Sunday Afternoon, 2-26-06

This photo was taken by Joseph Mamer
all rights reserved. See more of his work at www.joemamer.com

Hello from Minnesota. Our plane touched down in Minnapolis yesterday (Saturday) afternoon around 3:45 PM, and it's taken me over 24 hours to just find some time, and energy to get back to our blog site.

But, first things first. Let's pick up the story where we left off, in Guangzhou on Friday, getting ready to leave.

We did have all the bags packed by 1pm and the Alexanders were so helpful in letting us keep our carry-ons in their room, while the other bags were put out in the hallway around 2pm for a bellboy to take downstairs until our departure.

(Sarah is at the far right; Billie Angel Alexander is next to her in the white shirt.)

Also at 2pm, all the families showed up with their daughters for picture on the red couch in front of the Chinese panels on the first floor of the Red Swan hotel. (For the families who traveled with us last time, the Dragon panels were gone.) It was rather chaotic as nine little girls don't like tobe left sitting on the couch and have all these strangers standing around snapping bright lights at them. The crying started and Sarah was pretty good until the end and at that point they were all wailing.



At 2:50 our group of nine families piled into our tour bus, and there were 4 other buses there for other families. All buses left for the U.S. embassy together, which is now a 30 minute bus ride across the city, which wouldn't take so long if it wasn't for all the traffic. The embassy just moved this past fall; prior to that, it was located a block from the White Swan and only required a leisurly walk down the street. Last time too, strollers, cameras, etc. were all allowed in, but now we were allowed a diaper and wipes, a little food for the baby and that was it. Not even a pen is allowed inside the building.

All the families went to the fourth floor and passed a review of our passports, a metal detection check, another review of our passports and then were left to wait in a big waiting room. I did a quick count of the

families there and estimated around 40 families were waiting to bring their daughters home...that is just one swearing in ceremony this week, and we were told there by Shirley there are are usually three a week.

The ceremony was as simple as we remembered it, but the question was not about abandonment as I posted earlier in the blog, but about being truthful on our paperwork. A gentleman from the Embassy came into our room, congratulated us and wished us luck on the trip home, asked all parents to stand and raise their right hand and then asked us one question: Do you affirm that all information provided by you is truthful to the best of your knowledge? We all said yes, and that was it. Each group's guide was given the babies' passports with their U.S. visa afixed in it and a sealed packet of information that was not to be opened except by a U.S. customs official at our port of entry. Back on the bus.

We arrived at the hotel around 5:20 and had just enough time to run up to the Alexander's room and change into travel clothes, convert a few dollars to RMB for food at the airport and I had to do a crash and burn 'fill out Chinese paperwork' to leave the country...Shirley had forgotten to give it to our family until on the bus and there are three forms per person to be completed for departure from China, just as there were three forms per person for entry (note: leaving the US as a citizen required no paperwork and returning requires only two forms for the whole family). I was a bit frazzled, but luckily Susan and Mark were quite calm. Mark went with Steve to help convert money and Susan helped me get Sarah changed and fed Emily something to eat. We hugged each other good-bye and it was a bit sad to know we were leaving, but for the most part, we just wanted to be on our way. The Alexanders were on the 4:45am Saturday morning "leave the hotel" timeline that all the other families had flying Northwest.

Molly went with us to the airport, which was very comforting after what happened in the Guangzhou airport on our arrival. She stayed with us until our bags were checked in and took us to where we needed bording passes to enter. We grabbed a light dinner and then boarded the plane. This time, with the tailwind, the flight was only 13 hours, instead of the 15 hours going to China. The girls slept for 11+ hours of the flight and woke up in time for breakfast. Steve and I slept as best we could, but the economy business class of China Southern is certainly not as comfortable as Northwest business class as the seats don't lay down as far and the headrest gets in the way. When we landed in LA, it was around 5:45. Clearing customs took little time and was uneventful, but getting our luggage took about 50 minutes and waiting for our shuttle to the airport took another 35 minutes, so we got to the hotel around 2 hours after we arrived. Then it was off to dinner, good old American food of steak and salad that we enjoyed.

The good part of staying over night in LA is that Matt and Alison, Steve's children, live in San Diego and drove up to see us. It was so nice to see them again, to be able to visit and kick back in our room and just relax and have them meet Sarah and play with Emily. Around 12:30am, I finally started getting tired and Sarah had fallen asleep, but Emily was wide awake. So Steve, Emily, Matt and Alison headed out to get the big kids something to eat. They got back around 3:30 am and Emily finally was tired around 4am and slept until 7am, but Steve didn't sleep at all.

In the morning we were back to at LAX for a 10:15 flight home andall four of us slept the entire way home. Of course we had the last row on the plane so it took forever to deplane. Grandma and Grandpa were waiting for us at the airport and was it ever good to see them. We got home to find Grandma, Grandpa, Aunt Elin, Uncle Joe and our cousins Libby and Frannie had made wonderful meal for us and were waiting to greet everyone. Our grandparents had decorated the house with welcome home signs and a fresh boquet of carnations and little white and light pink rose buds, j

ust for our new 'little Rose Bud.' After dinner we shared treasures and gifts from our trip.

Sarah was very apprehensive at first with all the new people, staying only in Mommy's arms for about the first two hours. Gradually she warmed up and went to Joe first and to Elin for a brief time. Later she played with Grandpa, laughing and walking to him. Finally, around 8:00pm she walked to Grandma and she got her first big Grandma hug.

It is so good to be home.