We made it to China! Day 1-2

Through the next two weeks, we will be updating as often as we can with pics and stories from our trip.

Day 1-2 Travel to China

Laura and I set off on Wednesday morning at 4:30am with the help of her dad Sid, aka “Pops”. We hit the airport in no time and were ready to check-in after a short goodbye. We were both bundled up despite the 75 degree weather in Orlando!

Pops dropping us off at the airport in Orlando

The first leg of our trip was a short flight into Chicago where we stopped for some lunch. Laura had a salad and I’ll give you one guess what I had… That’s right, one last American meal to hold me over for the next two weeks.

My last American meal

Once we got back to our gate, we met some other couples who were adopting through Bethany Christian Services. Three other families were also going to the Children’s Welfare Institute (CWI) in Jinan to pick up their children. Most were adopting boys, but there were at least two families who had been matched with little girls. Of all the children, Theo will be the youngest at just under 13 months.

Boarding the plane, Laura and I were a ball of stress… making sure we had all of our documents, pushing through the “goat rodeo” of a line to the boarding gate, making sure there was enough storage space for our carry-ons, did we have all the right cords for our ipads-phones-camera-computer? (I’m convinced there should be a universal power cord for all electronic devices by now…

Flight was set to depart at 12:00pm 3/4/15 Chicago time and land 3:45pm 3/5/15 Beijing time.

Finally making it to the last leg of our trip toward China, we settled in. One row back was the sweetest baby boy who was calm and quiet for the entire 11 hour flight. You can see him in the photo. We could only wonder why he was returning back to China.

After movies, shows, email reading, and trying to nap where we could (Laura was not so lucky, as she got a case of the Jimmy Legs) we finally made it.

China’s version of the “Tiger Walk” – for all you Auburn fans.

Several other families adopting through Bethany.

Airport as we were leaving headed towards the hotel.

Cool building in Beijing with massive overhangs/ cantilever on our way to the hotel. Too cool not to post.

Our hotel in Beijing

A long and tiring day… and we promise the blogs will get better with more detailed information on our journey, but the whole time remembering that the point of it all is to bring home our little Theo and Glorify God through the process.