Day 13: Getting Home

 We woke up early to be ready to leave the hotel at 7:15am.  This year we couldn't find any inexpensive tickets out of Guangzhou, so the plan was to take a train to Hong Kong and fly out from there.  Our agency okayed our plan, but our guide told us there wasn't a train going out early enough to get us to the airport comfortably early.  We were really torn about what to do because the only alternative was to hire a van driver to take us to Hong Kong and the van costs significantly more than we were planning on, plus I had heard horror stories about these van rides.  But in the end, we didn't want to mess around with missing our flight home, so we took the advice of our guide and took a van to Hong Kong.

Our guide, Jason.  Who we really liked... until our van ride ;)

 Walking out the doors of the China Hotel for the last time.

Saying goodbye to our new friends.

The van ride took 3 hours and just like Gilligan's infamous 3 hour tour, it did not go well.  For the first little bit, it was typical crazy driving through China traffic, but I thought things would get better once we were out of the city.  Not so.  We have no idea what was up with the driver, but his driving was nuts.   Traffic wasn't bad but he kept speeding up, then braking for no apparent reason... over and over and over.  This lurching motion made us all sick in no time.  It was so frustrating.  We couldn't tell if he was on drugs, falling asleep, trying to look at his phone, or what, but he drove that way the entire way to Hong Kong and the fact that he heard vomiting noises coming from behind him did not clue him in at all.

Poor Hallie was not having it.

 Enoch threw up 5 or 6 times.  Luckily he still had his small collection of airplane barf bags for the first few upchucks.

Yep, still not doing well.

 After we ran out of airplane bags, I started emptying Ziplock bags from our luggage for extra puke storage.

 Hallie, felling a little better after she threw up on me.  What really put her over the edge was when the van driver let out a nasty smelling belch that filled the air in the van.  Ugh!  At the border, we had to stop at customs, and Kaitlyn really had to use the restroom, so I took her to use some of the nastiest squatty-potties ever.  Or maybe they just seemed that way because I was already completely nauseated.  Either way, it nearly did me in.

I really cannot express how terrible this van ride was. 

 On the bright side, the little bit of Hong Kong we saw was pretty cool.

Ryan loves bridges and there were several to check out.

When we made it to the airport we were all feeling better about life.

Kaitlyn wanted me to get a picture of this woman sleeping next to Hallie wearing a sweet eye mask.

Pringle Crumb Face

Lots of waiting...

Then a really long flight on which Hallie did amazing well.  The only thing that was hard was the fact that she has such poor muscle tone she couldn't sit upright for that long.  She kept slowly sliding down in her seat until her seat belt was up to her armpits and repeatedly needed me to sit her back up.   At 4 years old, her muscle tone is really only a little better than a newborns.  Something we'll definitely need to work on.  Even when we hold her, we have to be sure to support her because sometimes she'll fall backwards. 

We made it to Dallas... making this girl an official U.S. citizen!

When we were booking our flights, we had the option of a 2 hour 15 minute layover or a 6 hour 50 minute layover.  We knew that customs and immigration can sometimes be a nightmare in Dallas, so we decided to be safe and book the long layover.  The last thing we wanted to do was to miss a flight.  Well, we got though customs and immigration pretty quickly and tried to see if we could get on the earlier flight, but it was already full.  So we had a nice loooong wait in Dallas.

Fun fact: Ryan accidentally forgot to put all of his regular shorts in his suit case so for the whole two weeks, all he had was 2 pair of sweat shorts.  At first he was frustrated, then he embraced it.  He wore them well.

Our flight and layover were long, but after our terrible van ride.  They really didn't seem too bad, just long.

Suckers and stickers.

After a comparatively short flight, we made it to Salt Lake City! 
Exhausted, but happy.

Day 12: Packing it in, packing up & Hallie's First Swim

Sweet and Sour Pork, fried rice and pancakes with whipped cream and chocolate sauce for breakfast?  Why yes, Ryan will.  We clearly need to get home and back to our regular routine ASAP!

Just some noodles for this girl.

We received our final documents today and took the traditional adoption pictures.

This entire trip had a very different feel than our adoption trip last year.  We did nearly everything on our own and didn't meet the other family traveling with our agency until near the end.  It was fun getting out and exploring on our own, but I did wish we would have had more time to get to know this fun family.

We got Hallie a few traditional dresses and she adored them.  I had her try them on then she found a mirror where she was smiling, waving and saying "Ni Hao" to herself.  Definitely pleased.  She really loves getting dressed and getting her hair done everyday.

Like last year, we went to the Egyptian restaurant on our last night in Guangzhou.  It was delicious... again. 

Getting a little bit silly.

We spent most of the day packing up and getting ready to go, but we still hadn't had a chance to take Hallie to the pool, so we went for an after dinner swim.

Okay, so in all honesty, the last couple months of waiting to come get Hallie were hard for me.  With Jordan, we got all kinds of information and fun updates while we were waiting.  This time I got stone faced pictures of our girl and heard more and more sad stories about her orphanage.  I worried... a lot.  I wasn't able to feel the same connection with her as I did with Jordan and was preparing myself for the worst, which left me feeling less excited than I should have been.  In fact, I sometimes questioned if we were doing the right thing for our family.  Once we got her final measurements and started pulling out clothes for her, I felt slightly excited.  But it wasn't until I bought this swim suit for her that I really let myself get excited to meet the little girl who would wear it.  Somehow the swimsuit gave me hope.  And look how darling she is in it!  It took a lot of faith, but I am so glad we trusted the promptings we had had to make this beautiful girl our daughter. 

She loved her first swim!

Tomorrow we go home!

Day 11: Consulate Appointment and Safari Park

This morning we had Hallie's U.S. Consulate Appointment.  We had to get up extra early to get there on time, luckily it the last major thing we had to do for Hallie's adoption.  Cameras aren't allowed inside, so we don't have any pictures, but it's a pretty anti-climatic event anyway.

Later that day we took the Metro to Guangzhou's Safari Park.  The Metro is great!  It's really not hard to figure out and is so inexpensive, saving us $$$ on this trip.

We had a quick shuttle bus ride from the Metro.

We made it!

The Safari Park was really great.  It was not crowded at all and had an impressive amount of animals. But what I really loved was how much interaction there was with the animals.

 This is as close as Hallie was willing to stand to the gorilla statue.

We had our least appetizing meal of the trip for lunch... the scaly chips were a bonus we didn't order.

Hallie didn't mind the food.

 Enoch is getting better at chopsticks.

Kaitlyn was incredibly brave and tried the scaly chip stuff.  Apparently it was as bad as it looked.

 On the bright side, we had panda-view seating.

I'm really not a clown lover... stick a clown on stilts in front of me and I just might run away screaming.  

The Safari Park has triplet pandas who recently had a birthday.

2 of the 3 triplets, playing together.

 

I don't love the humidity of GZ, but I love how green and lush it makes everything.

I loved this koala that was sleeping with his leg crossed.

Yeah, these people were holding their kid to go to the bathroom over a recycle can.  If I were a hash-tagger, I'd do this: #onlyinchina

This is Hallie feeding the giraffe.  I was super surprised she let me her get this close because of her fear of furry things (ie: Ryan's beard and stuffed animals)

"Mr. sleeve-fish"

My favorite moment of the day... Hallie and Coco, the Chimp, played chase for a good 5 minutes.

She was quite taken with Coco.

Hallie was NOT a fan of the animatronic Jurassic animals.

The crowd of people fascinated by Kaitlyn's bravery.

The tiger diving show was crazy amazing.

They dangled hunks of meat in front of the tigers to get them to jump on a pedestal, then leap up for the meat and splash down into the water.  It was pretty crazy.

I swear this clown on stilts was out to get me... he's shaking Kaitlyn's hand, but staring directly into the camera.  Eek!!

Hallie feeding the monkeys.

Good thing we're going home soon... we're wearing this kids out!