Day 18

We finally made it home. We got up at 4 am on Thursday in Guangzhou and got home 30 hours later in Orlando (10 pm Orlando time). What a long day! We had 3 flights - a short 1 hour flight from Guangzhou to Hong Kong, then the mother of all flights - 15 hours from Hong Kong to Chicago, a 5-hour layover, and then a 2.5 hour flight from Chicago to Orlando. Callan did quite well, thank God, but 15 hours is a long time for doing anything. The flight from Hong Kong to Chicago was delayed for 1 hour - after we boarded! - due to a radio problem. Unbelievable.

In Chicago, we went through immigration and Callan officially became a U.S. citizen! The immigration officers open up the 'sealed brown envelope' that we were told not to open - check all the paperwork and then congratulate us and tell us the official document will be in the mail within the week. What a relief.

While waiting for our luggage we met a family in our adjacent subdivision who had just adopted a 3 year old boy! They have older girls in the family with babysitting experience too! :)

We were so tired in Chicago that I thought we'd fall asleep at the gate waiting for our next flight. The first "thank God we're home moment" was when we realized that we could drink the tap water and wash baby bottles in it. The next big moment was seeing Didi, Gary, and Dillon at the airport picking us up. We were so tired I'm not sure either one of us could have safely driven home.

Here's some pics from the longest day:

Checking in luggage in Ghuangzhou. We were 1 over the check-in allowance so we had to hand carry her.

The picture's a little blurry but there are a lot of babies getting on the flight to Hong Kong.

This is Julia and Dennis to the right. Their daughter, Lucy, is from the same orphanage as Callan and even had the same outfit on in the referral picture. Check-in took about 30 minutes and we were all very anxious to get going. As long as we kept moving we were okay.

The End.