Hello from Xi'an!

My travels to China followed our entire adoption journey to the T, and by that I mean delays and drama! My flight out of San Francisco was delayed 4 hours. My 4 hour delay meant I wouldn't make my connecting flight into Xi'an. While I waited, United booked me on another connecting flight. No big deal, right?

Wrong! We made up an hours time on our flight to Beijing, which meant that United rebooked me yet again on a different connecting flight into Xi'an. So, I exited the plane, saw a United rep standing outside holding my name up, she told me I was rebooked and that I had to RUN in order to make the connection in only 35 minutes.

The details that unfolded are a good story, but I'll have to save those for later. All I will say is that I made it through customs, picked up my bag, re-checked it, took the train to another terminal, made it through security (downing the last half bottle of good ol' American tap water), and ran to my gate and made it in time. I was one sweaty, shaky mess, but I made it.

There's even more drama after that when I arrived in Xi'an and my guide wasn't there, but again, that will wait for later. I checked into my hotel around 1am local time and tried to sleep. A morning text from my boys at home woke me up, so I unpacked, showered, assembled gift bags, and just had the complimentary breakfast at the hotel. I'm having wifi issues in the room and I'm thinking of waiting for my guide this afternoon for help because the language barrier is a difficulty when talking tech talk. For now, the lobby will work just fine.

I promise I'll post more when time allows. Please, please pray we can get the wifi up and running in the room. I may need to configure the airport express we just bought but I need to find a computer to acco plish that task. Hopefully they have a computer in the business office that I can use and see if that solves the problem. I haven't talked to my boys since I left SFO and I really hate the idea of not being able to hear their voices for a whole week until I get to Guangzhou on Sunday.

I will leave you with this... Today is what we call Gotcha Day in the adoption world. In just about 5 hours I will be driven by van to the city office where I will meet Hu Jing and take custody of her! This is the moment we've been waiting 3 years for and it's actually happening! I'm trying my best to "save face" as they do in China and not be an emotional wreck about it, but I am so excited I feel like my heart is going to burst!

Happy Gotcha Day, Hu Jing!

To my boys at home: I miss you so much! I'm so sorry the iPad won't work in the room and I can't call you. I miss hearing your voices! Take care of each other and I'll see you in 10 more days! I love you!