It feels so good to be home. We are struggling with trying to get adjusted back to central time though. We desperately need some solid sleep. Maybe tonight is the night. Wishful thinking.
Just wanted to share a few pictures from our goodbye to China. Hopefully I'll get some pictures from our airport welcome home and can share those too. It is emotional to return home from a trip like this. We've been incredibly blessed. Everyone has understood and respected our boundaries as far as Luke is concerned. I know it is hard for everyone who loves him so much already and want so badly to hold our son, but thank you for understanding our efforts regarding attachment. It is so so hard. Also, I want to give a shout out to some of my friends from the BWHS class of 1993 who stocked our freezer for us so we came home to wonderful family dinners. What a perfect gift and absolutely what we needed.
Now for a few final pictures from China. This was in the courtyard at our hotel that last morning. We had to say goodbye to the fish. :)
Really Awesome Staircase - Hotel Lobby
View from Our Bedroom Window - I will be forever in awe of the buildings as far as the eyes can see...apartment buildings, wealthy, poor, office skyscrapers, progressive China across the alley from "old" China with laundry hanging out the window...
Lucia met us at noon to take us to the train station.
Last few fun series of the kids...
Taking advantage of a few minutes out of the stroller at the train station before boarding for Hong Kong - Luke's romper says "Mommy's New Man."
I think that was the last picture I took in China. The train ride was nice. It took a little over 2.5 hours, I think. What a spectacular way to see some of the countryside. Hope and I were commenting how there seemed to still be tall buildings everywhere. There was a little green space. We saw some rice patties and other farmland, but really, the city seemed to just go on forever.
We didn't have a chance to get the camera out at the train station in Hong Kong that night. What a hassle that was. We got off the train and the many of the employees there were wearing surgical masks. One took Ron's temperature. For a split second there, I panicked. What if they decided to detain him because his temp was high? It was HOT and he was trying to manhandle ALL of our luggage while I had to try to keep track of Hope and push Luke in the stroller. What would I do? I had visions of me standing there among the pile of suitcases with my two kids all looking completely stranded in the middle of the train station. Luckily all my swift emotions were just at and we were allowed to pass through security without any trouble. Finding our hotel was quite a chore though. The hotel itself wasn't challenging to find, but it was quite a circus getting there. We had to wander outside, try an escalator with everyone just staring at us until finally one nice woman directed us to an elevator, get up to a skywalk over to a mall, meander through the mall a ways and up a short staircase into our hotel lobby. I can't get over how people just stood and watched it all happen. Where are the good Samaritans? (That question was answered for us the next morning.)
I would not recommend our hotel to any families traveling home to Hong Kong. The room had a small double bed and a crib squeezed into it and that was the extent of the floor space. Seriously! It really was ridiculous. And THAT was supposed to be our free upgrade to the executive floor (however, use of the lounge was not included). Whatever. We survived. None of us slept much. In hindsight, I sort of wish we would've just taken a taxi right to the airport and continued our travel home without trying to stay the night. Something for others to consider, maybe. I just don't think we benefitted at all from the hassle of the one night there (not to mention the expense).
At any rate, the next morning we had to be down in the lobby at 5:15 for the bus shuttle to the airport. Here enters our knight in shining armor for our trip home. Mr. Larry greeted us in the lobby, helped us with our luggage, and helped us get through the airport and to our gate. He is a businessman from Utah and travels to HK often so he knew what he was doing. He also got permission to take us with him through the priority check-in, which saved us from standing in a huge line. He was so kind and we are so thankful for him! We never even got his last name. He was just one of those kind people God put in our path at the perfect time.
We survived our flight to Tokyo with few outbursts. Both children did very well. Then came the long leg to Seattle. Again, the kids did pretty well for the most part until it came time for the plane to be dark so passengers could sleep. Then Luke turned it on and screamed for about 2.5 hours. I was in the back of the plane with him for what seemed like forever. Poor little man...teething, cold/runny nose, confined to my lap or Ron's for the better part of two days at this point...he'd just had enough and let me know about it. I never get people being so frustrated with crying babies. It's not as if the parents really planned the episode. In fact, I'm quite certain that if you could've seen the look on my face I was pretty exasperated with the entire thing. I'd have rather been sleeping, too. I remember feeling that traveling home with Hope as well. She was a disgruntled passenger for about the first 7 hours of the flight I think. How do we teach people to offer grace during times like these? Perhaps that's a post/discussion for another day. I can't even tell you how good it feels to land on American soil after that long flight. So amazing!
So we made it to Seattle. We weren't sure how long we had until our connecting flight home. We were a little anxious as we stood in line for customs. When we got out turn, the gentleman there processed Ron, Hope, and me, and then sent us to another waiting area to process Luke's entry as an immigrant. The lady there told us it would be at least a half hour before they'd get to our case. Ummm...say WHAT? I wasn't about to Missouri flight home. Do she looked it up for us and said we had an hour which would be plenty of time. I was trying my best not to stress any more. We were so close. But an hour was not a long time to get Luke's paperwork done, go get our luggage and recheck it again (Did you know you have to do that at your first port I country even if you checked it all the way home? It has to go through customs security at that first stop. Is that new?), find our gate and hopefully use the bathroom before boarding. I don't know how we did it, but we made it happen. We even had time to purchase a snack because there was no meal on the last flight home and we were starving. Praise the Lord, both Luke and Hope slept almost the entire final flight. It was wonderful. We got to MSP at 5:11 after traveling for something like 26 hours. I should figure out just how long our travel day really was.
We had so much fun getting our family. Oh, how we missed everyone. It didn't take much convincing to get our drivers to stop for some dinner on the way home. How relaxed we were there at a Famous Dave's.
It's good to be home.
(Sorry for the marathon post. I just need to get our travel day documented before I forgot all the details. I'll post again soon with pictures from our first days home. P.S Luke loves sweet corn! Here hee)
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