We are HOME!

We've been home about a week and a half and I haven't had a chance yet to post pictures from the rest of our trip.  We are still trying to adjust and the biggest issue has been SLEEP! Audrey is still trying to adjust to the 14 hour time difference, and we are daily trying to guess when we should wake her, when to put her down for a nap, how long to let her nap, and when to put her to bed at night so that she falls into a pattern.  It seems like no matter what we do, she likes to be wide awake and happy, talking in her bed and playing right in the middle of the night, then fall back to sleep towards morning.  I know it will just take a little more time to get adjusted.

So, to recap the rest of our trip, we left the hotel about 5:45 am Friday the 11th, and headed to the Guangzhou airport.  We had a great flight to Beijing, Audrey played for a while...

Then she fell fast asleep for the rest of that flight....

Then we changed planes in Beijing and we were off to San Francisco.  Even though it was early afternoon when we left, before too long we were in complete darkness outside, and they turned off all the lights on the plane.  Audrey didn't sleep very much, but she was quiet in her seat playing.  It helped that everything was quiet and lights were turned off.  Aaron & I took turns dozing while keeping an eye on her in the seat between us.  The flight really wasn't too bad at all.  We even gained an hour because of tailwind!  I think it was around a 10 hour flight.  We were thankful that those 2 flights had no delays, despite the heavy smog we had been hearing about in Beijing.

Almost there!  Beautiful view of the Golden Gate Bridge...

We landed in San Francisco, went thru the long customs line, turned in Audrey's brown sealed envelope to an immigration officer, and then were so excited to be met by my sister Janet, brother-in-law Jim, and niece Lindsey!!!

Audrey didn't really mind her first time ever in a car seat!

 

We stopped by California Maritime Academy to see my nephew Austin between classes and take a quick look at the ship he lives on.  Pretty cool!

Then Audrey got her first In-N-Out fries for lunch!

Mmmm, yum!

We arrived in Sacramento and were so happy to take a shower and spend the rest of the night relaxing with family!  We had a wonderful dinner at the house, celebrating my niece & nephew's birthdays.  Audrey was so happy playing with some new toys and meeting her new cousins...

Then the next morning we were off to the airport for our flight home.  My sister, niece Brooke and her 3 kids flew to St. Louis with us!  

 It was another long day of travel!  Got to the airport to find out our flight thru Chicago was cancelled last minute due to fog.  We were re-routed to a later flight thru Denver.  Then snow in Denver made our 2nd flight late because of de-icing the plane.  Glad we had family with us and more new cousins to keep us entertained!

Audrey did not do near as good on these flights as she did on the China flights.  She was very antsy, having a hard time getting comfortable and trying to wiggle out of our arms.  She did quite a bit of crying on both flights, I think her ears were bothering her.  We were so ready to land!  The flight ended up not getting to St. Louis till around 10:30 pm.  We had friends and family at the airport to meet us!

Meeting her brother Grant...

her brother Luke...

and her sister Olivia...

First family picture...

She was very quiet and still with all the new people around her, but once we got in the van, she was quick to warm up to the kids and give them some smiles!

We have really been enjoying our time getting to know her better.  The kids can't get enough of her and are all constantly wanting to do everything for her and be with her at all times.  It has been nice for them to be on Christmas break right away to spend more time together.  They have been teaching her lots of new things.  She waves, says hi, blows kisses, nods her head, claps, and smiles and laughs at them frequently.  We can't even hardly remember what it was like to have that shy, quiet, still girl we first met.  She is not only walking around the house but running!  It's been so fun each day seeing what she is going to learn!