Saturday, March 31, 2012

Sitting in Hong Kong Airport waiting to go Home--30 Mar 2012

We are sitting at our Gate in Hong Kong Airport waiting to get this show on the road. We traveled via a very nice mini-van from Guangzhou to Hong Kong Regal Hotel. It took about 3 hours. It was great that we didn't have to get out of the van to go through customs. It took about a 30 min wait, but when we pulled up to the window we presented our passports, turned on the lights in the van so they could see our faces and opened the back of the van to present our luggage. This was simple compared to our bus ride in 2009 that required us to get out twice to walk through an airport like security and customs check. The Regal Hotel was nothing special except that it is connected to the airport and you can walk to the check in desk from the lobby. If we didn't already have 24 hours of travel ahead of us from Hong Kong I would have opted to stay in the Guangzhou China Hotel one more night and taken an early van ride. The China Hotel's accommodations were amazing. Shane actually enjoyed the ride--looking out the window the entire time. Thank goodness Susie had brought him food (noodles and a Banana) because he would not have made it. He slept well in the hotel and seemed to handle the change well. We have a 14 hour flight ahead, plus an 8 hour lay over in Chicago. Yes 8 hours...we tried to get a shorter layover but we needed at least 3 hours to get through Customs and Immigration. We will arrive home close to midnight Fri. Please continue to pray for our Journey. We are ready to come home. God bless you all.

Unfortunately I was unable to publish this before our flight took off...for some reason our VPN stopped working just before I tried to publish. We are about to land after 13.5 hours of flight. Shane has done extremely well for any toddler-especially one who still doesn't speak our language, has only known us 12 days, and this is his second plane ride. We are about to land at Chicago. So we are about to do the customs and immigration shuffle.

Just finished customs & immigration--it went extremely smooth. Too bad there was not a earlier connecting flight because we had processed through, traveled to our terminal, processed through security, and walked to our gate in less than 1.5 hours. Shane is now officially a US citizen and celebrated by munching down some French fries. He took his usual nap on the plane and fell asleep for the last 3 hours of the flight. It is 2 in the morning his time and he is holding out fine. Hope he can hang on till the next flight...we still have 4.5 hours till boarding time.

We are on our final flight....it was about 30 mins late, but at this point we are just tired. Shane took another short 45 min nap while we waited but the rest of the time he has been up and about. And even though he has got to be tired, he continues to be in good spirits. Of course Susie is amazing with keeping him occupied and engaged...he is smiling a lot today. That alone keeps our spirits up. We can't wait to get home and get some rest--hopefully Shane will feel the same way. Susie has been fighting some type of cold the last couple days so the trip has been tough. She is a real trooper--she has not complained at all. Soon we will be home and we will start the next phase of our adventure of introducing Shane to his new home and family. We have missed our kids terribly and will be glad to be at least reunited with our younger ones. Thank you for your prayers and support during all phases of this adventure. We are blessed with wonderful friends and family. And finally we give thanks to our awsome Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Our God's mercy and grace is overwhelmingly sufficient. He is always faithful and has showed himself mighty throughout this whole process and trip. Of course as I write these last line we just a wave of turbulence and we are bouncing around like an amusement park ride....wooooo whoooooo! :-O

We arrived at the airport @ 11:30 pm and was greeted by our son Josiah, Simona, and Shari & Alan Green. What a nice surprise. We are home safe and trying to see if we can get Shane to sleep.

 

4 comments:

  1. Home. So glad you are ALL there! Praying the transition goes smoothly and that your new normal is amazing!

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  2. So glad you are home safe and sound. Hoping the transition goes as well as can be expected! When do you see the cardiologist? I'm so hopeful you get some good news there!!!

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  3. So glad you were able to avoid the adventure of getting on and off the bus. I will never forget the heat! Sounds like your little man is a trooper. Praying for all of you to have smooth transition and to find routine. At least that is what I wanted more than anything after we got home!

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  4. Would you by chance be collecting quilt squares for 100 wishes quilt?

    God Bless,

    Cheri Lail
    www.Journeytolittlebugallison.blogspot.com

    Cheri_gttravel@yahoo.com

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