At least it was a smooth landing...

After the trip I'd not like to repeat, full of the turbulence of emotions, sleep deprivation, and trying to reason with an unreasonable 3 year old Bruiser...our "Pilot" gave us a smooth landing at our home!  All the prayer, definitely was realized as we have now been home for 2.5 days and have no residue of jet lag!  We arrived the first night and hit the beds at 2 am...I awoke at 4 and started the day.  Amazingly, while I am a strong believer in the "kicking jet lag rule" of NO SLEEP UNTIL BEDTIME ON THE FIRST DAY...the boys made it!  Surely the excitement of being home helped, but I was astounded that it was not until 7 pm on that first day that they began to fall over while standing up.  We were attending a birthday for one of our new teammates and just after they ate...they began to drop.  We hurried home, got them (and me) into bed by 8 and we slept until 6:30 am the next morning! It is now the next morning and we repeated the same performance last night, in bed by 8 and up at 6:30!  We will survive!

The ride home from the airport was a chatty one with our Uncle from our local family.  I had the joy and privilege of sharing the whole glorious story of his son's amazing decision and transformation this summer that I was most blessed to witness!  He was so moved by the retelling of it...and it was another unspeakable joy to carry the details of such news to this place.

I was also encouraged that after some 12 weeks, my Chinese came back when I returned!   When I ordered food in Beijing for the boys I was delighted that I had no trouble understanding or being understood!  I am ever so hopeful that this year my functional language will really blossom further into some more expressive language.

For those of you who saw me personally and heard of some trouble we were experiencing...another great Answer has been received...the Official matter including our most important documents has been resolved!  The document was returned to Daddy just before he left to take Grandma D to Beijing (where he still is this am...yes, I have yet to see Daddy though at least we are now in the same country)!  There is one more administrative process that will be handled over the next two weeks that will change our documents officially over to the appropriate status of our positions.  We don't anticipate any hiccups with this now that the official matter has been closed, but, we would  still ask for you to lift this up until all matters are concluded.

I visited the school on our first day home and was absolutely thrilled to be welcomed by our students with hugs and smiling faces!  It was a wonderful, wonderful welcome and I was thankful for this place He's prepared for us to live.  We have become in these three + years, truly, a part of our community.

Today I will head out with the 7 young in a move forced by the unintended flushing of Brownie's red glasses down the toilet!  As she really cannot see well without them and as school is in session...we must rush out get a new exam and get some new glasses before Monday.  (Amazingly possible here that you can often get glasses made the same day!  Her last pair of glasses cost the equivalent of $20 USD!)

I need to rush off and keep organizing the unpacked items that threatened to overwhelm us just two days ago.  (Our house looked like an advertisement for that "Hoarding show" on in the US that I was horrified to see this summer!)   I know that all the items will disappear soon enough once our life resumes of weekly entertaining. I am determined to have the mega table cleared and covered with a table cloth before my beloved returns home tonight and we're reunited!  (Now hearing strains from that 70s tune..."Reunited and it feels so good...")

We hope to have some news to share on the adoption front not long after our National Holiday here (October 1-7)...and my, do we have a story to tell there...but you'll have to keep hanging on for more later.

For those of you wondering...the "leaking substance" in the suitcase was NOT strawberry freezer jam (thanks to H & B's excellent packing and safeguarding of that nectar)...but in fact was the ONLY item that I didn't double/triple bag...some of the Bruiser's medicine left over from his surgery in August that I had just thrown in. 

Must run, it is a day to celebrate!