We're All Back Home

After leaving Guangzhou on Wednesday, we took the train to Hong Kong. We arrived late, but from what we could see, the city looked really nice. We were only spending one night there though until we came home. We checked into the hotel and quickly went to bed. Katie decided that she would like to get up that morning at 3:30. She stayed up until 6 when our alarm was set for 6:30. Needless to say, we started our very long day early!

Our flight from China to San Francisco went pretty well. Katie cried a few times, but she stopped very quickly. It was such a long flight though. It was even longer when we had over an hour of turbulence. With very little sleep on top of the turbulence, we weren't feeling the greatest by the end of the flight.

In San Francisco, Katie officially became a U.S. citizen after going through the immigration line.  We quickly got onto our next plane to come home. By this time, we were all tired - especially Katie. She had a tough time on that flight, but did much better when I walked with her up and down the aisle of the plane.

Once we got home, we had some nice surprises. First, Katie didn't mind her first trip of her life in the car seat. She just quietly fell asleep. Second, when we returned home, Jennifer's friend, Michele, had nicely decorated the outside of the house to welcome us home and had made dinners for us to last us at least a week. (Can't thank you enough, Michele!)  Third, my cousin had finished decorating the nursery for me. Thank you Garyldine!  Fourth, I had a gift box waiting for Katie from my older sister, Debby! Thank you for your generosity, Debby! Finally, Katie got to meet the pets. We were so happy to see that she immediately loved Bingle and Chloe.  In fact, she was so happy with them that we wondered if she had possibly been around pets before. I can't imagine it though. We thought that Chloe's barking would scare her, but the barking makes her laugh every time she hears it - even if she's in the middle of crying!

Now, we're all working to re-adjust to the time change. Jet lag isn't a whole lot of fun, but at least when we're wide awake from about 9:00 p.m to 1:00 a.m., we all have company to talk to!  Hopefully, our internal clocks will adjust soon.

We're all very grateful for the experience! First of all, we were glad to finally meet Katie. On top of that, we met so many nice people in our adoption group, and so many wonderful people in China. Finally, we were so grateful for those of you who followed our story and offered your comments. It was nice to get a piece of home through your messages while we were so far away!