We woke up early today, loaded into the car and headed for Hermosillo—the nearest place to catch a flight to the States—ninety minutes away. By the time we got there Ouest already had two blisters on her heels due to her horrible parents putting shoes on her instead of sandals. We all suffer when putting on normal shoes, so I’m not sure what we expected to happen with Ouest today.

Anyway, we checked Ali and the kids in (because yes, I’m staying behind for three days to pound out boat projects) but found out right away that we had an issue—we had no tourist visas for the kids. We reasoned that they are Mexican citizens and therefore not tourists. Unfortunately we don’t have current Mexican passports for them, so they’d be flying on their U.S. passports, and thus, would be considered tourists. Fortunately Ali had the foresight to bring along their birth certificates, and once the ticketing agent saw those she said we just needed to go to the immigration office.

Now, how that little visit went I have no idea. The office was after the security checkpoint where I was left behind. I waited in the car for a while and they never came out so I’m hoping for the best. Hoping, because it is now 10:30 at night, their flight landed three hours ago, and I’ve not heard a peep. Not that I’m worried. Ali’s a champ.

And as I type that she e-mails with the news that they are at Grammy’s house in Portland, there were no tears until the final minutes when Ouest pinched her finger in the seat buckle (I smell lawsuit), Lowe fell asleep within minutes of arriving, and Grammy read Ouest to sleep. A good full day.

My day was filled with cleaning mostly. Cleaned the boat, emptied and cleaned the lockers, cleaned the awnings, cleaned the bilge, and knocked off a few other small projects. Exciting stuff.