The 32-hour Day

We are HOME!!! (cough, sneeze, cough)

We left our hotel room at the White Swan at about 5:00 a.m. Saturday morning (China time). We landed in Kansas City at 7:00 p.m. and got to bed a little before midnight. Once you calculate the time difference, we had been going for 32 hours. Thus, it has taken us a while to get around to putting up a post. We still are not unpacked and I don't know where the cord is to connect my camera and upload our recent photos. But don't worry, I will find it and get some pictures on here soon.

Isabel did a pretty good job on the flights and got more sleep than either Jeff or myself. She did worse on the shorter flights as we had "normal seats." On the long flight from Hong Kong to Chicago we had bulkhead seats and so we had much more room for her to spread out and play.

Side note to people traveling: do what ever you have to do to come up with the extra money for an extra seat for your child! We had a seat between us and put a blanket down for her and some toys. I would put my leg on the outside of the seat to make sure she didn't topple off the edge, and she would be pretty content there for stretches of time. Then, we would switch off holding her when she would get fussy. When she would sleep she had plenty of room to lay in the seat between us with her teddy. Isabel is very active and would never have done well sitting with one of us holding her for that long of a flight.

We did have a bit of an adventure getting home. Our flight from Hong Kong to Kansas City was delayed by 2 hours. Which was interesting as we only had a two-and-a-half hour window in Chicago to begin with. I will post details of our journey through the airports later...quite the story.

Isabel's cold has gotten much worse and the poor thing is pretty miserable right now. We are trying to let her sleep as much as possible and are giving her meds to help her get through until Tuesday when she has her doctor's appointment. I have managed to catch a cold myself. I have had it for about a week and it seems to have reached its peak yesterday so I have started myself on some antibiotics.

Our house is a bit of a mess. We opened up one of our suitcases in the entryway of our house and realized a box of cereal had exploded inside. Both grandmas helped with cleaning the rice out of all of the stuff in the suitcase and then off of the floor. We are so lucky to have so much family here. We have the grandmas taking shifts with us to help out with laundry, food, etc.

I need to wrap this up now, but I will maybe try to give a better post later tonight.

We are home, we are a family. Isabel woke up quite a few times last night. And even though I am exhausted and have this cold, I am the happiest I have ever been. Rocking Isabel in her nursery last night was a memory I will always hold dear. We have had our nursery ready for almost two years....but last night it became complete as we finally had our daughter home, sleeping in her crib.