January 15th the trip home.

We started our day at 4 am. We got ready and were checking out by 5 and headed to the airport. This time we had to use 2 taxi’s but it was a short ride. Once at the airport, check in went smooth. Security was no big deal. We had time for a breakfast at Burger King however weird that they serve fries instead of hash rounds.

We made it to the flight and were able to trade 2 of our seats to get us all in 1 row. The flight to Tokyo was smooth and we all rested some.

In Tokyo we boarded and again traded some seats to get us all together. It was good that we were all together and we lucked out by having this wonderful and beautiful Chinese girl sitting next to us. She was a student in the US and was so helpful with the girls. Shiyan and Maria fell in love with her. Shiyan ended up sleeping a couple of hours leaning on this girl, they played games together and the girl even gave them bracelets.

This was one of the most bumpy flights I have ever been on. The turbulence was so bad that the plane was bouncing. The girls loved it they raised their hands and yelled like on a roller coaster. We kept descending and finally got a better ride down around 20K feet but still some bumps.

We got into Detroit early and had a 3.5 hour lay over but since immigration was so slow it was good. It took us nearly 1.5 hours to clear immigration and customs. We had been given instructions at the Consulate on how to enter the country but Detroit does it differently. We had to go to the citizen line and then they put us in the blue line for immigrants. This line moved so slow that 2 full planes went through while we waited. Finally Forrest got another agent to start processing us through. We finally got though and then had to meet with CDC. Thanks to the false TB Skin test we had to be interviewed and now have to contact the health dept at home even though all test show Maria is fine.

In any case we finally made it to our gate and waited for the final flight. Once on board we settled in and kept waiting. They finally said that we have more people than we had checked in. I called the flight attendant and told her that it was likely 1 of our tickets that was missed. Turns out the gate agent was talking to us about adoption and missed Maria’s ticket so they had too many bodies on the plane. Then if that were not enough they could not get the tug disconnected from the air plane so we had to wait on maintenance to come get us loose. By this time most of us were asleep and slept most of the way home Robin and Laura were awake some of the ride.

When we got to our home airport we were greeted by a fairly large group of our friends taking pictures, holding up balloons and a sign welcoming Maria home. It was so great to see those smiling faces and receive hugs from friends.

We got home and had a great dinner that Robin had prepared and froze before we left. Our neighbors brought over desert and hot chocolate for us. We actually ended up staying up until about 10 after visiting with our friends. Maria had a little trouble going to sleep but with daddy’s help by 11 she was out. Unfortunately at 4 am Saturday most of us were awake and ready for the day. We did manage to stay in bed until almost 6 but this will be a long day as we try to over come jet lag.

Maria is doing great and loves playing with her new toys and her sisters. She loves her brothers and is doing great. I believe today at nap time we will all try to take a nap and get some rest.

That’s all for now we will post updates as we can. Thanks for following us on this journey to bring Maria home. We have truly been blessed through this adoption and this trip.