The trip home

Well our day began at 3:15 a.m. on Thursday morning (China time which is 3:15 p.m. on Wed. afternoon EST time). We had to have our bags outside our doors by 4:30 a.m and we left on the bus for the airport at 5:30 a.m. Our flight was supposed to leave at 8:20 a.m. The check in lines at the airport were very long and we had to go through a lengthy security search but finally we were on the plane. We sat for about fifteen minutes or so before the captain came on and said the front tire had a cut in it so they were going to have to have it replaced - obviously for safety reasons. He said it would take about an hour to do this. We were wondering what would happen with our flight in Tokyo because we only had an hour and fifteen minute layover there. So after about an hour of waiting on the plane, the captain came back on and said the new tire was there but they had to wait for the outside contractor to arrive to change it. He said this would take about another hour. At this point, we realized that we were definitely not going to make our connecting flight in Tokyo. We ended up leaving Guangzhou at 10:30 a.m. and arrived Tokyo at about 3:15 p.m. Luckily even though we had missed our connecting flight, Northwest had booked us onto the next flight which was leaving in about half an hour. So we had to book through the airport and the security checkpoint (always seems to take forever with those) and we made it to the next gate just in time. We weren't sure if our luggage would make the new flight or not, but it did. YEAH!! The flight was eleven hours long and Chloe and Lucy both did really well. Chloe never even cried once during the whole trip. She slept for about five hours total and just sat on our laps and ripped up the magazines the rest of the time.

We arrived at the airport by my parent's house about 4:15 p.m. and then spent about another 45 minutes going through the immigration process. When we finally got all done our families were waiting to meet us. Lia was SO EXCITED to see her momma and daddy again and to finally meet Chloe!!!! We went back to my parents house and had dinner, took showers, etc. and then Dan's parents drove us home (about two hour drive) about 7 p.m. So we walked in the door of our own house about 9 p.m. Chloe slept in the car We went to bed about 10 p.m and Chloe slept till 1:30 a.m. and then she was up till about 4:00 a.m. At that time Dan started walking around with her and he would get her to sleep but when he would try to lay her down in her crib she would wake up and start crying again. He ended up laying on the couch with her laying on his chest and she slept that way from 6 a.m. till 10 a.m. We finally woke her up then although this was difficult to do because she just wanted to keep sleeping! She took another nap from 12:30 - 3:30 pm. this afternoon and we finally had to wake her up because we wanted her to sleep tonight. Of course for Chloe and Dan and I, the daytime here is our night in China so no wonder Chloe wanted to keep sleeping. Lia went to play with a neighbor friend for an hour or so and she watched a movie while Dan and I had a little rest.

Tonight we went out for Chinese for dinner at our favorite Chinese restaurant by our house. Our very favorite waiter, Jack, got to see Chloe. Jack, if you remember from an earlier post, had helped me translate all Chloe's documents when we got our referral so he was excited to finally meet her! We let Chloe suck on an orange slice and she seemed to really love it. The expressions on her face were cute so I've included a couple of pics of that as well.

Many of you wanted to know how Lia is doing now that she is finally a big sister. She's doing great and just loving being with Chloe as much as she can. She keeps saying, "she's so cute!". And she's said more than once, "finally at last I am a big sister!". It's so sweet!!! Lia is a big help too - she's already given Chloe her bottle, helped feed her some baby food, gotten diapers for us, etc. I'm including some pics of the two of them from tonight.

Well I need to get to bed because I'm sure Chloe will be up a lot tonight as well.