Continued from San Jose Day 4 Part 2.

11am flight still meant that we had to wake up at 5:30am. Figured it’ll take us about 30min to get ready, 15min to eat breakfast, and 15min to load up the car etc. etc. I know, nothing is fast with 3 kids.

We saved some of the cold brew from yesterday. Came in handy this morning.

Another blue sky day here in San Jose.

Excited to go home.

One reason why we left so early is because there’s always some sort of traffic jam here in San Jose and we’ve never driven early in the morning. So better safe than sorry.

Traffic.

We went through several of these intersections in San Jose. There’s a Stop sign and there’s also a street light. Which one do you follow?!?! We think people usually just follow the street light.

Rental car return just up ahead. Our Toyota Fortuner got the job done. Other than smelling a little mildewy inside, the door sensor not working, and the google maps voice not being able to turn down from max volume, it was great. Now that I think about it…I’ve had better rental car experiences.

Now, rental car shuttle to the airport.

It ain’t San Jose without traffic jams.

The toll gates that doesn’t seem to be taking money but always creates a lot of traffic.

Arrived with plenty of time to spare, at least I hope so.

Yup, no one in line yet. It hasn’t been a good morning for RL. Usually it’s me with tummy issues while traveling, but it struck her this time. Something she ate yesterday isn’t agreeing with her GI this morning. We shared our dinner, so all we can think about is maybe the Tostadas that she had for lunch?

Oh, one of those traditional Costa Rican wagons, Carreta.

Handsome. Thinks he’s so funny, just like his baba.

We were here about 3 hours before our flight, and we were early enough that they didn’t even start accepting checked bags until after we started waiting here. Why are we checking bags when we usually don’t. Well, with United Airlines, they most basic economy fare didn’t allow carryon unless you paid for them….I could have gotten the next level economy which would have allowed carryon, but then it was a lot more expensive. I’m cheap sometimes, so I kept all 5 tickets at basic economy and just paid for 2 checked bags for an overall cheaper price than upgrading some tickets to Economy. Suck it United for trying to nickel and dime me.

Low tourist season means mostly empty terminal.

The kids have energy to spend. We told them to do jumping jacks while they waited in line.

First time seeing that it’s prohibited to take sea shells inside checked bags. That’s a strange one, I wonder why it’s prohibited?

Going through security and immigration was also a breeze.

Now, let’s get some real breakfast.

First, coffee.

Breakfast spot? Nope, it had too many healthy options that the kids didn’t want.

While we wait for our food the kids play with the souvenirs that they got.

Breakfast, Costa Rican style.

Got time to kill, so might as well walk around the terminal checking out the shops.

I want one, but didn’t want to support butterflies being caught just to be put in a display case.

Why is it that bikers always feel the need to wear their vests as much as possible?

Kids on their ipads, I went in search of lunch to eat on the plane.

They seem to really love dogs here in Costa Rica. We see a lot of dog owners around town.

Lunch for the plane acquired.

RL got selected for random screening before boarding.

Lunch.

Bye Costa Rica, it’s been fun.

Back State side with the wetlands around Houston.

PL said that she felt sick during the descent. She was watching her ipad during the bumpy ride, so we got her off the ipad. She looked like she was going to throw up into the airplane throw up bag, but by the time we landed she was all good. Dodged that bullet.

But apparently, we didn’t dodge the bullet. Poor girl. This is PL after we disembarked and took an escalator where she threw up at the end of the escalator(glad it wasn’t on the escalator itself). Then after that she said she needed to throw up again, we didn’t have any throw up bags handy, but I did have this pizza box with uneaten pizza that I was holding. So she threw up in the pizza box and we said goodbye to our leftover pizza. This photo is also foggy because it was taken with my water damaged iphone camera since it’s now my working phone with the Verizon eSim. Well, working minus the halfway working camera.

Immigration at IAH, always a joy. It took quite a while, of course. The kids couldn’t stand and wait still in line, of course.

Finally out of immigration. They are doing a lot of construction at IAH so we actually had to walk all the way to another terminal in order to get on the shuttle to our car.

Downtown Houston.

Went from one trafficky city to another.

This last photo sums up everything about our family, our kids, and our trip.

The end.