Our Trip to China - Day 1

The day is finally here!!!  We are off to China to bring Caitlin home!  Our day started off pretty early this morning - we were up at 4:15 am (after finally finishing our packing at 1:00 am).  Zachary did a great job getting up and ready to go - he's so excited  that he's finally going to meet his little sister!!  Today is the last day in our house with just the three of us - our family is about to grow!!  Grandma and Grandpa picked us up at 5:30 and we were off to the airport to catch our 6:55 flight to Chicago.  Nana and Granpa met us in Chicago to make the journey with us.  We had 4 1/2 hours before our flight to Beijing so we did a lot of walking around the airport (and riding the people movers) in preparation for the 14 hour flight.  While we were at our gate, we met another family who is with our same agency and they area adopting a little 3 1/2 year old girl - Quinn.

Before we knew it, it was time to board our plane.  About 2 hours into the flight, Zachary informed us that he was ready to get off the plane :)  Once we got out his portable DVD player, he was in heaven - back to back features of Penguins of Madagascar and Madagascar 2.  On our flight, we flew north from Chicago over the Hudson Bay (-37 degrees), the North Pole (-41 degrees) - couldn’t find Santa’s House, the Arctic Ocean and then over Siberia (-67 degrees - can’t imagine why it’s not a tourist hot spot!)  Just about that time Zachary passed out - lucky for him, there was an empty seat next to him so he was able to lay down and stretch out.  Mom and Dad’s seats we located right near the restrooms so needless to say they knew everyone’s story by the end of the flight!  Things we saw from the plane: ice caps, the “North Light” (Zachary saw the whitelight on the end of the wing and thought it was the north star), and the Great Wall of China!  We landed at 3:00 pm which was about 1 1/2 hours early - amazing!  We had to wake Zachary - it’s going take a little bit to get him/us used to the time change!  Mr. Zhou (pronounced Joe) our guide met us at the airport and we were off to the hotel (Holiday Inn Downtown Beijing).  

After getting our rooms settled he took us to a nearby grocery store to get water (can’t drink the tap water here) and some snacks.  We saw some tasty looking pigs feet, sea cucumbers, frozen whole chickens (at least their feathers had been plucked), and shredded jellyfish!  We had a hard time choosing what to have for dinner so we grabbed a little bit of everything to sample!! :)  (Okay so we really had mac ‘n cheese, PB&J and oatmeal for dinner in our rooms.) It was definitely a struggle to keep everyone awake long enough to eat.  Zachary was out almost as soon as his head hit the pillow -us too for that matter!  Big day of site seeing tomorrow - The Great Wall and Olympic Village.