DENIED entry!

Ya... so guess who is still in the good ole USA while her parents and brother are in Costa Rica? Yup... I got to the airport and all the way to the gate to board the plane and then and employees did a final passport check and said, "I cant let you on this plane!" She wrote DENIED ENTRY in HUGE black letters across my boarding pass and explained that Costa Rica has some funky laws that most other countries don't have. My passport is due to expire on Feb 1 and since it would expire in less than 30 days than the day of my entry it was NO good. Ugh! My dad's face about froze and he turned all kind of crazy white and I could tell he was just sick. I stayed strong as I watched my parents and "R" get on the plane but I knew I had to be strong. Here is a point in the story that I can feel sorry for myself a little bit.....the only person who speaks Spanish and would be doing all of the translating, the person who had done all of the calls to C.R. to set everything up.... GOT STUCK HOME.... what?? It is my parents trip though so I am just thankful that they invited me to go with them. Anyway, It was a Saturday and so there wasn't much I could do about it until Monday. I had to go through all of the options though. 1) Fly to LA to the federal passport agency 2) drive to LA 3) Go to another one of the states that has an agency, etc. So... my dad told me to take care of it as fast as I could so I could get to C.R. really fast. Then end result was that I flew Sunday night to Houston Texas and got there at 3 in the morning. I went to the passport agency on Monday morning and got my passport and then flew back to AZ on Tuesday evening. Ugh! Such a crazy experience and such a BIG mistake that we made by not knowing the law. I just thought that it expired when it said it did... I had know idea that it could be a problem. Had I know... I would have taken care of it in NY at the office by my house instead of spending (take a big breath) $731 to get to Houston over night. My dad's credit card is still smoking from that purchase! Good news.... I fly out Tuesday at 2:30...yay!