Our Trip Home

We arrived home safely last night after 28 hours of travel door-to-door. We made it through Chinese immigration without incident. An interesting thing that happened is that Peter showed me (Allie) that he definitely knows I'm his, he's mine, and he doesn't want that to change -- I carried him through security, but when it was time for me to be screened with the wand, the security guard had to briefly lift Peter from my arms. He was never more than a few inches away from me or out of my sight, but he cried about not being in my arms, locked eyes with me, and had his arms and legs outstretched toward me the entire time, which did not last more than a few seconds, but clearly upset him and shows that he is clearly attaching to me.

Our first flight was from Guangzhou to Tokyo. Peter was cranky during this leg of the trip, but that was not at all indicative of the rest of our travels. He was an absolute champ the rest of the journey. Here is a picture of him "ready for take-off." 

As the photos progress, you'll notice that Peter did not end the trip in the same clothing that he began it. There were highs and lows in the Tokyo airport. We started out with the low, which is Peter's very messy and stinky reason that those clothes got tossed into the bathroom garbage bin. We promptly followed with the high, which was the best, freshest sushi I've ever had and Matt's meal called tan tan men, which is a ramen dish Matt loved to eat when he lived in Japan, but had not had in 11 years since he moved from there in 2004. The sushi restaurant had a sign that read, "This is your last chance to eat good sushi before you go." The sushi did not disappoint!

Next was our 11 hour flight from Tokyo to Chicago. Peter slept for more than half of it and happily played by ripping up paper for the remainder. While it was a very long flight for Matt and I because we were not able to fall asleep on this leg, it felt downright short compared to the 15 hours we spent on the plane during one of our legs going to China. In Chicago, we processed Peter's paperwork at immigration and Peter became an American citizen!

Our next flight brought us home to Charlotte where some dear friends and family met us at the airport. What a blessing to see them all welcoming Peter home!

Noah spent one last night at Camp Honey & Ozzie last night to give us a chance to sleep and settle in with Peter.  We're excited to get him from school today and unite our family.

We will continue to blog our journey now that we are home, albeit with less frequency. Thank you to everyone who followed our trip with such amazing interest, prayers and support!