We Made It!!

After a very LONG plane ride we made it! We can't believe we are actually in China. It has been a dream for son long, and we are finally here!!!! God is so good! We left home about 6:45 Thursday morning. After checking our bags and trying to get all of us through security we boarded the plane for Chicago with no major catastrophes, except for spilling a full Chai Latte--I was heartbroken! Anyway, the flight to Chicago was uneventful. We got to Chicago about 1 hour before our plane took off for Beijing. The gate for the plane to Beijing was PACKED. We somehow met up with three other adoptive families, 2 of which are with our agency, and we will be travelling with. We are the only once who brought our children along. After a couple of long lines for Visa stamps we made it to the plane. The flight was totally uneventful, and the boys were WONDERFUL. Zach slept for the first hour or so, and then we played cars, colored, walked around, and sat and talked. They played 4 movies and several hours of tv on the overhead tv screen. Paul watched part of one of the movies, but for the most part he played GameBoy, talked with us, colored, read, and played with cars. We had an interesting snack of Chinese noodles at one point. Zach loved them, Steve and I tolerated them, and Paul wouldn't try them. The other two meals were typical airplane food. We did get both boys to sleep aroud 9 est and they slept until about 1:30 est. We landed in Beijing on time at about 3 pm local time on Friday afternoon, which was 3 am est, Friday morning. We were worn slap out, but made it through customs and got all of our luggage with out ane problems. We met up with our guide and the rest of our travel group without trouble, and made the one hour bus ride to the hotel. The hotel is very nice, and the beds, though not huge, are larger then I expected. They are hard as rocks, but we were so tired it didn't really matter. After getting our room keys we went to dinner at the hotel. It was good, but Steve was the only one who ventured out. It was several different foods served family style. Zach, Paul, and I stuck with the lemon chicken and the rice. I am not sure what all Steve ate, but he said it was good. Amber picked a little here and there, but said she was too tired to eat. We walked around the hotel a bit and there was a seal in one of the aquariums that the boys really enjoyed. They also enjoyed all the other types of fish in the various aquariums. We finally crashed about 9:30pm local time, 9:30 am est. The boys were tired so they went to sleep no problem. They did wake up about 2 am, and they were HUNGRY. I gave them some dry cheerios and they ate them up and went back to sleep in about 1 hour. We all woke up between 5:30 and 6:00 this morning. Steve and Paul are now out exploring and getting Amber and I some Starbucks! We will them head to breakfast at the hotel buffet and then off to do some sightseeing. Because our flight to Molly's province leaves early Sunday morning we will not be able to do any sightseeing Sunday, so we are going to see The Great Wall, Forbidden City, and Tianneman Square today. It should be a pretty long day, but we are excited about seeing soe of the culture. I will try to post tonight or in the morning about our adventures in sightseeing, but we are having a difficult time with connectivity. We thought we would hae WIFI, but we don't and the connection we do have is a bit iffy. We also don't have any phones that work. We are remedying that this afternoon when PandaPhone delivers a couple of new phones, since the SIM cards we ordered don't work in our phones. So, hopefully we will be able to call a couple of people this evening. So, I have probably written way more detail then many of you care to know, but I wanted to get it all written down. Have a great evening their in the states.