January 14 - 15, 2015

Back up a day/night to January 13th.  Well of course that's when we put the car seat in the car.  After all we'll need it in 17 days when we get back home!  Nothing like waiting until the last minute.  It was the first of many things Joe would be putting together for our little guy!   I'm not really sure how late we stayed up this night but I know it was late.

Heading to this little boy who's face we've been staring at since September!
We are beyond ready!!!!

We were up and moving, well at least I was, around 230am. Gotta have a good hour to let those drugs kick in before ANY travel.   Joe's parents came and got us around 3:50am  to head to the airport. Not a lot of people at the airport that early.  It did take me a while to figure out that I had to slide/scan our passports through the right area at check in. I wish I had thought to take pictures of this part of our trip.  It was a very tearfully emotional moment checking in our bags when she confirmed we were going to Beijing CHINA..  YES PLEASE my baby boy is waiting for us!  Somehow I got selected to bypass the normal TSA check point.  I was able to go through the old school medal detector with my shoes on I believe.  I still had to wait for Joe though because he had to go through the regular line, which had a line. That was nice!  Finally we were able to board our early ass flight to Detroit, 5:40AM. I would have preferred the later, 1 hour lay over flight, but since it was January in Michigan who knows what kind of weather we'd get.  Of course it was fine that day, just cold!

Love my little 25 cent garage sale purse. And the blanket Paula made for Nian from yarn my Grandma had.  I really hated washing that blanket, it smelled like Grandma...  But I wasn't sure how Nian would be with it so a wash it got.  - we later learned he wasn't a big blanket fan, at least not while we were in China. I'm glad I had it with me on the plane it kept me warm.

Well we made it to Detroit in about 2 mins.  Lol really it was what maybe 30 mins I think it took longer to board, and unload than the whole flight.  We headed to Max and Erma's for breakfast. Good place, I sure miss the one out at Woodland that was a nice restaurant.  We made quick work of "looking" around the airport then found our gate to sit.... and wait....  4   more   hours......... Well to one of us the time flew!

Time flies...    for one of us!

That's us!

2 hours down, 2 more to go!!!!!

We didn't realize the plane sitting on the other side of the gangway was our plane.  We thought we would see this big plane pull up to the gate.  Uh no.  It was a big plane just not as big as we were thinking we would have. All aboard!!!!!  We had fellow group/soon to be family members seated behind us.  It was nice to meet part of group before getting over there.

Hi Josh! Unknown photo bomb

Yeah I'm ready for a nice 12 hour nap!

Now there are 1 thing I ALWAYS look for when I get on a plane, such is my traveling life.  Do I have a bag in the seat back pocket???? Oh yeah, and hand me yours too while we're at it.  One never knows when I might need them!

No only do I have a bag, I also have a nice red blanket!

I was very excited about the movie screen in front of me, until I tried it and it didn't work.  Ugh this was going to be a long flight if they couldn't get it to work.  Thank God the flight attendant was able to reset it. Shew....  That would have seriously sucked if it was broke. I really liked that you could track the flight, and of course didn't think to take a picture of it until we were into the flight. Next trip! ;-)

Buh bye Detroit

Oh dang we need to deice first. 

LOVED this part of the screen!

So of course I was up the WHOLE flight, except maybe a few hours. UGH...  I should have took another pill half way through the flight cuz those last 4 hours were rough.  Jessica behind me was feeling the same way.  Huh for one of us the time passed quicker!  Imagine that!!!!!

Time flies...    for one of us!

I did at one point open the window shade, I think we were over the Arctic circle. Yeah it was super sunny.  LOL I lite the plane up that was funny.  Joe didn't think it was funny but I did.  Ok seriously I didn't open it ALL the way. It was really freakin bright lol.  The upgrade on Delta to Economy Comfort is SO worth it!!!!!

I'll finish this post up with the rest of our day - it was January 15th for us, still the 14th for you all!

We landed in Beijing on January 15th around 3:15 pm China time.  That's 3:15 am for you all at home. At first I thought it was just foggy like home, but nope that was the snog.  The fire department at the airport was pretty cool though. (Note to self - and you if you make this trip: go to restroom before getting luggage on next trip or it'll be a long ride to the hotel!)

Fire Dept

That's snog folks

 We met our guide George, and I don't know about Joe, Jessica, or Josh, but I tried really hard to "listen" to what he was saying on the way to the hotel.  The only think I remember him talking about was how great Jesus was, and a story about when him mom was pregnant with him.  I did love his um yeah's though! Love George he was awesome!

He got us checked into the hotel, got some money changed over, and told us to meet him back in the lobby tomorrow.  I think we also got an itinerary for the next few days.  Here's a bit from our original post.  

     We arrived around 430-445 pm China time at our hotel and headed right to our room.  One of the bell boys showed us how to use the elevator; you have to put your key in a slot to get it to work.  Then in our room we couldn't figure out how to turn the lights on, again you have to put your key in
this slot ad then press the buttons. LOL I imagine they deal with that a lot.  It's a very nice room with a view of the city out the window, which will open but has NO screen.  Scared my body as my sister Brenda would say.   We did crack up for a while as George was right they keep the rooms Warm to say the least...  We tried to watch a bit of TC, not many English channels, and promptly fell asleep.  I got up around 8 pm, checked the door and got on my pj's.  Back to bed we went.  I did set the alarm for 630 am as we meet George for our tour at 9 am and we want to have enough time to shower, eat, and relax a little.

Inset key card to work power.

The room

Views out of our window. With the unofficial country bird ~ the crane!

Thanks for going back a bit and sharing the memories with us. Seems like yesterday, yet so long ago..