Well, I've been meaning to blog about my week in California, so here I go. We (Renae, Steph, Mom and I) started out of Thompson Falls Sunday a couple weeks ago (wow, almost exactly TWO whole weeks ago! Sheesh. Where does time go?) The plan was to stay the night in Spokane so we could park our car at the motel and get shuttled to the airport early the next morning. Somewhere between shopping at Burlington Coat Factory and Sushi World, my mom realised that her driver's lisense was not in her purse. We searched and searched, feeling pretty panicked because for one, you need your driver's lisense at the airport to actually get to FLY, and for two, and more importantly, we needed to go across the border (and mostly BACK from the border) into Tijuana. One of the major reasons for the trip in the first place was to take Mom to see her doctor at the Hoxsey clinic down there.
We called the airport and they said Mom could still fly because she had her birth-certificate and social security card, BUT she would have to be stripped searched (hehe, not really strip searched, but she did get patted down both on the way down and on the way back. Renae took pictures.) So flying didn't present too big of a delimma. However, as Monday was presidents day and Tuesday was the day we were going to Mexico, there was no time to get ahold of any of the goverment agency's that could help us. So we decided to just take our chances.
We stayed at a motel in San Ysidro, a town right on the border of the US and Mexico. We could actually see the fence across the road from our room. It was so warm *sigh* and pretty. We didn't have a car, so we had to walk, take a shuttle or take the bus. Public trasportation rules.
Tuesday morning the shuttle came to pick us up to take across the border. We hoped for the best (both that everything would be okay for Mom AND that we could get back into the US at the end of the day), and we got in. There were eight other people on the shuttle with us, all going to different places in Tijuana to get some sort of medical treatment that either isn't available in the States or that is too expensive in the states. On the drive across the border I listened to the man in the row ahead of us talking to the couple next to him. He reminded me of my pa-in-law with his soft southern accent. The whole way there he was talking about his wife, where they had met, how he had "tricked" her into marrying him. He was so sweet, and so obviously in love with his wife. I hadn't even met him and I liked him so much. When we got to the Hoxsey Clinic, he told us more about his wife, that she has pancreatic cancer in the final stages and he had come to Mexico for her because she was so sick. It was heartbreaking. But we also met a couple from Alaska who had been coming to the Clinic for years because the husband had cancer. With no other treatment except from the Hoxsey clinic, he is still going. They have a huge book there where different ones have come to the clinic with all sorts of cancer, varying stages, and most had done very well. Mom's check-up went very well. She had been tested the month before in the states too, so we knew everything was probably gonna be okay, but it still blows my mind to see how well she is doing. It is not too often a person with Stage 4 colon cancer gets to have this kind of health again. Not to promote it tooo much, but if I ever get cancer, I am going to the Hoxsey Clinic right away. It is an awesome place.
At one point I went with my mom while she had to have some x-rays done. While I was in the waiting room I saw that I was getting a phone call, so I wanted to go outside to take it. I walked to the door and saw that it was a glass door. There were no handles. I stared at it in confusion. The door was not opening and I could see no way to open it! Finally I looked behind me to the patients waiting for their turn and had to ask "How does this work". Turns out I just needed to push it. I swear, technology here is making me stupid! I will be the one to burn in a building because I do not know how to open the door.
Anyways, with a pretty much clean bill of health (provided she stayed on her diet and tonic), we were back in the shuttle, wizzing through Tijuana to all of the phamicias to get everyones medicine, and then it was off to the border. We all held our breaths. I, for one, was hoping maybe they would just wave us on through. Turns out that didn't happen. They had us all get out of the shuttle bus and walk through customs one by one. Renae, Steph and I all waited in line behind Mom, waiting our turn, thinking maybe a couple extra days in Mexico wouldn't be that bad (?), but hoping we wouldn't find out. Finally the moment of truth arrived. Mom, looking simply pitiful and cute, waved her birth certificate at the Mexican official and told him her story of woe, about how she had lost her driver's lisense and this was all she had! She has skills. I have underestimated her. Unfortunately, the man (who was obviously touched at her delimma), told her that she HAD to have picture ID. So Renae and I put our passports on his table and said "We are her daughters!" and Steph put her passport down and said "I am her granddaughter!!!" It was a grand moment. The man looked at all of us and smiled, waved his hand toward the door and said,"Get out of here!" It was awesome if I have to say so myself!
So, we made it through. I had a horrible headache though, so we all crashed when we got back to our room. When we woke up, we decided to take a bus into San Diego and go to a Seafood Restaurant. The food was only so so, but venturing out into San Diego, just us four Montana girls, was pretty fun.
The next day my nephew Brandon came to pick us up with his girlfriend Lyndsay, her mom Sharon and her brother Dillon. We went to the San Deigo zoo (where I took a gazillion pictures), then we went to the beach for sunset, and then we went onward to Yukipa, where they live. The rest of the week included making sure our bridesmaid dresses fit (they DID!!! I needed a whole size smaller than I though!!! Yeah for me!!! I am mainly so happy about this because I had to get a dress two sizes BIGGER for the last wedding I was in) , getting shoes for the dresses, getting gifts for the bridal shower (which was awesome), cutting thousands of peices of material to make seat covers for the wedding reception (they are getting married December 8th), and just generally hanging out and having a fun time.
One thing I was introduced to over there that you may be interested in is the practice of eyebrow threading. It is awesome. It is practiced in India, and so it was an Indian woman with her giant peice of thread held between her teeth and hands raking it over my eyebrows. She was able to pluck and shape them perfectly in under five minutes, and it lasts longer than waxing!!!
Anyways, there is so much more that I could say, but this has really turned into quite a long blog! I must start some dinner...
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