Home Sweet Home

Sit-N-Spin-Sarah's favorite!
Hannah with Grandma
Hannah with Grandma
Upon arriving home, we had been traveling for 26 hours. Sarah slept for only two hours during our trek from Guangzhou to Tokyo and Tokyo to Portland. In Portland, we arrived to find an unprepared Immigrations Department. They did not know what to do with us and our Chinese children. They first told us they did not have the staff to process us!!??? There were four families on our flight all trying to catch connecting flights. We were all exhausted and so were our children. They sent us to a small room with chairs and told us to wait. The room was also filled with Japanese immigrants. Sarah started to cry and I was eventually told to leave the room because she was upset! Eventually, we made it through Immigrations and found out our flight had been delayed. We were told we should rent a car and drive the distance home. The flight kept getting pushed back due to planes being grounded for inspection of landing gear that had caused crashes in Europe the day before. We are grateful that the planes were being checked for safety but at the time WE JUST WANTED TO GET HOME. In the end, our flight was only delayed for about three hours. We have never been so happy to see Andrew, Joshua, and Hannah at the airport! Andrew and Joshua kicked in immediately as big brothers and helped carry luggage to the car. Hannah instantly became the big sister and started admiring her new sister telling her how cute she is!

Our first few days home included:
Greg heading back to work the day after we arrived home
Sarah waking at 4am and vomiting a few times throughout the day with lethargy and seeming a bit overwhelmed
Mom(me) being sick for a day(minor stomach thing)
Sleeping in with Sarah(thank you Mom(grandma) for helping with Andrew, Josh, and Hannah!)
Initial doctor appointment
Taking a walk with all four kids
Hannah having a intermittent fever for four days
Speech Therapy (for Hannah)
Starting homeschool(okay we just started yesterday)
Celebrating three birthdays:Hannah's #4 birthday and Sarah's #3(we missed it in August)and mine too.

The first few days

Swinging Monkeys!
Playdoh Fun!
Chinese Princess x 2
What happens when you try to take pictures of two three year olds!
Silly girls!

Home at Last

We sure missed our Happy Hannah!!
checking out the dog?!
Andrew making Sarah laugh!
Riding bikes with grandpa!

Arriving Home

A Welcome Home Banner made by siblings and cousins!
Sarah immediately wanted to play in the backyard, here she is taking it all in
A very tired and serious Sarah
All Four together at last!

The flight home

Every time we boarded a new plane Sarah made sure we all had our emergency cards available to follow along with the flight attendant, she even opened our tray tables for us to put the cards on.
Sarah kept me busy, we used every toy I packed (more than once!) Here she is playing with magnet faces.
Finally, a two hour break for mom!
Sarah using her fork and knife after watching me, so smart!

More dinner pictures

Mud Eel anyone?
WHOLE hen?
Josiah, the brave soul, in our group trying to chew that jellyfish!

Update

Sarah loves meat!!
A WHOLE chicken(head included)
Sandworms??
Water Beetles??
We have been home for two weeks today and I am finally posting an update! First I am going to post a few more pictures from our trip that I want to have on our blog for future reference. Here are pictures from our final meal in Guangzhou, at the Cantonese Restaurant, where little English is spoken........