First full day back in the USA!

Well, we have had quite the first day/day and a half since we got home.

First of all, while we were in China, Michelle's Aunt Rhonda (Beyer) passed away. She had been battling cancer for the past couple of months and she passed away on Thursday (I may have my days mixed between our China days and Paducah days). Michelle and our family loved Rhonda very much and are very sad about this for Jerry and their kids (Robert, Ryan and Jennifer) and our family as a whole. We have had a pretty bad year on this side of the family healthwise this year.

We got our wake-up call at 4:30 am on Friday morning (2:30pm Thursday Paducah time) in Guangzhou for our 8:30 flight to Hong Kong. The flight is pretty short non-eventful for Coee. We then get ready for our 11:30 am flight out to Chicago that will take about 14 hours and 09 minutes. We have dreaded this trip for so long with a small baby that hadn't ridden in a car very long, much less an airplane for that long. The flight went amazingly well and Coee was great. I had two empty seats on my row (Michelle and the kids were the entire middle row behind me) so when it came time for Coee to go to sleep, I made her a bed next to me and she slept for 4/5 hours. Trey and Dillon also slept for 4 hours or so. I slept for maybe an hour and Michelle probably didn't sleep that long. We arrived in Chicago on time and were met with the rude awakening of US immigration! We went down an escalator and saw a sea of 500-600 people waiting to get through customs and immigration. In China, they have about 12 lanes set up for this and even on our big flight into Beijing, it only took about 10 minutes total to get thru customs and immigration. In the US, they had about 3/4 lanes open and way too many people to get thru there. I could see this taking hours!

About 3 minutes into standing in line, a guy came to the crowd and shouted for "anyone with small children, follow me"! I felt like the old Budweiser commercial "I love you man"! He took us (3 or 4 families) to a special room for our immigration processing. It only took about 10 minutes and we were on our way. Coee was now an official citizen of the US!

We then had to re-check our bags to get them to Nashville, which we did and they all got re-checked without a hitch. (more on this later)

We had a layover of about 3 hours, the kids were hungry and we had been up for about 21 hours or so................good times.

We got the kids fed and watered and set out to find our gate for departure to Nashville. The video screens showed the flight on time and leaving from gate F1. We got to that gate and it was crowded for another flight so we made our way across the aisle and got our 3 kids, 3 carry on bags, 4 backpacks and spread them out in our little area. I took a nap for about 45 minutes and our kids (Coee included) ran free in our gate area! I am sure the other passengers were thinking bad thoughts about our parenting skills, but we didn't know them, there wasn't a DFS (dept. of family services) Office in the airport and we just really didn't care!

About 15 minutes before we thought we would board the plane, we gathered up our stuff and headed across the aisle to our gate. When we got there, I was a little alarmed that the flight information on the digital board was for another flight and it wasn't to Nashville. I went to the desk and asked what was up and she informed me that she had announced on the louspeaker that the flight to Nashville had been moved to gate 4. We then moved our traveling circus to gate 4. The flight information on the board there showed the flight was going to Iowa or some such place. I then proceeded to ask about our missing flight to Nashville. She informed me that it had then moved to Gate 2. Finally we found the right gate. Michelle then decides that she needs to change clothes and change Coee for our triumphant return to the South side of the Ohio River! We had about 3 minutes before boarding to get it done and she did it!

Michelle and Coee slept for the 1.5 hour flight to Nashville.

When we got to Nashville, a big group of people were waiting for us and it was a huge relief to finally be "almost" home! There were tears, hugs and kisses all around. Everyone was kind of excited to see Coee and she did great and wasn't overwhelmed at all.

After all the initial hugs and chit chat, we set about finding baggage claim. Neil, Chad and I went down to baggage claim and got two of our checked bags. The other 3 were missing and I had to fill our a claims form. The baggage lady (bag lady?) said that many flights were overloaded and they had had to pull quite a bit of luggage all day.

We (20 of us) left the airport and went and had dinner at a Mexican restaurant. It was great food with great people. Coee showed out and made quite a first impression on everyone!

After dinner we said our goodbye's and drove home. We got home at 10:00pm and got to bed about 1:00 am (our little travel extravaganza had lasted for 35 hours with about 2 hours sleep for Michelle and I). Michelle's cough found it's way south with us and she couldn't sleep until about 4:00am. She did 3 loads of laundry and watched Grey's Anatomy!

I slept until 8:00 or so, the boys had to be woken up at 10:30 for Dillon's final basketball game. Michelle and I went to the basketball game and then got ready for the visitation services for Aunt Rhonda at 3:00pm. Dillon also had his basketball awards banquet this afternoon and my mom took him to that.

After the visitation we then went to Mona's house for food and play for the kids.

It is now 10:53 and all is quiet at our house. Everyone is asleep, the boys downstairs with Chad and Ethan, and Coee and Michelle are in our bed snuggled up, and Michelle isn't coughing.......................life is good.

I will take some pictures tomorrow of Coee at our house and post them. She has been a big hit with everyone and has assimilated into our life so quickly it is simply amazing. She only fusses when she is hungry and is such a good baby.

We were hoping to be at Church tomorrow, but the funeral for Rhonda is at 11:00, so we won't make it this week. We will see everyone from Church next week and if you want to come see Coee, our house is open!

Thanks everyone again for all the support during this time of our life. It has truly meant so much to us to hear that people enjoyed reading our blog and keeping up with what we were doing. We had many people tell us tonight at the services that they had watched our story and were touched by it. That means so much to us, I don't even have the words.

God is good and it has sure been quite a Journey to Coee! We are so lucky to have this precious little girl with the big smile and big voice!

Amen.