. Without this lucky catch, we would have gone hungry.


Stay tuned there is more to come...