Surprise!

We were up by 5:30 this morning, packed up and were off to the airport on a little detour. My brother-in-law Jeff, with the help of my sister Shannon and other brother-in-law Ben, to fly us from Mexico City to LA for the weekend to surprise my sister Erinn for her 30th birthday.

We quickly stopped at 7-eleven for a coffee on our way to the metro. We took 4 trains to get to the airport, but it was pretty easy. We arrived around 6:30, and were told we could not get onto our 8:30 flight because it was already closed. After a bit of arguing, they said we needed to be there 3 hours before the flight. Whatever! The supervisor was the devil, and was so rude it made me speechless. We were directed to the ticketing office for Mexicana airlines so they could get us on a later flight, all the way arguing that we need to get on this 8:30 flight. The ticketing people were very nice and tried to get us on the flight, but couldn´t. The next Mexicana flight wasn´t for 3 more hours! I was overwhelmed and started crying a little, so the guy totally helped us out. He went over to Aero Mexico, a totally different airline, got us on their next flight at 9:30, and waived the US$300 fee for changing the tickets. When we had to go back to the Mexicana devil woman, the guy came with us. She informed us that she was going to get a coffee and couldn´t help us, so the guy did everything for us instead.

We rang Shannon´s mobile phone to let her know we´d be arriving an hour later and on a different airline, but only could leave a message since it wasn´t even 6 am in LA. It is 3.5 hours to LA from Mexico City, we flew right through immigration and our bags came out quickly, but Jeff wasn´t there to pick us up. We tried to buy a phone card, but the machines wouldn´t take our US$20 bill, no matter how many times we tried. Eventually I just used my credit card to make a phone call to Shannon´s cell phone, only to find out from Ben that they hadn´t received our message and Jeff had been wandering around LAX for about 1.5 hours looking for us! So, we got his number and rang it, but his phone was turned off. We went down to the terminal where we were supposed to arrive, but he wasn´t there either. We rang him again, finally got him, and 10 minutes later we found him. Yay!

Luckily for us, the Friday afternoon 405 traffic was not the nightmare it usually is, so it wasn´t long before we were in Valencia. Jeff rang them and found out they were all just eating lunch at Erinn´s, including my parents and Aunt Nancy, none of whom knew about the surprise. So Jeff just had us walk in the house through the garage and say ¨Hi¨ casually, which is what we did. Everyone was surprised, and my mom started crying. It was so much fun! After many hugs and lots of chattering, it was so nice to sit down and just visit. Niece Hannah (15 months) whom Nigel has never met, and nephew Colin (3) were napping, but we got lots of cuddles from niece Megan (nearly 5). We spent the rest of the day at Erinn´s, just playing with the kids and visiting the family. It was absolutely wonderful. It has been 15 months since I´ve seen my family, and nearly 2 years since Nigel has seen them. We had a BBQ for dinner and Nigel and I ate HUGE salads, a real treat! Later in the night, we went out for drinks, a bit of a challenge in Santa Clarita. We ended up at TGI Friday´s, and they were actually showing the AFL Grand Final game, which was odd. It was a lot of fun. We had a fantastic shower and fell quickly asleep (after Nige had a giggling fit) in Erinn´s huge, comfy guest bedroom bed.