Thursday, June 05, 2008

Homecoming

Yesterday was a long, long day. We all got up around 5 am and headed to the airport for Hong Kong. It was a bit cloudy when we got there but Hong Kong looks beautiful. I wish we could have spent some time there, unfortunately we were just passing through. Here is a pic we took from our gate.


At the airport we got a quick bite to eat and then we were off for our fourteen hour flight. Luckily there were no delays leaving Hong Kong but the flight was pretty rough. Grace actually did really well, she slept quite a bit, we on the other did not sleep much at all.




We were seated at the back of the plane which helped a little as were were able to mill around when we or Grace got a little stir crazy. Finally we arrived in Chicago for our layover which turned out to be 2 hours longer than we expected since there were some weather issues in Boston. Not something you want to hear after being awake for over 24 hours. But we muddled through and finally we took off for our final leg of our trip home. We had a nice reception waiting for us at the airport: Grammy, Grandpa, Stephen, Maura, Kristen and Lauren had signs, tears and hugs for all of us. We were seated on the last row of the plane so they had to patiently wait for everyone else to get off the plane to greet us. Some pics of our reception below.





When we got home to find our nieces had been by to decorate the house with welcome home messages for us and Grace. By the time we were all able to get to bed it was after 1am and we were all pretty wiped. Grace went to bed pretty easily and slept until around 5am and then we all went back to sleep until about 11am. We are still pretty tired but we don't feel too jet lagged. I think we will all get back on US time pretty quickly. Today we had a doctor's appointment for Grace, just a quick check up and we are happy to report that we have a healthy girl.


Tonight we put Grace to bed at her normal time as she was pretty tired and didn't nap much as we had some running around to do. We really can't believe that we are finally home with her. We are so looking froward to introducing Grace to all our family and friends over the next few weeks. It will be nice now that we can get into a routine and really start the bonding and attachment. We really do feel so incredibly lucky to have Grace home. I have some many cool things that happened on our trip that I want to blog about in the next few weeks, just no time for that now. We are off now to try to get the house re-organized and get some much needed sleep.

14 comments:

Dimples and Stars Race Cars and Guitars said...

WELCOME HOME...I am friends with Angel thats how I found your BLOG...Grace is a DOLL

Dimples and Stars Race Cars and Guitars said...

WELCOME HOME...I am friends with Angel thats how I found your BLOG...Grace is a DOLL

Anonymous said...

Great to have you back! you must be so relieved to finally be home. I'm glad you got some good sleep last night too!

Jenna said...

Congratulations! I'm just so happy for you all! I keep looking at Grace's little face- I think you came home with the most beautiful little girl in China. She's just adorable!!!! Best wishes to you as you settle back into life with your little girl!

Anonymous said...

Welcome home & Congratulations! Hope to see you all soon! Ann

Anonymous said...

Welcome back guys! I can't wait to meet Grace! I wish I was able to come down to the airport with Kris, but someone had to watch the girls I suppose... and I lost the coin toss ;-)

I look forward to hearing these "other stories" from your trip to China! Keep on bloggin'! :)

Anonymous said...

Welcome back! Glad that your family is all together @home!

Mike, Terri and Ava said...

Welcome home and COngratulations on your beautiful family. Thank you for sharing your journey with everyone. I makes our wait so much easier when we can share the journeys of others while we wait. We have an LID of March 14/06 and are hoping to get our referral for Xmas.
Thanks again Grace is a beauty.

The Gang's Momma! said...

Welcome Home! So glad for you and your extended family. Enjoy yourselves and revel in the sweetness and newness of it all - you deserve it after this long journey.

Praying for continued smooth transitions and bondings. . . .

Anonymous said...

I'm so happy to hear that you got home safely and that everything is going so well!
Again, congratulations! Can't wait to see all of you!

Anonymous said...

I am so happy for you guys. What an amazing journey you have had so far! And really this is just the beginning! You have so many wonderful memories still waiting to be made! Thank you for sharing your journey through your blog, I have been following from the beginning and have enjoyed sharing (in just a small way) the journey! Congrats!

Kathy K

Oh and of cours Grace is absolutely beautiful! I look forward to meeting her sometime. :-)

Will said...

Congrats Jen and Steve!

Ani said...

welcome home!

Melinda said...

Welcome home...We loved seeing Gracie on Friday. She is absolutely beautiful and you both are doing a wonderful job with her!