Look out Hong Kong-- We Have Arrived!

My entourage has arrived.

On 4:00 Thursday morning our luggage was packed and ready to go. And so were we.
We left the house in our van and my two boys followed behind in Ross' car. A quick pick up of my Mom, Carolyn, and we were on our way.

A picture of us right before we went through security. Our flight was at 6:00 and this picture was taken about 5:15. Emma's eyes are closed but she really was awake. If I look like I might be looking to my right its because there's a Starbucks about 50 feet way and I was running on 2 hours sleep. Although it was calling my name I abstained because I couldn't take it through security.

No worries though I found a Starbucks at the Dallas/Fort Worth airport. ;>)

Our first flight was a short 1 hour trip from Kansas City to Dallas. After an hour and a half layover we flew Dallas to Los Angeles. This photo was taken on our Dallas/LA flight. All 4 of us fell asleep on that flight. You might notice that my mother is not in this row. This was row 32 and mom was lucky enough to grab a seat in row 24. I told her to enjoy the alone time while she could!

(Yes,I know that Emma is chewing on the seat belt. GROSS!)

This photo was taken in the LA airport waiting to board our plane. Emma and Jenna had been playing on the floor. Emma would crawl away and then Jenna would get her attention and Emma would chase her. They entertained (and perhaps annoyed) several people sitting around. Eventually this little girl came and sat down by Jenna. Her sticker book was Wall-E which immediately caught Jenna's attention and bonded the girls.

I have no pictures about our 13 and a half hour endurance test. No, it really wasn't that bad, just incredibly LONG. Emma and I sat in a bulk head seat that had a bassinet for Emma but Mom and the other 2 girls had to sit 2 rows directly behind me. Time just seemed to go by so incredibly slow. Emma slept almost the entire last 8 hours of the flight, waking up every 3 hours or so for a bottle. Jenna slept about half the flight.

{This would explain why I am writing this post at 5:00 in the morning. The little girls, who slept in my room, woke up around 3:30. Mom and Julia are sleeping in the room next door.}

All the girls were incredibly good. Emma, since she slept so much, was also very good and caught the attention of an Asian grandmother sitting in our row. At the end of the trip the woman's daughter said her mother, who was Vietnamese, was fairly good at fortune telling and wanted to tell me what she saw for Emma. She said she was incredibly smart and would be very prosperous. She said she could tell this from her eyes, her fingers and her feet (she had helped me change Emma's clothes early in the flight). She told me that I was very lucky to have her. This was the part that really grabbed my attention.

A lot of people, when hearing that children are adopted internationally, will say how lucky the children are. This was the first time I had ever had anyone tell me how lucky I was. I told her I knew how lucky I was, how wonderful she was. She told me we were lucky to have each other.

Some people call it fate. Some people called it destiny. Some people in Asian adoptions call it The Red Thread that binds us. The magical force that unites a family on one side of the world with a child on the other side. I call it God's infinite plan.