Home Sweet Home

There's definitely no place like home or America! While I'm up and have a little sense, I figured I'd post about our trip home. The time change has been rough. It's worse when you come home than when you go over there. I'm sitting here awake and exhausted. Does that even make sense? Maggie has done pretty good with the time change. She's just waking up earlier than me in the mornings. I'm sure it won't take long to be on a good sleep pattern. So everything went as it should. We were taken to Hong Kong by car. Actually a very pretty drive. A few stops for toll booths and customs, though. We spent the night there and flew out the next morning for Detroit. The flight was long, 15 hours long! We left in daylight, flew into dark and flew into daylight again. Kinda strange. We left Hong Kong at 10:45 Friday morning and arrived in Nashville at 6:30 Friday evening. Thirteen hour time change plus 15 hour flight plus 3 hour layover plus 1 hour and 15 minute flight plus a 2 hour drive home. All in a day! By the time Kevin and I got ready to go to bed, we had been up almost 36 hours. Talk about running on empty!

As soon as our plane touched down on American soil in Detroit, Maggie officially became an American citizen. I don't know if I've mentioned this or not, but she was a real trooper when it came to travel. Whether on foot, a bus, taxi, subway or plane she was happy the majority of the time. As for the car seat, she did cry at first, but it didn't take long for her to fall asleep. She's done better each time we've buckled her in. Thanks for the prayers ;)

So getting to the airport and seeing our family was priceless. I've never been so glad to see the 3 faces of our children. There were cameras flashing, balloons and flowers for us. Maggie was a little shy at first, but before we even left the airport she was offering kisses to her new brother and sisters. She LOVES having them as a constant audience. She loves for them to chase her and push her on the swing. I can't imagine her not being a part of us.


Have I mentioned how much this girl LOVES to eat? Oh my goodness, I don't know where this tiny thing puts it all! She likes pretty much anything and wants to eat all of it. It's kinda pitiful. I'm guessing her food was always rationed out. She holds out her hand for cheerios and either tries to put all of them in her mouth or she holds on to them for a long time. In the mornings she goes to the kitchen, points to the fridge and then points to her open mouth. Bless her heart! We love her so much!

One of the neat things the kids has said is that God picked the perfect 2 year old for our family. They are all so fun to watch together! Even though Maggie's probably never heard English until a couple of weeks ago, she seems to understand what we say. It's amazing that we can say or ask her something and she will give us a nod of yes or no. She actually picked up a few English words while we were in China.

We are so happy to be home! As a mother, I am so blessed with 4 children. Stay tuned to our blog. There's more to come with pics of our trip and everything is going now that we are home. If you notice at the top of our page, our little caterpillar time ticker has come to a stop. From the time we got her referral until the day we brought her home was 9 months, 3 weeks and 6 days. About the length of a pregnancy. Love to you all! Thank you from the bottom of our hearts for all the prayers.

".....He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion....". Philippians 1:6