Category: China

Nadia loved this art Robot in the lobby.

We woke up with the end of our trip in sight! We got up and made sure that our bags were packed, and we headed downstairs for the buffet. After breakfast we checked out and waited around in the Hyatt lobby for the bus to take us back to the airport.

Nadia said she was the queen in this seat in the back of the bus.

The family bathroom in the Seoul airport even had a tiny toilet for little kids.

Once arriving at the airport we went to the Korean Air counter to check our seat situation and the woman said that 10 people bought tickets overnight, but the middle seats were still open with 2 hours to go. We got through security and let the girls play in one of the play areas inside the airport. We boarded the plane first with the other parents of small children and waited to see if anyone would take the seats in between us. They didn’t, so I did a little Snoopy dance in my seat! Our flight took off at 11:35 am on Friday the 14th.

Ready to get home.

Dani happily sat in the seat next to me for the entire flight. She only wanted me to hold her one time, but for the bulk of the flight she was content to sit and play. She slept for about an hour and enjoyed all the meals, snacks and juice that was offered by the flight attendants. She had three small crying fits/tantrums – two when I went to the bathroom and one when I didn’t cut up her tomato fast enough to feed it to her. Amelie sat in the row behind us with Mike and watched movies, colored and slept. Nadia sat on the other side of Dani and watched “Frozen” 6.5 times. She didn’t sleep at all 🙂  We landed in DFW at 9:27 am on Friday the 14th, about two hours before we took off. We explained to Nadia about the time change one more time, but I would have rather just said the airplane was like the TARDIS. We got in the immigration line and after half an hour made it to an officer. He scanned our passports, took our brown envelope, from the consulate, and took us over to a waiting room. In the end it took us 2 hours to get through immigration because there were so many people who flew in around the same time as us.

This is what Dani thought of the wait after only having 1 hour sleep.

We were so happy to see Roger and Paula at the airport. They brought our car so we could drive right home.

First time in the car seat. She was asleep before we got 3 miles down the road.

We got home and the girls were thrilled to see all their stuff and their rooms. We took Dani into our room and just laid her down on a blanket by the bed. We didn’t want her to wake up in her room in a new crib and not know where we were. Then the rest of us changed into our PJ’s and took a nap too since it had been a really long day.

After naps we all went into the backyard to enjoy the sun. My friend Sarah and her girls showed up with fresh veggies, fruit and milk and had a little playdate for the big girls. Once they were gone we took Dani into the house to see her room and play in there for a while so she could get used to it. She was really cute checking out all the new stuff in her room to play with.

We had dinner and got everyone to bed. Dani screamed quite a bit in her sleep and jet lag woke us up so we brought her down with us to play for a bit. She quickly found the Radio Flyer car and had a blast giggling and laughing as she played. Then at around 3 am we tried to get back to sleep at least for a little while.

As always, I was SO HAPPY to be home. I was thrilled we made it through the trip with no one getting sick (a first for us on an adoption trip) and it was so nice to be able to sleep on our nice, soft beds. The girls were happy they didn’t have to worry about the tap water any more, which made me laugh and agree with them. To quote Mary Poppins, this trip was practically perfect in every way. We are so grateful for those who have followed along and offered prayers on our behalf.

Before Jaime and Chris left we tried the group shot one more time and Dani looked at the camera. Yeah!

Today started like all the rest – with the breakfast buffet. Nadia told me, “I am really going to miss the buffet when we go home. At home I just have to order from you.” HA! We wanted to go to the Botanical Gardens like we did on Amelie’s trip, but the weather just didn’t cooperate this trip. It was foggy and misting rain all day long. After breakfast we took the girls exploring around the Garden Hotel and took a lot of photos which I am going to put up as a separate blog post. It’s a really cool hotel with nifty decorations.

The girls pretending to take reservations at one of the Garden restuarants.

Our suite had a shower and bath set up that is one big area that you can close off with a door so I put them in the room with Playdoh and let them have at it. The big girls had a blast and Dani was going between looking through the window at them and coming back over to wherever Mike or I happened to be. I started looking at what we needed to pack and googled the cost of overweight baggage on Korean Air and knew we needed to buy another bag. We walked over to Subway for lunch and then I haggled with a street vendor to get us a new bag. We ended up with hot pink which thrilled Amelie and she asked if I bought it for her.

I love Dani getting in the mix here with her sisters. I asked them to try and get all the plastic off our new bag.

First shot of them all looking at the camera (sort of).

After the girls had a long nap they got up and we decided to brave giving Dani a bath in the sink. Our first 2 tries were a major fail because she was hysterical. Even just washing her hair was an ordeal. But we pushed through this time and by the end she calmed down a bit. A little while later I put both big sisters in the tub and she watched them through the window laughing, but didn’t want to watch when they were getting their hair washed. It’s one of the hard parts of being an adoptive parent – you just don’t know what they have been through in their short lives and why things freak them out. But we just keep on loving and trying to help their sweet little hearts.

I went over to the Trust Mart before dinner because I didn’t think we had enough diapers to make it home. What an adventure that was! Complete with a family of beggars desperately trying to get me to give them money saying, “Baby hungry. Baby hungry.” Sure, as if I am going to open my wallet in the middle of a busy China street. The craziest thing at the Trust Mart was that a pint of Hagen Das was $13 USD!!!!! Once back from my trek in the misty rain I heated up water and we had noodles and other food in the room and I set to work packing the bags with Dani’s help. Then it was time for bed on our last night in China.

Dani is like, “Hey people! My shoes are on, it’s time to go. Why are you making me wait?”

The day started with the girls sleeping late and then going down for breakfast. We had a relaxed morning in the room and I ran out to get some food at a little bakery across the street to go with the noodles we were going to eat in the room.

Dani decided to stop screaming every time we got in an elevator 🙂

In the afternoon I had plans to go shopping with Ann from Red Thread. Mike stayed back in the room with the girls to have a nap and wait for Lily to bring our paperwork from the Consulate. I gave her my list before we left the Garden and we hopped in a cab and were on our way.  I had so much fun with Ann. We laughed and laughed and she told me that I was a fast walker for a non-Chinese. HA HA! I was on a mission to buy some more of what we purchased in the past and things that I regretted not getting in 2011. First we went to the warehouse part of town that sells toys, silks and hair bows and clips. We started with the silks and I bought one of each size dress going up to teen size for the girls to wear for things like the Chinese New Year party at Chinese school. I also picked up a couple of silk tops for myself. Then we went to the bottom floor to the hair clip place that she took me to in 2011. I totally stocked up for our girls and for gifts!

From there we took a cab over to the area of town where the wholesale jade stalls are set up in a bunch of winding alleys. I wanted to look for some specific ornaments and bracelets for the girls and for gifts. That was really fun because you could tell it was not a place that Westerners usually went. I was asking about different designs and the woman agreed to take us down to her store house underground. Ann told me I was very lucky because most people don’t get to go down there. Ann took several photos of me and she said I was just having fun wherever I went 🙂

Way underground. Ann said, “Pretend you got kidnapped.” Then I just started laughing.

Ann and I at the end of our adventure!

After picking up the items there we went to our final stop which was the children’s wholesale district. I picked up a bunch of TOTALLY awesome unique shoes for the girls. Ann told me to stop acting like I liked the shoes so much because she didn’t want them to make the prices higher. Then I picked up some Hello Kitty clothes for the girls and a Batman and Superman shirt for Nadia. Last, we took the subway and after 3 hours of fun I was back at the hotel. Mike said Dani slept the entire time, and the other girls napped and then watched “My Neighbor Totoro” on the Kindle.

I made Nadia laugh hysterically.

And Nadia laughing so hard made Dani laugh extra hard.

For dinner we decided to head over to The Italian Restaurant to have a full meal, not just take out pizza. It was American prices but AMAZING. We started with garlic bread and here was Dani’s face after the first bite.

Then she just kept asking for more!

We had the very best broccoli of our life – even Amelie kept asking for more. Then our pasta dishes came out. The girls and I shared two different dishes and Dani went wild for the Pesto Spaghetti. I finally had to cut her  off because I was afraid she might get sick from eating so much.

We walked back to the hotel and then got the girls into bed. Our trip is almost over and we are all ready for home. Nadia is in dire need of a chance to be somewhere quiet and alone. Amelie is in need of her routine. It’s been good, but on these trips, once the American documents are delivered to the hotel…we are ready to be home.