Home at last!

Oh, my goodness! What a long, long day of travel, but we are FINALLY HOME! We barely made it due to the weather issues in the midwest yesterday causing significant delays once we arrived in Chicago. Our flight from Chicago to Lexington was supposed to take off at 6:55 and we had to rush through immigration, retrieve our checked bags, go through U.S. Customs, process Rose's immigrant paperwork, re-check our bags and then switch terminals, all in a 2 hour timeframe between landing in Chicago and departing to Lexington. After rushing through all of that, we arrived at the gate with plenty of time to spare, but unfortunately our flight was delayed. It was a very emotional layover due to the continuous delays and then what we thought was a cancellation of our flight (in which Lillian and Michelle broke down emotionally). Then, we had a small miracle when the pilot actually got off of the plane and worked hard to finally find a flight attendant from a different cancelled flight to assume the role on our flight so that we could then take off. After we boarded, we sat on the tarmac and taxi-way for 45 minutes until we finally got in the air. Finally, at a little after 1:00 a.m., we finally landed in Lexington (Thank you, God!). Total travel time from when we woke up in China until we walked through our door in Nicholasville........ 33 hours! We were (and still are) exhausted!!!!! It was so nice to see Michelle's Mom and Dad, my Mom, and Aunt Gigi when we came down those stairs at Bluegrass Airport! Thank you to each of you for sticking it out on a late, rainy Friday night! It meant alot to us! After eating, showering, feeding the baby, winding down, etc., we finally got to bed at about 4:00 a.m. this morning. Rose is enjoying her new surroundings, but is still a little unsure of about this place. It is going to take some time for her to get used to it around here. Its going to take us all a while to get over this 12 hour time change. We only slept 3-5 hours last night. I think we're going to need some naps today. As for the 13.5 hour plane ride from China, it wasn't too bad. Thank you to the American Airlines staff in Shanghai who was able to get all of our families with babies bulkhead seats to give us a little more room to stretch out. This allowed Rose to play in the floor a little while in flight. Additionally, we were able to make a blanket pallet in the floor for Rose (and occassionally Lillian) to sleep on. That made the difference between it being a really good flight and a really terrible flight. Rose probably slept 7-8 hours of the flight off and on, and Lillian probably got 4-6 hours of sleep. Michelle and I both got very little sleep. I might have gotten an hour or two, but I don't think Michelle got hardly any at all. It has been a very, very long 33 hours. It will be a while before we get on a plane again! A big thank you goes out to Lillan and Rose's Grandmother and Granddad (Michelle's Mom and Dad) for having a fridge full of good food to eat when we got home last night, as well as breakfast this morning. It was so nice not to have to eat dumplings, runny eggs, and tough bacon off of the White Swan buffet this morning (we may not eat dumplings again for quite a while). We also want to thank our friends and family who prepared food for us to eat over the next few days/weeks. Our freezer and refridgerator are busting at the rims with yummy stuff to eat! We also want to thank the Burczyk and VanMeter families for taking time yesterday to decorate our house, welcoming Rose, as well as us, home! We can't tell you how much that meant to us! I have no pictures to post today. Sorry. But, again, we want to thank all of you for following along on this journey and supporting us along the way!

Rose Mei, Signing Off

Well, this is it.....our last post from China! I can't believe it is finally over. Tomorrow morning, we wake at 5:00 a.m (just as all of you are going home from work), on the bus by 6:30 a.m., and at the airport while you all back home are eating your dinners. It is going to be a very long day for us. Actually, by the time we pull into our driveways on Friday evening once we get home, our April 15th will have been 29 hours long (from the time we woke up). That is a very long day! Today we spent the day buying last minute souvenirs, packing, and saying sad farewells to several of our new adoptive families within our travel group. We said goodbye to the Koehn family from Idaho and the Hirschi family from Utah. Last night we said goodbye to the Brown family from Utah. It's hard to say goodbye to those that you now share a very special bond with, especially after having spent the past couple of weeks with them. We are forever connected now and we'll definitely keep in touch. We also took some time to walk around the island and take some last minute photographs of life in China, as well as say farewell to all the shopkeepers here on the island who have taken all of our money. :-) We actually got quite familiar with several of them and they all just loved to see us coming their way everyday (to get more of our money). They were all nice people though and we'll remember them always (in pictures). We also ate our last dinner at Lucy's tonight. As much as I was glad that we had Lucy's to serve us western food during our long stay here, I am not going to miss it for a very long time! Well, it's time to get to bed. 5:00 a.m. is going be upon us very quickly, so I'd better get some sleep. Enjoy your day and please be thinking of us on that cramped up airplane as you lay your heads down on your soft pillows and bed tonight! Look out, here we come!

Lillian and some restaurant hostesses

Another hostess (different restaurant)

Lillian and Renae Koehn

Lillian and Li Ping (our guide)

Lillian, Kari, and Jessica Hirschi

PS.... We hope you enjoyed following along on this journey. We really appreciate all the posts that everyone made. It really helped hearing from all of you when we were so far away. Thank you! See you soon!

Final Post from China

Donna & Ella Rose

Kari & Sophi

Savannah & Rose Mei

Lillian, Jessica & Kari

Good Friends
Jae, Sophi, Kari, Lillian & Jessica

Our Lifesafer!!

Well I'm glad to say this will be our final post from China.  We are ready to be home.  Even though we have a long day tomorrow it will be so good to say we are on our way.  Please pray that we will have a calm trip (That Savannah doesn't scream the whole way home).  We have had a wonderful time with some of our best friends and made many new friends.  Here are a few pictures from today.

The Final Day YEAH!!!!!!

The Blincoe group got up this morning and have worked deligantly to get our suite cases within required weight limit (what a chore). It seems like I have been gone for months, so ready to get this show on the road and get home. I want to thank all my fellow adoptee's for all they have done to assist while I have been here (Love you like family, as several of the Chinese have told me we are soul sisters or soul family). Also do not know what would have done if Bill and Jill had not come to keep me occupied and help me out; it has been such a breeze and would not had made it without their assistance and help. Bill was such a great help!! and Sarah I would like to thank you for letting him come and be part of our journey. I want to thank my daughter Sophi who I think has truly matured and grown and is going to be a great big sister.

So we will be homeword bound by the time most of you in the states read the post, enjoy the pictures and can not wait to walk down that hall at the Louisville Airport Friday evenning and bring Ella Rose home, she is such a joy.

Love Donna.

FYI big farewell to LUCY's would not had made it without you, but quite frankly sick of you.

Sleepyheads

We had another lazy day here in Guangzhou.  Spent most of the morning with Kari working on some homework.  Savannah took a very good nap this morning and has had a great day.  Much less fussy today than yesterday.  This afternoon we spent at the pool and we picked up Savannah's passport with her visa.  She can come home now, just wish we could jump on the plane tonight but oh well.  Friday morning will be here soon.  Tomorrow will be a day for packing and getting everything together.  I'm sure we will end up at the pool again also.  Only have a couple of pictures of my sleepyheaded girls. 

Wrapping up our trip

It's official...........Rose can come home with us! We received her Chinese passport, American Visa, and the documents needed to get her through customs/immigration and become a U.S. Citizen. We are totally done with everything. Nothing left to do but pack and board a plane for home. Unfortunately, we cannot do the latter until Friday. But, tomorrow will be used to buy the last of our gifts, a new suitcase to get all our new goods home, and then packing it all up. The difficulty we have here in China is that our luggage cannot be over 44 lbs, whereas in the U.S., our luggage can be 50 lbs. So getting all our bags under 44 lbs may be a little challenging, but it will get worked out. We'll probably end up leaving a bunch of the uneaten (unopened) items of food we brought (i.e., oatmeal, crackers, etc.). Buying the additional suitcase will also allow us to distribute the load a little more evenly. It should work out just fine. Anyway, we're very excited that we only have one more day here, but at the same time there is a bit of sadness because we don't know if we'll ever get back here. It has been a long trip and we miss our home, friends, and family very much, but at the same time China is now (and has been for 8 years) a very important part of our lives, especially for Lillian and Rose. This trip has been very good for Lillian and she has openly said that she doesn't want to leave, although she misses home very much. She likes it here, although living on the island doesn't really give her a true picture of what everyday life is for the Chinese people. She's only seen glimpses of it. I can tell you we're going to have one sad little girl on Friday when we leave here. I know she'll get over it once she gets home and gets back into her normal routine, but it is still going to be hard for her. I've told her that she can definitely return to China when she gets older and can maybe study here once she goes to college. I think that she'll definitely make it back someday. Hopefully, we do as well. I hope we can one day bring Rose back to see her homeland. I hope both girls are proud of who they are and where they came from. I know that Michelle and I are very proud of both of them and will encourage them to learn more about their culture and pursue their dreams of returning here one day, if they so choose. Friday will be bitter-sweet for all of us though (although probably more sweet than bitter). As for today, it was another lazy day with no appointments. It was filled with shopping, walking, napping (for Rose), and swimming (for Lillian). I swear, sometimes I feel like we're in the movie "Groundhog Day"! We realized tonight after we returned from dinner that we hadn't taken any photos today. So, we hurried and snapped a few pictures before Rose got too fussy from being hungry and tired. So, the pictures are a little short tonight. Two more days and we'll be home (I can't wait to sleep on my Tempurpedic instead of this Georgia-Pacific Plywood)!!!