Saturday, April 11, 2009

Grace has been home for 1 year!

I cannot believe that it has been one whole year since we arrived home with Grace! Time really does fly...and that is what we did one year ago today...FLY!

That was a long day. It started the night before when we were in Guangzhou at the White Swan Hotel. We made our way down to the deli that was located just outside the hotel to get some traveling food. We had purchased food from here earlier during the trip and liked it a lot. It was really inexpensive and tasted almost like home. We got German cold-cut sandwiches and baked cheese bread...yum!

After coming back into the hotel we said our goodbye's to a few families leaving a bit earlier then us. It was bitter sweet. Although we had only spent a few weeks with everyone, they all seemed like family now. We will be forever connected to them even though we may not see them often.

Then it was time for us to pack because we were leaving pretty early as well. Grace did not sleep very well that night. I can't say we did either. We were all pretty tired the next morning but focused on what we needed to do and where we needed to go.

Everyone was organized and the trip from the hotel to the airport was fine.

The trip to Hong Kong did not last too long...only an hour. Once at the Hong Kong airport we made our way to the check-in counter and secure our seats for the long flight to LA. It took quite some time at the check-in counter but after what seemed to be forever, we had our tickets. This was also a sad moment as we had to say farewell to some of our traveling companions.

We made our way to our gate and had to wait about an hour before boarding. I had to pay for hot water for Grace's bottle at a coffee shop. Then it was finally time to board.

We stood in line with everyone else, then when the airlines saw we had a baby, we went to the front of the line. It's great what a baby will get you :)

The flight was really long. We had bulk head seats and a bassinet for Grace. She did well, all things considered, but did not sleep very much. Phuong and I took turns walking the isles with her on many occasions. Towards the end of the flight, Grace was sleeping so well and we did not want to wake her up, but we hit some turbulence and had to wake her up.

We landed fine in LA and made our way to baggage claim. It was nice to be back in the US, but we would miss China and needed to say farewell to more of our traveling companions again.

The line through immigration was long but not really unpleasant. The attendants at the airport kept looking at us and the babies. I think that it was a real treat for them too.

Once we claimed our baggage we changed Grace's diaper right there on the floor. We were so accustomed to doing this in China and thought nothing of it, but some people at the airport looked funny at us.

Now it was time to meet our friends who would drive us back home. The photo below is one they took as we made our way out of the airport.