Great to be home!

After a grueling 25 hours (approximately) of being up and traveling, we made it safely home on Sept. 17th. We were so excited to see familiar faces of family and friends at the airport! We could not have done this without all of your support and prayers! It's great to be home and adjusting to our new life. Rachel loved her room and closet with new clothes (although most of the skirts and shorts are way too big for her tiny waist!). We spent most of Saturday just doing nothing and sleeping on and off. Rachel played hard with her brothers and a neighbor girl, Sophie, who is 6. Rachel went to bed on her own for a "nap" at around 5pm (possibly earlier - as I was dozing on the couch and didn't even know she had gone to bed). I was afraid it was too late for a nap and that she wouldn't sleep at night. To our surprise, she slept until about 6:45am, when it was time to get up for church!! She had to be EXHAUSTED from the trip, time change and playing so much on Friday and Saturday!

We went to church yesterday. She was greeted by lots of new people and got slightly overwhelmed. But she did fine overall. We went out to eat at our boys' favorite restaurant - a Vietnemese place. Rachel loved the noodles. Then we came home and couldn't help but go to bed to rest. We were trying to stay awake, but couldn't help dozing off a little! Rachel again went to bed for a nap on her own, and slept all the way til this morning. Her 2 brothers went to school this morning, so I'm sure she misses them. I said the word school in Chinese for her to understand where they disappeared to! She seemed to understand. :-)

She loves to ride Nathan's bike! She has also had cereal, oatmeal and Brazilian rice and beans! We had wondered how she would eat and try new foods. To our surprise, so far so good! At first she wrinkled up her nose to the oatmeal, but when she saw her brothers eating it, she tried it and liked it. YAY!!! She even likes iced tea (in China, they are used to drinking hot things). They don't even drink cold water. It's either hot or room temperature. Yuck! I was so glad to get back to cold water. That's why I drank a lot of coke there, more than I ever do here. We were told not to use ice as it might not be safe. So the water was room temperature on our tours. The only way we had cold water was buying bottled water and putting them in our mini fridge in the hotel room (which didn't get them very cold, but it was better than nothing!). The little things we are used to and don't appreciate them until we don't have them. :-)

We do miss the other families we met there. Hopefully we'll all keep in touch.

Needless to say, it's great to be home! Love to all who have followed our journey so far.

Going Home

Family Photo

Family and friends welcome us at airport

Tuesday, Sept. 14th.

3 more days until we finally get to go home!!! We are very homesick. It had already hit me, but it really hit Fabio today. Today has been a very relaxing day, so maybe that's why we had more time to think about how much we miss our boys and home. At least we get to rest more and have more free time this week before our very exhausting and long trip back home. Several families in our group will be on the same flight with us from Hong Kong to Detroit. I wish Rachel's closest friends were on the same flight. She has really been blessed and happy to meet the other kids here, especially Kyle, Cambrie (same age, only 4 days apart) and Aiden (the new addition to this sweet family). It's cute to hear her say all of their names too! Today we had our Consulate Appt. We didn't have to actually go. Our guide went for us, but one of us had to stay in the hotel room until it was done. It didn't take long at all. Today (Wed.) we have our Oath-taking Ceremony. Unfortunately, we're not allowed to take pictures or video inside. Should be interesting. Today we took a taxi (not our first time) to Shamian Island for lunch and a little shopping. After that I went for a foot massagewith Kelly, Cambrie's mom. It was very relaxing and interesting to say the least! I told Kelly that I could get used to this....no cooking, no cleaning, extremely nice hotel, and inexpensive massages! But then I would have to stay in China and that's not happening! It is sooooo hot and humid here. And you don't want to drink much because that means you'd have to go to the bathroom more often. That's something we all try to avoid because for the most part there are only squatty potties! And when you finally find a toilet, there's barely any leg room. Not to mention no toilet paper sometimes. :-) It's way past my bedtime, so I'll sign off for now.