Home Again, Home Again

jiggety jig! I always say that when I pull into the garage, no matter where we have been. Today, when we pulled into the garage, Elise shouted it out. It warmed my heart, made me smile and every so thankful to God for carrying us home safely!

Yes, we have returned to the Good Ole US of A with a brand new American Citizen, Amelia SiYuan Wells.

The flight went rather well. We got to sit in bulk head, so we had a bassinet for Amelia to sleep in. My camera died right before we left (not a shocker since it was on it's last leg anyway), so I wasn't able to get a photo of her in it. But she did sleep for about 6 hours of the flight~not bad! Elise did fairly well too. Once again, I'm not too impressed with China Southern service. The attendants will serve the dinner and promptly remove their uniforms in to street clothes. You don't see them again until the last two hours of the 12 hour flight, when they are serving breakfast. The seats in premium economy are very nice though, I will say that I am very glad we did fly that way. It made the long, long trip a little more comfy.

We had a 4 hour lay over at LAX to get through immigration and customs. No problem, we thought. Last time, in Detroit, we made it through in less than an hour and to our connecting flight. Yes, there was some running and some rude, American comments (made by myself, again, another shocker) made to the baggage handlers in Detroit. But we made our flight. We thought we would have not problem. Needless to say, it was a problem. We waited in immigration for Amelia's paperwork to be processed for almost two hours, another hour in the line to get through customs and then a nice, 15 minute walk to the United terminal to board our flight to Chicago. There was no time for anything to eat, to change the clothes (and I'm tellin' ya, I felt like I had been on the Trail for 4 days without a shower, ICKY!), NOTHING! By the time we got to our gate, they were boarding the plane and we were about the last ones on. LAX is a nightmare. I recommend anyone avoid it at all possible. Don't put yourself through it or if you do, make sure you have more than enough layover to make your connecting flight!

I purchased a new car seat for Elise and had planned on using her old seat for Amelia. I messed up and did not order the new car seat BEFORE I left so Elise could start using it before Amelia got here. Needless to say, she wanted NOTHING to do with the new seat. She jumped into my car and got into her car seat, buckled it and sat there quietly while we loaded the truck. This from a child who literally WAILED for the entire 15 walk from terminal to terminal in LAX. She was so bad, that EVERYONE was starring at us. I just smiled and kept trudging along. So Amelia sat in a car seat that was WAY too big for her. Hopefully we'll get this ironed out soon enough.

I expected a battle from Amelia when she sat in the seat, but she only cried a little. I recall that Elise SCREAMED the entire drive home from the airport.

In Elise's Big Girl Car Seat....

We arrived home at around 8 a.m., just an hour short of a 24 hour travel time. I have never been so happy to see an air strip in the middle of corn fields in my entire life. My very good friends, Karen and Gayla and my sister, her husband and my dad, were all at the airport to welcome us home and offer us rides. The only snag in the entire trip was that our luggage did not make the flight from Chicago to Dayton. Did I mention that we had less than an hour to make the connect at O'Hare airport? But we did in fact make it and I had time to get an iced coffee and an egg mcmuffin from McDonalds.

There were balloons in the mailbox welcoming us home! I'm not sure who put them there, but thank you so much for your thoughtfulness. No older kids were home though....one was at school and the other is in New York at a leadership conference. Tucker got home around 11:30 and finally met his new sister. Amelia was rather somber with him, but I think that's because she was tending to some business, if you know what I mean.

Sitting in the high chair. Elise doesn't seem to mind Amelia using this.

Naturally, we all fell asleep at around 12 noon since it was midnight in China. I think we slept about 6 hours, so sleep will be difficult tonight. That's o.k., I've already been to Barnes and Noble and have the new Harry Potter book that I could not find in China. So, I'm ready for the 3 a.m. wake up call to come and play!

The luggage arrive while I napped and I've unpacked and started the laundry. I'm saving some of it for the early morning, jet lag that is bound to hit. All of the gifts made it and did not break thanks to my husband superb packing skills.

Groceries have been purchased and I'm ready for bed. Hopefully I'll get a few hours of shut eye before either one of the girls wakes up. This is going to be a long week, at least it was with Elise. We'll have to spend as much time as possible outside. The Wesley's, our neighbors, did have gifts for the girls. It was very sweet and Elise was so glad to see her Tia Bella and Gray Bomb! She talked about them all the time in China.

As a final note, I would like to thank everyone for the emails. Unfortunately, there seems to be a problem and I didn't receive many of them while in China. There must have been some kind of filter in China that would not let them through. So, if I did not respond to your email, then it is safe to say I did not receive it. I would like to ask you to resend it to me now that I'm home. I know it's too late, but I'd love to have them for Amelia's life book keepsake. Thanks!

Time for a nap! I'll have some final thoughts on China and the trip tomorrow.