Now I'll get to the Thank You's!

Got a little distracted yesterday, that parenting thing we are learning about!  Kind of changes your time schedules by the minute.  But we really wanted to say thank you to everyone who followed our journey.  We were able to read only a few of the comments in China because our access to read the blog was blocked!  Through my iphone I got to read some of the early posts, but then my phone was shut off by ATT for high roaming charges!  But we have read all of them now that we are home and we were able to relive some of the days of the trip again. It really means a lot to know that many people care for us and our new little girl. The advice is fantastic too, we are new at this afterall!  Thanks again to the Hunt Family for having a car pick us up at the airport too! He found us right away and we were home eating before we would have normally been to our car in the parking lot!  Thanks to the Biehl's for driving by and checking on our house while we were gone.  Anyone in need of a pet sitter in Columbus, I can put you in contact with Laura Ludlow and her service.  We've used it a couple times and the pets have been well cared for!  Our two cats are still getting used to Lainey! And she is very interested in them, doubt she's ever seen a cat!  All our families have been great, we'll get to see you in person somehow.  We're taking things slow right now to make sure Laine gets adjusted and attached to us.  Remember it's all a strange world to her now.  She doesn't see anything, smell anything, hear anything, or taste anything she is used too.  Her mind must be going around and around and soaking up so many new things.  We noticed even in China after a couple days with us and strange voices and langauge she would smile at store workers who spoke her native langauge.  So we have to be cautious right now to not overload her too much.  Plus I don't have much vacation time left, so it will have to be some quick trips!   In the near future we have an adoption clinic appointment for her on Friday.  Children's Hospital here in town has a special clinic to see the kids very soon after they arrive home to get checked out head to toe.  She'll get a lot a prodding  then that will not make her happy, but we need to find out all we can about any problems she may have.  We don't see any right away other than development of motor control skills like sitting and standing.  She is getting stronger each day with that.  She is almost rolling over to her belly. Just can't kick over that last leg.  She will sit without being propped up too for several minutes and catches herself when falling to a side. When we pick her up under the arms and stand her on her feet she pushes back now.  In the beginning she would fold her legs right away, no strength there at all.  Now she kicks strongly with her legs in the crib, having fun making the noise!  We'll probably keep the blog going to some extent to show how she grows.  I'm sure Christina will post some thank you's too, she is sleeping with Laine right now! The first order of business will be to get out some Christmas/Birth Announcement cards of some type.  We waited to do the cards since we knew this was the big topic people wanted to hear about so we'll try to get that accomplished before I head back to work next week!  I better run now, thanks again to all for being a part of our journey!

Love Scott, Christina and Laine

Thanks for all the well wishes

Whew! We made it! We've been home for almost 24 hours now and trying to get the bodies adjusted back to our time zone.  We went to bed about 7:30 last night and didn't have much of a problem falling asleep.  Laine woke up twice needing a diaper and she made some new noises, but she slept just as we did. We crawled out of bed about 9:30 this morning.  I didn't sleep at all on the flights and Chirstina and Laine maybe slept two hours.  It was the fussiest she had been for us.  Not sure if its the teeth coming in or not moving around much or what.  She cried a fair amount, making the older man sitting next to Christina not very happy.  He asked for a seat change right away but never got one.  That truly is a rough way to travel. We saw an episode of Brothers and  Sisters, Ghost Lab, Cake Boss, and some other tv shows and then a bunch of movies, The Invention of Lying, The Informant, Where the Wild Things Are, The One and Only, and I wouldn't really recommend any of them!  We paid a little more for the economy plus cabin on the flight home.  Supposedly you get five more inches of leg room than the economy area.  It was worth it.  Laine had a seat between us too.  But it just wasn't quite wide enough for her to lay stretched out.  She just couldn't get comfortable. Finally about 10 hours into the flight she fell asleep across my lap.  I was afraid to move and my arms were pretty dead after an hour and we moved her to the seat for a bit more rest.  Still didn't get a window seat so never got to see any of the landscape.  We flew from Hong Kong over Japan and the north to Alaska and then back down through Canada and the Dakotas to Chicago.  We didn't have any problems with immigration. We handed over the brown envelope, they opened it out of our sight so we never got to see all the paperwork in it! But it was about a 1/4 inch thick of something.  Laine will receive her official paperwork in the next 45 days.  Then we can apply for a local birth certificate.  She'll need that for school. 

There has been a lot of talk nationaly about airline security lately and we saw some interesting things in our flights.  China has pretty diligent security I thought.  They looked at our checked bags much more closely than here.  We also had two security checks in Hong Kong, the normal one going to the gate and then another right at the plane entrance where they patted you down from head to toe and checked your carry on bags again.  For some reason the US immigration x-rayed all luggage on the way into the country, thought that was odd.  Then we had to go through security again in Chicago since we left a secure area changing terminals.  That sucked.  TSA there was as slow as frozen molasses and were very rude.  We were admonished for not putting shoes on the conveyor, but in a bin, and for not unloading every camera I had separately.  He said I've been doing this for 8 years and, he didn't like my answer of I've been carrying multiplae cameras through airports for over 20 and never had to unpack each one!

But now we're home. Christina just came back from the store so I better help unload some goodies! More later.