Trip Home

On our way to the airport we shared with our guide the trouble we had with our seats for the upcoming flight - they were bad to begin with (we were "boxed in" and figured that would be an absolute nightmare with H) and got worse when K tried to fix it (thanks to the language barrier).  I'd been praying about this flight/worried about it, and knew that no matter what happened it would work out!

Here we are after making it through check-in (after which H threw a huge fit), security, immigration, and customs.

I was totally not expecting what ended up happening with our seat situation. This definitely qualifies as "above all we can ask or imagine" (Eph. 3:20) -

Our wonderful guide asked about our seats when we were checking in.  She offered an option that we were told may or may not work.  Well, it worked! We ended up with FOUR seats all to ourselves (the very back of the plane, but who cares!  We had no one directly next to us)!!  K and I sat with H between us.  H ended up sleeping (7-8 hours of the 13ish hour flight) sprawled out on one of the seats, between us, cushioned by 3 small pillows and covered by his blanket and one of the airplane blankets.  Amazing!

When he wasn't sleeping, H could be found playing with toys, eating, watching TV, or a combination of those.  Here, he's having "breakfast" (at about 4pm local time....6am C* time) while kind of watching Thomas -

Really, this flight with him was quite amazing.  He didn't get feisty until the end of the flight and K and I each slept 4-5 hours.  Thank you to those who prayed!!

We were thrilled to land.  To be back in "the land of the free and the home of the brave."  HOME.  I loved seeing this sign, minus the photo.  It felt good to be back....comfortable surroundings....familiar language/currency/bathrooms....and just plain home. Safe. 

Here we are after handing over our paperwork to the immigration officer.  The three of us - one a very new citizen of the United States of America.  I'm tearing up just writing that.

We had a 4ish hour layover.  Cleared immigration and customs, re-checked our luggage, ate dinner (or breakfast as it was about 11am C* time), and freshened up a bit.

Around 10:00pm local time (in CA) we boarded the next leg of our journey - this time from LAX to DTW.  H was sound asleep!  But not for long :(  I was worried that he wasn't getting enough air as his face was smashed against me.  I moved him a little, and it went downhill very very quickly from there! He screamed!  And screamed.  So hard that at one point I had the "barf bag" up to his face as I thought he was going to vomit. 

He didn't vomit, but that 4ish hour flight was not fun!  Because of the time differences, this was our SECOND Tuesday night in like 12 hours.  I felt awful as I knew his screaming was keeping others awake.  And we hadn't even taken off yet (and thus couldn't walk around to try to calm him). Eventually he calmed....only to be woken by the cackling of a college girl sitting behind us.  Ugh!  

We spent the vast majority of that flight in the very.back of the plane with the flight attendants.  With H screaming or fussing and the attendants trying to make him happy by making a rattle (pretzels inside of cups taped together) and dancing, etc.  We wandered the plane some, tried to distract him various ways, etc., but not much worked.  At this point we had been traveling (out of our hotel room) for 24 hours.

We finally landed in MI.  Our home state :)  6am local time....7pm C* time....sooooo confusing!

We really like the airport in Detroit.  The fountains - 

The tunnel, with lights and fun sounds -

Our tiny (especially compared to the Airbus and 767 we had just flown on) plane for the short ride from DTW to GRR -

We ate breakfast (again), tried to make ourselves look presentable (again), and had fun playing with H while waiting to board our (hallelujah) last flight -

We were the first to board that flight....I guess b/c we had H.  We then sat there for close to 30 minutes while the pilots sorted through paperwork.  Ugh. The flight home was 30 minutes so this doubled our time.  H was feisty...throwing stuff....toys ended up on the laps of other passengers, but thankfully they were kind :)

H loves the photo album we mailed in his care package.  He especially likes the first 2 pages - photos of K, me, H, and our dog.  He points at the photos and we name each person.  He's quite attached to this book and especially the first few days we had him would really latch on to it and not want to let go. The first sounds we heard from him (other than crying/fussing) were made, I think, while he was looking at this book.

Finally, our last flight took off for home - 25 hours after our first flight left Guangzhou.  The longest day of my life, I think - literally and figuratively - but worth every second to have H home with us!

We had a great welcome when we arrived in our home airport :)  More on that later.  

Tonight is our 3rd night home.  We've been trying to stay awake until 9pm, and have, but I've regretted that some as H hasn't been sleeping well.  He goes to bed but wakes up....and screams uncontrollably off and on for several hours during the night...then has been up for the day at 5 (yesterday) and 6 (today).  I figure I should sleep when I can :)