Thanks so much for visiting us during our journey, Jim, Trina, Nick, Jesse, Catherine and Faith!
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November 30, 2006
Home at last. Trina and I woke up early, like 5:00 am, so that we could shower and have our luggage outside the room by 6:00. We checked out of the room, had breakfast, and were on the way to the airport by 7:00am.
For some reason, flying from Guangzhou to Hong Kong is still considered an international flight. We had to fill out all of these customs forms just to leave the airport. I filled out everything like it said, and when we got to the front of the Immigration line I was told that Faith’s form had to be filled out in Chinese, since she had a Chinese passport. Yeah, like I leaned how to write in Chinese in the last two weeks. Anyway, the guy did it for me. We had plenty of time to get to the gate, and an uneventful flight to Hong Kong.
At Hong Kong we said good-bye to Anna and her parents. We had been together since Beijing, but they were headed to Salt Lake City, and in order to get the flight they wanted they were staying the night in Hong Kong. We met a couple the day before at the swearing-in ceremony that was on the same flight to San Francisco as we were, and had hooked up with them at Guangzhou. We all waited for each other so we could navigate the Hong Kong airport together.
We upgraded to Business Class for the 11 hour flight from Hong Kong to San Francisco, and boy was it worth it. We already knew God blessed us when He gave us Faith, and that blessing became more apparent while on the long flight home. She was so good, she hardly made a fuss except when daddy had her and she wanted mommy. Our new friends upgraded as well, so we weren’t the only adoption family in Business. We had big seats that reclined, plenty of leg room, and enough room for the babies to crawl around when they were restless. I’ve never had a more pleasant flight.
We landed in San Francisco shortly after 8:00 am. We followed the directions we were given in Guangzhou in order to get through Immigrations correctly. We had our brown envelope ready and were ushered to the front of the “New Immigrants” line. Trina and I were prepared for a lot of questions, paperwork, and such. The lady ripped open our envelope, looked at the papers, stamped Faith’s passport, and said “Thank you.” We felt it was pretty anti-climactic. We got our luggage with our friend’s help, continued on through customs, rechecked our bags, and proceeded to our gate after saying good-bye. They were headed for Medford, Oregon, while were going to Eugene.
Faith fell asleep just before boarding the plane from San Fran to Eugene, and slept the entire flight. When we arrived and walked off the plane to meet the family, she slept right through it. She woke up to meet her brothers and sister. We had her car seat delivered to Trina’s mom’s house, and Faith never cried when she was put in it. She really enjoyed being able to look out the window.
Even now that we’ve had her home for a few days she’s been great. She’s taken to her brothers and sister, been passed around by grandparents, and taken it all in stride. She does get up in the middle of the night to play, but she is getting better at cuddling back to sleep. It’s great to be finishing one journey and beginning another one. God has truly blessed us.
