Day Fourteen...HOME!

It's been a busy and exhausting, but beautiful last few days.

It started early Sunday morning in Beijing. We started off all in good moods, but the hour long ride to the Great Wall proved to be fatal to our good moods. haha. The boys did great actually up until the last 15-20 minutes or so. Silas got very restless and just plum tired of being in the car. I had given him and Stephen both Dramamine, so that helped a lot. But I didn't give Sean any because he had never had a problem. Well, Stephen had let him play on his iPad because he was getting bored and about 5 minutes before we got out of the car, Sean started throwing up all over the car. The poor buddy didn't even complain, so we had no idea he wasn't feeling well until it was too late. So we had to clean him up and change his clothes. I felt so bad for our driver. He was amazing. We had used him before and loved him and he was even better this time. He told us not to worry about the van, even though it smelled AWFUL at this point. He told us to go on ahead and he would clean it up. So we went to the bathroom and washed Sean's clothes in the sink and went on our way.

Even though we were in a bad mood from the travel, it didn't take very long for us all to cheer up. The boys all had so much fun on the wall. We were wondering if it was a good idea to come all that way for such little boys, but they had a blast and it ended up totally being worth it.

Riding the ski lift up to the wall.

Poor Stephen got his head cut off. :( 

You start out by going down...that's the easy part!

Sean decided that he wanted to do it himself. 

Thinking, what did I get myself into??

We finally caught up with everyone else and Silas decided he didn't want his little brother to out-do him. So they hit the stairs together. 

 It quickly turned into a little competition. Of course. 

We made it!!! Yay!!

Our boys were so strong and brave! But this guy right here....he steals my heart when he carries both of these boys. Especially on the Great Wall of China!!

Even though moments after this picture, we had a moment when Silas did not want Daddy to carry both of them and we had to make the decision to turn back and go home.

Another attempt at a family picture that actually included Stephen's whole face!

Trying to get two tired boys to smile.

Time to go down! So excited to ride the toboggan down the mountain. 

Silas watching a man carve his name. We got each of our boys a "chop" with their Chinese names on them.
He thought it was the coolest thing.

 They all worked so hard and we had a nice peaceful ride to the airport. Poor Sean fell asleep while he was eating his lunch. 

We made it to the airport and it turned out to be quite the ordeal. The problem wasn't with our checked baggage at all, which is what we were worried about, but it was with our carry on. We have never had anybody check our carry on but because we had it all piled onto one cart...carry on for 5 people, it freaked them out and they started to tell us that we couldn't take that much luggage as carry ons, even though by policy we were allowed to have that much. So after arguing with them....Ok, I'll just be real, I threw a toddler sized tantrum and I'm not proud of it, but we finally got a manager to come over and she offered to check two of our carry ons for no additional charge. So it actually all ended up working out for us in the end, but it was very frustrating and took up way too much time. We ended up having to rush to make our flight. We finally got to the plane and the boys settled in immediately with their own personal TVs. We had a great flight. The boys all did wonderfully, once we got past the initial period of "stop pushing all of the buttons!" They fell asleep about half way through and slept up until we arrived in Dallas!

Relaxing

Silas checking into America as a US citizen!!!! Yay!

Discovering the Land of Plenty!!!

Our first meal in America. Twisted Root Burger Co at the Dallas airport.

It was delicious! 

After the craziness that was Dallas Immigration and Customs (legit insanity),

I was immediately so impressed at the kindness of the workers there at the airport. From the girl at the restaurant that took our order, to the cashier at 7-11 where we bought our drinks, I was moved to tears at the hospitality. They asked how I was doing when they greeted me and they told me to have a blessed day as I left. Don't ever take for granted the kindness of a stranger!

Ok, so I stole this picture from the internet because I couldn't use my phone to get a picture. This view though makes my heart skip a beat every time I see it. There is nothing like Nashville. Maybe it's more about there is nothing like home. But either way, I was completely overcome with gratitude as we flew into Nashville. The boys were all sound asleep, the plane was dark and I sat there looking at the soft twinkling lights of my home. Not the huge skyscrapers as far as the eyes could see of cities in Asia that never ever sleep. It was the feeling of quiet, peaceful, sleepy small town Tennessee.

Finally, after being in hotels for 24 days and hopping planes for a total of 36 hours , it's so good to be home.

The boys trying out car seats for the first time EVER! Praising God we first of all have a van. Praising God we have a DVD player in the van, because it saved us from a full on tantrum at midnight.

Driving to our home for the next 3 months! God is so good!! 

 

We got home around 1:00 am and unloaded our luggage. Thank you to everyone who came to the airport to welcome us home and help us load our luggage! We are so so so grateful for such a warm welcome!! The kids were so excited to explore the house and sleep was a distant dream for these tired parents. So we made the best of it and had some very long awaited chats over some Mountain Dew with these peeps. 

Cousin love

 I'll be back later this weekend to fill you in on our first week back in America. It's been a great week!