We're outta here!

It is 9:41pm on Wednesday in Guangzhou, China - 7:41am on Wednesday in Fort Worth, Texas USA. We have been packing gradually for 3 days so we are now fully packed. We have to have our bags in the hall at 5:00am and then we meet in the lobby to depart at 5:30am. Our flight leaves at 8:15am via China Southern Air (Chinese redneck airline) for Tokyo Japan (Norita airport).

We then have a 7-hour layover but we are going to pay the $75 (total for our family) to get into the American Airlines Admiral's Club so we can at least be comfortable. We will also have Internet access so we can use Skpe VOIP phone service to call home over the Internet. I don't remember if I mentioned this but we have made dozens of calls with this from our laptop simply by using Skype and a microphone. If you call someone with Skype the call over the Internet is free. We have been using "Skype - Out" which calls regular phones and even internationally it is only .021 per minute. We haven't quite used $20.00 in these 15 days. Cool- and it is clearer than a cell phone.

We are on Flight #60 from Tokyo to DFW and arrive at 3:40pm Texas time on Thursday. There are several friends and family that will be meeting us at the airport which is fun although we may look a little "nuked" after being up for 27 hours and traveling around the world.

Hopefully our luggage makes it ok. We bought so many things we had to buy 2 suitcases to bring everything back. The 2 suitcases were only $70 total and one of them is good quality with hard sides. Many Americans end up buying cheap luggage to bring things home. When you are adopting from China and know you want to be able to show your daughter things and have some Chinese things around you buy all you can. Its one of those things that is easy to over-due but we have heard first-hand from more than one couple that if you are too conservative there can be a lot of regret since you can't just go back whenever you want. However, there are some websites where you can buy Chinese items. You will pay 5 times as much but it is an option. One of them is: www.chinasprout.com. They apparently have a pretty good selection of Chinese things.

We are so happy to be going home. We miss Maddie and our family and friends SO much. It has been really hard to be away so long. This is one of those things that is a rich and wonderful experience that we are thankful for but it got to be too long.

Jamie drove this adoption, lets be clear. She gave me tasks which I did and she did many tasks as well but she did all the research, all the reading, and all the forms. She drove a hard timeline or this process could have been even longer than the 15 months it took. I told her after we had the swearing-in ceremony yesterday how proud I was of her and how thankful I was for her. I am just not wired to be good at this sort of thing and I really leaned on her. She did fantastic and I'll never forget it. Great job babe!

We love you all- see you tomorrow - hey the pics you take of us looking "nuked" in the airport can be used for bribery later on- so fire away!

Hey, by the way I took a picture of the cover of a White Swan menu where I found some "gourmet" items. Can you tell me what is on the menu picture near the right side of the dish? Ya'll gotta love a little caterpillar with your steak!