Rewind...

Let's see if I can rewind back to Oct. 19th, the day we left our apartment in China and started the L-O-N-G trip back to America. It was quite the adventure filled with excitement and a lot of emotions. Leaving the only life my children had ever known was hard but yet I was excited to begin the next adventure in our life. We headed out of our city on the morning of the 19th. Of course being China and knowing how nothing ever goes smoothly, it was the same that morning as well. It seemed to take forever to get everything finished and finally in the van ready to go to the capital city. But we did, 10 suitcases, 8 carry ons, a stroller, 2 babies, and 3 adults. We checked into the Holiday Inn where we were super super blessed to be upgraded to the 2 bedroom apartment there. Oh my was it absolutely amazing. We were just so thankful to have that time to regroup before we started the never ending plane ride. We went to Dunkin Donuts that afternoon, yum...I had no idea how good a donut could taste after not having one for 2 years :) And then that evening, Clark and I had a date night. We went to an Italian restaurant and then to Starbucks. It was so nice to just be able to take a deep breath and relax. This was something we hadn't done in quite some time! We started out adventure early the next morning and headed to the airport. It was crazy the logistics of trying to get all 10 suitcases into the airport and up to the counter, all the while carrying Jackson and pushing Sadie and trying to plead with them to let us to the front of the line. Thankfully we had a nice person help us and we were at the front. And then the stress began...each bag was over weight. And when I mean over weight, I mean so much that even if we could pay the overweight fee, it was even too much for that. Oops...guess our scales were off! So...I made a mad dash over to Mom and told her to go and buy another carry on. And so here we are in the airport trying to stuff as much as we could in this extra bag. It was nuts!! And then they told us we had too many carry ons. Oh great...thankfully they had the bright idea that they could check our carry ons for us. What a blessing! So...after some crazy times we boarded the flight to Seoul. It went really well and then we let Sadie run around on the play area for 3 hours. She tired out so many kids and just kept going! It was so crazy. But we made the mistake of letting her skip her nap. She gets on our 14 hour flight and is overly tired. The flight was awful...worst 14 hours of my life! Sadie is only wanting Mommy and Jack is only wanting to nurse. You can imagine...and if you can't, well I promise it will be better if you can't. We were so thankful to have my mom with us. We honestly would not have been able to do it without you Mom! But after that ever so long flight we landed in Atlanta full of relief that it was over! We were greeted by Clark's parents and our surprise vistors, our very closest friends, Kris and Vanessa. They surprised us by coming to meet us...just made my day! The funniest thing is, this isn't the first time they have done this...they surprised me in 2006 when I came home from China...it was great! Anyway...on the way home, my two sweet angels cried for the first hour. They haven't ever been in a car seat before and it was super hard on them. But thankfully after the first hour they nodded off. So...once we got home it was after 2 in the morning before we got to sleep. We are staying in such a wonderful house. It is a guest house on the property of some friends of Clark's family. Again, Father has blessed us immensely! Our first few days at home were really really hard. I was not prepared for jet lag at all. I so wished someone would have told me just how hard it was with two little ones. Well, let me just tell you, the hours were so crazy that one night all four of us ended up at Walmart at midnight. I told Clark that people must think we are awful parents for keeping our kids out until 1 in the morning :) If you are still reading to this point...I am pretty proud of you :) I am gonna stop for now and next time I will update with pictures and share what we have been doing since we have gotten home! Thanks again for welcoming me back to blogland. I have missed you sweet friends and am glad that can all reconnect again! :)