There's No Place Like Home!

We are so blessed to have such wonderful friends and family! We had such a wonderful homecoming! It was so good to see familiar faces and hug my kids again!
Brandon saw us coming through the airport, and he came running toward us with his sign, yelling, "Momma! Dexter! Momma! Dexter!" Brandon is such a precious boy, and I enjoy watching our boyS play together. Brandon couldn't stop touching Dex.

The trip home actually went better than I'd expected. There were definitely times that I thought someone on the plane might push us out the door at 33,000 feet. But, overall, Dex did very well. It was tough to find things to entertain him, and we were counting down minute-by-minute at times. It was a very early start at 4:30 a.m. to make it to the airport for our flight. We had a very quick breakfast in the airport. I felt a little melancholy about leaving China with Dex. I want him to learn about his Chinese heritage and culture. I know he'll have so many more opportunities in America with our family, but I learned to appreciate the Chinese culture so much more during our time there, and I want Dex to know about that, too.

It's really hard to wrap your mind around the concept of flying halfway around the world. We saw some amazing things on the flight home. When we first took off in Beijing, I saw huge, sharp-peaked mountains and was in awe of those ... and then we saw the Great Wall running along the ridge of one of the mountains! We saw the mountains of Siberia, the sunrise over the Arctic Ocean, and huge chunks of ice floating in the ocean.
We saw the sun rise again over Canada, north of the Hudson Bay.

Yes, I'm crying as we're about to touchdown in Chicago, knowing our little man was about to become a citizen of the United States, which would be the final step in his adoption into our family.