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!