Thursday, May 19, 2011

After three years, mountains of paperwork, lots of money, 7 flights, 2 countries, 3 cities, 3 hotels, climbing the Great Wall, traveling in crazy traffic, brushing teeth with bottled water for 2 weeks, and trying to understand a 2 year old who speaks Chinese..............................we have finally made it to the last part of our journey! Boy, has it been a memorable one!!!! We really have SO enjoyed our time here in China, but it is time to return home to our family there and begin this new life of 6 that God has set before us! God has been so good and so faithful to us throughout this journey. The road hasn't been easy, and admittedly it has been scary at times, but God has always reassured us that adopting Emma Claire was part of HIS plan for our lives. It is amazing how God can open your heart and allow you to love someone so much! We thank God for the gift of Emma Claire. We count it a privilege to raise her for HIS glory alone! He has carried us through and will carry us through to the end!

Today was another beautiful day! We slept in until 8:00, which is a little scary, because that means our bodies have adjusted to China time!!! Just in time for us to make the change!!! We had a nice breakfast, and then headed to our favorite store....Jenny's Store to buy a few more little souveniers and say our goodbyes. After doing some packing and organizing we headed to the pool for some fun with our friends. All 4 families who are still here made it down to the pool. We had fun laughing together and watching our girls play in the water. We will miss all these families, as we really have grown to love them and their sweet children. We will stay in touch through e-mails and Facebook. I'm so grateful for the computer for that reason.

After swimming we got cleaned up and all of us headed to Lucy's for one last meal together. Jason got his favorite sweet and sour pork and I got my favorite satay. It was delicious! We let the kids play on the playground for a bit and then it was time to head in for the night, but not before a final frappuccino from our favorite Starbucks here on the island!!! Emma loves to slurp up the end of the drink where the whip cream is! Emma had a bath and a bottle and was asleep right away tonight, which was nice for packing time!

We are busy packing as we have to get up EARLY in the am......4:30 to meet in the lobby at 5:45am!!! We will fly from Guangzhou to Shanghai and then we have a 6 hour layover in Shanghai. We fly out of Shanghai at 3:55 pm for our 12 1/2 hour flight to Chicago. In Chicago we have to go through customs with Emma and her citizenship paperwork and we don't have much time to make it to our final flight to Grand Rapids. PLEASE pray that all will go well and we will be able to make our final flight out of Chicago to GR. Our traveling will be exhausting and I am actually dreading all of it! We will be traveling for a total of 26 hours and with a 2 year old who still doesn't understand all that we say..............this should be interesting! I am still sick and dealing with some dizziness.....PLEASE pray that the flights will go smoothly and Emma Claire will be cooperative and easily entertained!!! We do feel blessed to be traveling with our friends from Maryland tomorrow. They will travel with us all the way to Chicago, so that will make the trip go faster!

We have so enjoyed sharing our experiences with you and hope you've been blessed by what you've read. I do feel badly that by the end of the day I'm so exhausted that I'm not even sure what I'm saying is coherent!!! There is so much more to say, but we MUST finish packing and try to get some sleep!

Love to you all! Thanks again for all your comments, you really have no idea what they've meant to us! We will do an update when we get home, but not right away! We have to get our bearings about us first and get settled! Our No. 1 priority is our family and adjusting to life as the Kaiser 6!!!!!!

Avarie, Evan and Ella................only 1 more sleep and we will be HOME!!!!!!!!!!! WE CAN'T WAIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WE LOVE YOU SOOOOO MUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!