Final 24 hours in China and adjusting back...

Tuesday morning we met up with the group to take pictures. It was great to be sure we got pictures of everyone, this was a very special time for us all! We are blessed to have met each of these families and look forward to watching each of the girls and boys grow up and adapt to their Forever Families.

In the afternoon, 12 of the 13 families met up for the swearing at the Consulate. We raised our right hand and took oath for the US citizenship of our children. Another special milestone completed.

After that we returned to the hotel to switch to the bus we would be riding to Hong Kong in. So we packed up all our bags, most ran to McDonald's quick to grab some dinner and then we were off on about a 4 hour trip to Hong Kong. About 2 hours in we had to stop at the China Customs, unload all our luggage and bags to run them through customs checks and then load it all back on the bus. This is quite a chore with little ones in tow. We then had about another hour till we arrived at the hotel. It was about 9:30pm, so we went to bed shortly after settling in.

We were up and showered by 8am, checked out of the hotel and made the trek to the airport terminal. Checked our luggage, grabbed some Starbucks and called the kids one more time before our flight and their bedtime.

The flight with Angel went pretty well, much better than expected after our prior flight with her. Our flight was at 11:30am so we kept her from napping till we were on board. We fed her some lunch after take off, she played a little and by 1pm she was off to dream land. She napped for about 2 hours and then was up, eating and playing till her usual 8pm bedtime. She again slept for about 3 hours, between she and I we just couldn't stay comfortable. Then she was up for the remainder of the flight and till we got her locked and loaded in the car. She is not a big fan of the car seat but she was so tired she only fussed a little and then zonked for the 5.5 hour drive home.

We arrived home about 7pm (details in prior post of our homecoming). Angel was up then till about 11:30pm and slept till 4am. I got up with her and fed her breakfast. Jason then got up and took her and I went back to bed. She and I then slept from about 5-7:15am, when we had to get the kids up for school. She then took a nice 3 hour nap in the afternoon, so did daddy (plus some). I woke her up from this at 3pm wanting her to sleep at night and so we could go get the kids from school.

Last night then we got her down at about 8pm and she slept till about 2am. I got up with her but only turned on a dim light and we snuggled on the coach. My goal is stay quite, not feed her and teach her that it's sleepy time and not play or eating time. She went along and we dozed off and on till about 4:30am. And we have now been up since. Still trying to keep her somewhat quite since the other kids are still sleeping. Gonna be a long day.

P.S. Thank you to our friends who brought us dinner last night and to those who will be bringing us meals in the coming days - this is a big help to us. We are so blessed to have many great friends in our lives.