Close But No Cigar

What can I say? It's 4am in Los Angeles on Wednesday, 8/16, and we're all really tired. Where to start....

Let's start with Monday night, our last evening in Guangzhou. We took a dinner cruise on the Pearl River through the heart of Guangzhou. Although I've heard and read conflicting numbers on the actual size of G-Town, the latest numbers put it at over 10 million. It's a big honkin' town, as we say in America. This photo is a shot of the White Swan Hotel. Eventually I'll post a number of other nice photos on Webshots for you to enjoy.

Tuesday, our departure day, started with the customary 'red couch' photos at the White Swan. We took photos of each family, and of all the kids together. I have some great shots of everybody that I will be uploading to Webshots, so don't forget to check back on that. In the afternoon we had our appointment at the US Consulate in Guangzhou where about 40 families from the US raised their right hand and swore truth to the information that we provided regarding our adoptions. And then, Wham!, we were good to go. We received Ming's visa documentation for immigration into the US, then on the way to the airport we stopped at one of the Starbucks in Guangzhou with Rebecca and our driver to celebrate our success.

Rebecca got us all settled through the check-in process, and off we flew. The flight to LA was very L O N G. We all did very well considering the situation, especially Ming. But it was an exercise in patience, longsuffering, and gritting and bearing. We're talking about 15 hours here folks. In China Southern's 'smallest seats in the airline industry' comforts. Thank the Lord that is over. And one HUGE BLESSING was the fact that we ended up with a bulkhead seat where they have a mini crib that hangs on the bulkhead for babies. It was tiny, but it offered some reprieve for all of us as Ming was able to sleep a little bit, and hang out there to nibble on some crackers and whatever else we could keep her busy with.

I'll offer more on that, and our unfortunate night spent in LA later today, but for now we're heading to the airport to catch our flight home. More soon!