June 14, 2007

I can't believe Hope is now 2 yrs. old.

I can't believe today is the 1 yr. anniversary of our homecoming.

I can't believe we have a daughter.

I can't believe Hope is our daughter.

I can't believe I've come to the end of my chronicles. I've put away the journal and photo CDs 'til next time.

I guess "I can't believe" a lot of things. I bet this list could be endless if I let myself keep typing. Thanks for following along with me as I remembered our trip. I'm happy I was able to get it all down, minus some details I'm sure, but thorough for the most part. It was an emotional journey then and I have to admit that it was still an emotional journey now as I re-lived the joys and sorrows we all experienced.

So, this is it. Today was the day we flew home. It was a LONG LONG day. I think our wake-up call was at 4 am on this Thursday morning (which is really 3:00 p.m. Wednesday US time, I think) and we landed in Minneapolis close to 10:00 p.m. our time on the same Thursday. The time thing is all confusing to me, but what it all amounts to is that we had a tiring day of traveling!

Here is what our family was doing as they waited for our arrival.


Here is a photo from the airport in Guangzhou waiting for our flight to Tokyo. The next one is on the flight. We were able to switch to bulkhead seats for this leg...and this leg only. It was nice to let Hope sleep for a bit. It was pretty short-lived though because she was just a tiny bit long for that bassinet.


Hope didn't do well on the long flight from Tokyo to LA at all. She screamed for the first 5+ hours and then got sick all over both of us. We'd moved to the back of the plane because other passengers were trying to rest and survive the 13 hr. flight, too, and having a howling 12 mo. old close by sort of hinders relaxation. It was tough on all of us. We were so happy when we landed in LA, breezed through customs, got our luggage checked again for the flight home, and had a chance to call our families to tell them we were in the country and their new granddaughters were now officially US citizens.

We relaxed a bit, had some dinner (McDonald's if you can believe it), and got back on a plane for the final leg home. The short 4 hrs. to MSP hardly phased us. Actually Hope finally slept. She woke up just as we were getting ready to land. That was a peaceful trip. I was so thankful!

When we got off the plane we quickly found a restroom to freshen up and then went to meet our family. We were so happy to see familiar faces and to have the help hauling our luggage. ;)
Family at the Airport








The car ride home was another adventure for us. I'd suspected we might have a fight on our hands. Hope loves to go "bye bye" now, but that night was her first time ever in a carseat and she sure didn't think much of it at all. All we could do was ride next to her and tell her it was OK. She had to be safe and we'd hold her again soon. We were all so exhausted so I'm sure that contributed to the strong emotions, too. Also, we had a very hard time getting Hope to eat or drink much of anything all day so she was dehydrated and hungry. When we finally got home, Grandma tried to win her over with some Cheerios, we opened a few gifts, and then it was time to sleep! Boy did our bed feel good that night.

Just for comparison now, here was Hope celebrating her birthday this weekend. So much has changed in a year!



Thanks again for taking this journey with me. I promise to play catch up now and update the blog with everything I've missed over the past few weeks. Don't give up on me if I take a few days off though. I PROMISE PROMISE PROMISE that 2nd birthday updates are coming soon (with more pictures, too). Wait 'til you see Hope's haircut!