Wow! What a whirlwind it has been since I last posted. Why don't I recap our trip home and then will update you on how things are going now that we are home. :)
On New Year's Day, we took a flight north again to Beijing. We had an overnight stay in a hotel there but didn't want to pay for internet service so I wasn't able to blog but there wasn't a lot to catch you up on anyways. Our flight didn't leave Beijing for Chicago until about 4:30 pm so we had some time to kill at the airport. When we booked our flight, we tried to purchase the lap ticket for Ellie but since she didn't quite exist as our daughter yet, they told us they couldn't issue a ticket yet but just to come to the airport a little early with her documents and such and they would get it issued which is how it had worked for our in country flight to Beijing, as well. Sounds easy enough, right? Well, when we got there and explained the situation and what we had been told, they then told us that she was not in the system and that we would have to purchase a ticket for. Ok, sure, we can do that. Of course, it wasn't that simple. She said that they were not ticket agents and that there weren't any at the airport so we would have to call and purchase one from an agent. Sigh. This might not have been as big of a deal if it would have been a local call like she told us and we could have used the public phone at the airport for free. It was not however, and it would have cost us at least a dollar a minute to use that phone. However, we did not get an international calling plan for our cell phones either, so either way we knew it was going to be painful. Marcus got a hold of somebody and explained the situation and then was put on hold. For a long time. All the while we could all but hear the phone bill adding up. He ended up hanging up and going back to the counter to get someone to help him. Thankfully, one of the ladies ended up taking him "downstairs" where ever that was to let him use a phone and get everything straightened out eventually.
In the meantime, I was left with a cart full of luggage and a busy toddler who wanted to wander through the huge crowds of people. Not a great combination. We were also several hours past lunchtime at this point, so she was cranky and hungry. I had a granola bar and I stretched that thing out about as long as I could. Tiny little bite after tiny little bite. As long as I was feeding her she would sit in my lap and hang out. Oy. I was super glad when Marcus finally came back to rescue me! :)
When it was finally time to board, we were feeling BEYOND thankful for Marcus' boss having upgraded us to business class. Seriously. Have you ever flown business class? We are talking hot towels, free drinks, warm nuts, a three course meal complete with cheese and wine afterwards and don't even get me started on the seats that fully recline. AMAZING. And to top it off, there ended up being a couple of open seats so the super sweet stewardess asked if another lady would mind switching with us so that we could have three seats together for Ellie to have her own seat. What? What a crazy extravagant blessing on top of an already crazy extravagant blessing! Ellie was able to stretch out on her own seat and sleep for a solid 7 hours of the 12 hour flight. Which meant that Marcus and I were also able to stretch out and each sleep for about 3-4 hours which proved to be quite necessary for what waited for us in Chicago...
We knew that our flight flight from Chicago to Grand Rapids had been cancelled and that things in Chicago didn't look good. We spent the flight brainstorming our options and the idea of having to stay in yet another hotel and being so close to home without being able to actually be there was just too much. As soon as we landed, Marcus called his companies travel agency and they were able to reserve us a car rental (and evena rented car seat) so that we could drive the rest of the way home. It ended up taking us about 5 hours instead of 3 1/2 like it normally would and there were definitely some areas that you couldn't even see the lines on the highway but we made it in one piece. Ellie was deliriously tired at this point and every time she would finally drift off to sleep she would wake up and stretch only to be reminded that she was buckled in and would start clawing at the car seat straps and crying. Sigh.
Around midnight, we finally pulled into our driveway and had never in all our life been happier to be home. It was so surreal to have stared at Ellie's picture for so long and imagined life with her running around our house and now we were finally walking in the door with her in our arms to begin life together as a family of five...
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