Our Trip Home

I'll post a bit about our trip home.  And hopefully I'll soon do a post about life at home so far.

The trip home was long and grueling. But Willem was an awesome traveler. Poor fellow lost his lunch as we were landing on two of the three flights tho, and probable would have on the last one too if he would have had any lunch left in him.  But I was expecting it and was prepared so we were none the worse for it.

Looking out as we leave Guangzhou.

On our longest flight (Beijing to Chicago) Willem and I sat together in two seats and Mei sat directly across from us on the other side of the plane and got two seats to herself.  It worked out great for all of us.  Mei got some much earned and deserved rest and relaxation by herself.  Willem slept for a bit right away and then was awake for a bit.  After about three hours he fell asleep and slept for a solid six hours, which meant that I got to sleep too!  Yaaayyy!  He was then awake and so happy (for the most part) for the last 3 hours. He kept himself entertained for all of his awake time on all planes with the earphones on the plane.  You wouldn't believe the things a little boy could think of to do with earphones.  And one of them is not listen to music, thank you very much! Really this long flight was much better for me on the way back than it was on the way there for some reason.  It did not feel as long.  Maybe because I was so scared of what it could be like (and what I've experienced before).  And then Willem was so good.  I don't know.  Anyway - I'm thankful for a good little traveler.

 Leaving Beijing

 All tuckered out!

Here's one of the things to do with earphones ~ 

wind the cord around both handles on my cup and then plug it in.

This is a long trip - a really, really long trip!  We had quite long layovers and I'm so glad we did.  It took all the time we had to get from where the plane landed to the next flight.  In Beijing we had to go through customs and had long lines to wait in.  We had six minutes to spare before our next flight was boarding by the time we got to the gate and got checked in for the flight.

I did not want to come back through Chicago as I've done that before and it was a nightmare.  We did end up doing that and it was a nightmare again.  But we made it through of course.  And that is where our sweet boy became a U.S. citizen.  :)  Yahoooo!! Welcome to the U.S. Willem!

Our last flight was delayed, but we finally made it to Mpls and to baggage claim.  I was so excited to see my sweet little Bryn Bee I ran when I saw her and I cried.

So then we could just collect our luggage and go.  We found one (of three) suitcases and waited, and waited, and waited until it finally stopped for good and there were no more suitcases.  No more suitcases.  Lost luggage is not a myth!  We went to the counter and I waited and waited and waited while the lady was helping someone else and finally was able to show her my luggage tickets. She looked them up and said, "Oh, it looks like they were scanned onto the flight that is coming in next."  By this time it's 10:55 p.m. and we've now been traveling for close to 30 hours.  She says, "You can wait for that flight or we can deliver them, but that wouldn't be til tomorrow."  We found out the flight was landing in a few minutes and the luggage would be here by 11:20 so we waited.  She did give vouchers for each traveler to use at any food place in the airport and by this time we were of course all really hungry.  The only problem was there was no food place open at that time of night.  I did tell her that that was very considerate of her, but that we probably wouldn't be driving 70 miles to come back to use them.

Well, we did make it home and into bed by 1:00 a.m. to begin to prepare ourselves for the next part of our journey of life with a new family member - a new brother / son that we all already adore and who fits so perfectly into our family that we can't imagine life without him.

Welcome into our family, Willem!  We love you so much!