This is a story worth telling because of the incredible planning and amazing people needed to pull it off (and I just need to express how grateful I am to every player!)… and I promised to tell the tale of why she is not yet a Mexican doggy!!

Ok, so I was so dreading taking Rosie to the airport by myself…I have had to face and solve many new challenges throughout the process of preparing to become expats in a new country, and even when I would prefer company or wish I had a “partner in crime” to accomplish them, I’ve always been okay and independent enough to just get the job done. I’ve also had amazing family and friends willing to help.  Aaron in Mexico working for the two weeks prior to our move presented a few challenges for us…completing the organizing, last minute details and overseeing the movers who were packing us up for three days straight!  When Lauren (bless her!) said she was willing to help me make the job of getting Rosie to the airport easier, I was SO grateful.  First it was suggested that we stay the night before at her sister’s, who lives close to the airport, then she suggested that Jayne might be ok to go… I felt so ridiculous about asking her to leave with me at 3:00 am to have Rosie there for 5:30 am processing.  Rosie had been booked a month prior to travel as “cargo” on Air Canada Cargo, and what a process it was… We were once again in that little boat paddling madly to connect the departure process here and the receiving process in Mexico, to ensure our dear pooch would be arriving and received and not left on the tarmac!   Customs brokerage in Mexico could only receive her on Dec 18 at the latest, we were originally told…we wanted her to travel with us on Dec 23 but were told that no one would be there to process her into the country… we’ve since discovered that it seems more or less an arbitrary date as the whole country parties from December 12 – January 5 to celebrate the baby Jesus and his mama Mary.   I’m getting ahead of myself…we did the best we could with the information we were given; this experience is giving us the opportunity to learn to ask the right questions to drill down and get the correct/actual information needed…

Jayne was terrific to come to help me organize Rosie’s crate and attach with the appropriate hardware and water/food bowls.  (Of note also, was the extensive research Aaron did to ensure we had the right sized crate and approved hardware and accessories, the result of many hours on-line and on the phone to AC Cargo.  He ordered everything and the kids and I gathered it all up!  This truly has been a team effort to attempt to get this dog in the air!)  She also did some research with her agility friends to outfit the crate door with the safest gear for our dog.  Jayne has a friend who warned us against using the zip-ties suggested by the airline to secure her kennel door from vibrating open during the flight.  I guess this friend had a dog whose cornea was scratched on a zip-tie used for this purpose…yikes!  So Jayne collected all the correct hardware, clips and carbiners to ensure Rosie’s crate was secure but wouldn’t hurt her.  I was literally one step ahead of the movers at this point, so could not help her complete this task – she showed up with her drill and went to work, transforming Rosie’s “bed” into a safe space to travel in.

I picked Nana up after the kids were done school and brought her out to our house – the plan was for her to stay the night and get the kids to school on their last day of school – we had to stop for “teacher-gifts” at 10:00 p.m. – an oversight that Nana suggested we should address so we have some closure and don’t have a job hanging over our heads for when we are in our new place – I thought out loud that I’d just do something for them once we arrived in MX as I was just was so tired and preoccupied with this move and didn’t feel like I had one more job-to-do in me… very glad for Mom’s wisdom in this case… Mansell had the terrific idea to give Cypress plants to each of their classes to care for, a plant that grows readily and heartily here in Mexico, and lovely pointsettias for everyone’s teachers and all the people we have grown to love at Hillsdale!   Plants piled on every available lap in our little car (as trunk was full-t0-brim with donations still to deliver) we made our way home for a few hours of sleep before starting all over again the next morning – Nana was amazing to get the kids to fill out their cards to their teachers at breakfast the next day, especially as she had so little sleep the night before…she started the night tucked in with Caleigh on her matress on the floor while I frantically finished organizing our room as the movers were to put it all in boxes the next morning, having left it for last… at 2 a.m. I walk down the hall to run something downstairs and find Nana crawling on the floor toward the door frame in Caleigh’s room… Of course I stop to help and find out what’s going on… groggily she explains, “Well, was sleeping and Mansell came in, walked across the room, turned a few circles in the corner, said something I didn’t catch and I think went back to bed…” My poor mama… I tell her I’m done in my room, she should move to my bed where she’ll have a better few hours of sleep… she’s happy to oblige… I feel so much better knowing she’s no longer on the floor! These are screwy times!!  And I’m so grateful to her for agreeing to abet in this insanity…:)  Also grateful to Sandra who drove all the plants over to the school in the morning!

Jayne shows up at 3:20ish with coffee in travel mugs, fruit, muffins and yogurt!  Wow!  I’m pretty giddy with zero sleep under my belt, and finding this whole thing pretty funny!  Rosie is just SO excited to be going for a car ride and I feel sick about her cluelessness about what is coming…  We “zoom”:) down the 400 and make it to Air Canada Terminal One on what I am soon to discover is THE busiest travel day of the ENTIRE YEAR!!!!    We congratulate ourselves on how smoothly this is all going… we are making SUCH good time… we load Rosie’s gigantic kennel onto a cart, I walk her on her leash through the airport to check-in.  We decide that we will avoid the people/luggage conveyors as we are in such good time and don’t need to speed up the process and don’t want to freak out the dog… she is doing really well, leash in mouth, totally in “control” of her walk (such an endearing habit of hers!).  We arrive in departures to find many people milling and in-line, police officers and security and extra staff employed this day to deal with the excess travel load… who knew!?  Not a single booking agent mentioned this day’s reputation when we were “securing” our Rosie’s flight… When we inquire about the location of AC Cargo, they look panicked and assure us that we are in the WRONG place… OMG…”So where ARE we supposed to be?” I ask, attempting to hide my rising panic, and failing… “Well, it’s not even on this site… Mississauga area, I think…”  OMG… I pull out my phone and start googling AC Cargo, cursing my dear husband as I do so…this has happened so often during this process – he books or makes the contact and I am the one to make it happen finally, and as he says, “I’m not a details person, I’m an ideas person…”so there is usually some major information missing – often I can foresee this gap and address it, but seemed to have dropped the ball on this one… we eventually find an address, confirm it with another group of AC staff and race back to the van… Rosie performs commando-dog crawl on the conveyors on the way back, moving as low as she can, belly on the ground, leash in mouth, still “in-control” as now we have to make up for lost time… I race to pay for our 2 mins of parking and Jayne loads Rosie, returns cart and we’re on our way… we make amazing time, arriving at AC Cargo at 5:35… the agent was there waiting for her at 5:30… the woman at the door began to go back inside, and Jayne laid on the horn to announce our arrival…Whew!  Everyone was so good with Rosie and Jayne was amazing about singing her praises, understanding that if they care about her, chances are they will treat her well. Everything there went very smoothly and we were on our way by 6:30, home by 7:30 a.m…. I walked in to everyone upstairs getting ready for school – Mom saw me and exclaimed, “Oh good, you’re home!” I think hoping that I was now there to help get everyone out the door.  But she took one look at me and realized that I was completely out of commission and needed to go to bed… “You were white as a sheet” she would later recount, and we figured out that I’d been up for 28 hours straight at that point… she ordered me to bed and woke me at 11:30 a.m. when the movers needed to get into my room to pack. Woke feeling a bit more human and like I’d accomplished something… our Rosie was in the air and almost to her new home, ready to be received by Mexican customs agents, to board with them for a few days until we arrived on the 23rd to collect her…

Then the phone rang…