Getting up at 4:15 am was perhaps the most difficult part of our vacation although the kids were anxious enough to be headed for Mexico that they didn't seem to mind and were on the best of behavior considering how tired they must have been. We were packed and ready to go and so following a very early breakfast, we loaded our luggage into the car and were off to the airport for our 6 am departure. Having checked in online for our Alaska Airlines flight did save us a lot of time at the airport and enabled us to show up only 50 minutes before our flight was to depart. Checking in online enabled us to preenter our passport information and print out our boarding passes.


Within 3 minutes of clearing security we were ready to...