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Had a beautiful drive yesterday.

Decided about 11am to go to Canada to see fort Steel. Loaded up the family after the showers, prep etc and headed for the border. Nice drive, beautiful terrain, lots of fun with the kids and the GF.

Get to the border and the first hint of trouble comes, "do you have ID for the kids?", "no?...please take this, park over there and come inside."

First words out of the Border agents mouth "Where were you planning on going, before I tell you the bad news?" Who was I to know you had to have the kids birth certificate and a notorized note from the "other parent" that they can travel to foreign countries (or rather, Canada).

Favorite interchange;
Border Agent: We have the same ID requirements as going to Russia or any other country.
Sean (my 13 year old son): I've never been to Russia either!

I've spent time in 10 different countries, if you don't count Canada and Mexico, and I'm pretty familiar with International travel. I guess I didn't think Canada would be that hard of a place to get into.

My kids have never left the US, so this was their first international trip. Less than 100 yards into Canada and we turned around to go home. Longest U-turn I have ever made. 7 hours in the van.

Had a good time with the family though, so I guess it was worth it. Beats sitting at home for the afternoon.

I had to do the same thing, write a letter and get it notarized authorizing my son to go to Mexico on vacation with my ex-husband. It's a new thing to prevent international child custody dispute abductions. If you want them to get a passport you will need a letter too.

Same problem here when we sent up to Canada last time (except they were my kids and my wife was with me). We got a hour in immigrations while they told us how bad they were... then they let us in.

Go figure.

Coming back was easy. In the past it's always been the other way around... going up was easy and coming back was a bitch.

We have that problem with our niece. Since we aren't the leagal mother and father (but we are the leagal guardians) we can't take her up to Canada with us to visit my family.