First Flight

We took a vacation, the first real vacation we have taken as a family since Benjamin was born. We went to Southern California. We stayed at the LaJolla Shores Hotel and ate at the restaurant on the beach there. This hotel was AMAZING. The hotel is right out on the beach and is so beautiful with a restaurant in the hotel that is on the beach too. We flew there and it was Benjamin's first airplane flight. It went pretty well all considered with Jim wondering why he always forgets to remove all the metal from his person before he goes through to metal detector and sets it off. He also got the body scan, luckily Ben and I didn't get scanned. I don't think they scan children anymore and the kids don't take their shoes off, just big people. We took some sand from the beach home in a empty plastic container but you would have thought it was a bomb when we got to the airport. The sand was in Benjamin's backpack as it was his and when they tried to x-ray it the sand didn't show through the x-ray, they thought something might be in the middle of the sand. I thought they were not going to let us take it but they put it through a scanner and let us have it, the sand did cause quite a stir. The San Diego airport was PACKED with people and there was a huge sign at the security check point that said "NO JOKING" about any possible activities or things associated with security. ALL JOKES are taken seriously and Jim always has to freak me out, I am sure we are going to be thrown out. He likes to complain loudly about whatever he doesn't like that is going on with security and I always get worried! When we flew home we went to check in at the San Diego airport, Jim and Ben had played in the ocean that morning and we had clothes from days past that were soaked with sea water. Sea water doesn't seem to dry as fast so the clothes were heavy. Each piece of luggage that is checked at the airport has to be a certain size and can't weigh over 50 pounds. That is why we had two bags because I knew that we couldn't fit everything into one bag and still weight less than 50 pounds. When we got to the airport in San Diego we had our two bags with the new bag having wet clothes inside. We had bought the new bag just for this trip and we had the old bag that we have had for many years. I set the new bag up on the scale and it weighted 59 pounds. The agent said it was $10 per pound over the 50 pound limit so I would need to pay $90 extra. We had already paid $50 each way for our two bags and I wasn't going to pay more! We decided to take the wet clothes out and put them into the other bag, but when we did that the zipper broke on the old bag. I was panicking!!! So the agent tapped it all up and Jim finally got it zipped up and off we went. When we landed we all stopped by the bathroom and then proceeded to the baggage claim. Everyone had gotten their bags off the carousel and only our bags were left. We went to pick them up and the old bag had come open and a pair of underware were hanging out! OH MY!!!, we are hillbillies (as in Jed and Jethro) and everyone at the airport knows it! I was so darn embarrassed but thankful that we had gone to the bathroom because I was glad only a few people knew this was our bag...this didn't seem to phase Jim at all probably because it wasn't his underware! Needless to say that bag went to the dumpster! Lesson learned- don't get your clothes(jeans)wet in the ocean if you are flying home and don't take sand (luckily we already have ours)!