Trip Home

We were up at 3:00 am to catch our ride to the airport, our flight was at 8:30. After the short trip to Hong Kong we had a two hour layover. Hong Kong is very beautiful by the way. Very green, mountainous and the water around the island was clear. We caught our next flight - Hong Kong to Newark at 11:30. This was a 16 hour flight. The only thing that kept our sanity was having the bulkhead seats with the bassinet. Lilli did not want anything to do with laying in the bassinet but it was great for storing her toys, food, etc. We tried to sleep during the flight, mom was able to sleep some and Lilli slept for about an hour but it was a VERY, VERY long flight. Lilli cried some but when I walked her around she settled down. The toughest part for her was the decent. I think her ears were hurting her and I forgot to keep a bottle out for her to suck on while we were landing. We landed in Newark about 1:35 for another two hour layover. I'm glad we had that much time to get through customs and immigration. We had to wait in the foreignors line to give the brown envelope to the officer. I was very nervous hoping that we wouldn't have a problem getting Lilli into the country. The officer was not very friendly so I was even more nervous. After about 10-15 minutes he stamped her Chinese passport and said we could go. Yahoo, Lilli is in the country. I don't remember much about the flight from Newark to Charlotte - I don't think I have even been so tired. We have now been up about 30 hours. I do remember it was a very small plane and Lilli was very cranky - who could blame her after such a long day.
Tim, Andrew, Roe and Roy met us as the airport. We needed two cars to get all of our baggage. I was anxious to see Lilli's reaction to Tim and Andrew. She had a great smile and went to both of them right away. We have two videos of the encounter - Roy and mom and I can't wait to play them back.
When we got home Gordon, Chris, Savannah and Christopher were there to greet us. Roe even made pasta for our dinner. We will have our turkey dinner tommorow - after a good nights sleep.
I truly enjoyed my time in China but there is no place like home. I am so thankful to everyone who has made this experience better and brighter than I could have imagined.