The long journey home

Our flight home left bright and early on Friday, so we were up at 5 am to get ourselves, a sleepy kiddo and our many bags to the airport.
Our first leg was from Guangzhou to Beijing and it was a relatively quick flight at about 2 hours. While waiting for our flight at the Guangzhou airport, I came across one of the famous Chinese squatty potties. I had felt really lucky that I had avoided them up to that point and I'll just say it was an experience!
The first flight was really easy! It really gave us (false) hope for the rest of the trip. Milo and I slept for most of it, which was awesome! One weird thing about in country flights in China is that you don't board or disembark the plane on a jetway like we are used to in the US. You have to take a bus to and from the airport to the plane, which is really inconvenient with a toddler, 4 carry ons and the lack of personal space that was common in China.

Yay sleeping toddler!

We had a 4 hour layover at the Beijing airport. This turned out to be a good thing because (for some odd reason) we had to collect our checked bags and recheck them for the flight to Seattle. We actually ended up having to collect our checked bags at all of our stops along the way, which really got old!
We passed the time in Beijing by having lunch and playing at a little play area in the airport. Also Milo thought pushing the suitcase was a lot of fun, so that was a good way to burn off some energy! 

The flight from Beijing to Seattle was 10.5 hours. We were most worried about this flight as we had never had to entertain a toddler on a long flight before, much less one we had just met two weeks ago! We had decided to buy Milo his own seat for our trip and that turned out to be one of the best decisions we could have made. I can't imagine what we would have done if there had been a stranger sitting next to us through this flight!

Who doesn't love shrimp fried rice at 9:00am??

Milo really did amazing on this flight. He didn't have much of an attention span for the TV, so we did our best to entertain him with toys and walking up and down the aisles when we could. The only time he had a meltdown was in the last few hours of the trip when Brian and I were just done and couldn't think of any new ways to keep him busy. Unfortunately none of us slept very much on this flight, which lead to a not so pleasant layover in Seattle.
I really love Seattle, but the Seattle airport, especially customs, was a horrible experience for us. We only had a 2 hour layover, but we were assured multiple times that we would have plenty of time to go through customs and find our gate. Yeah that was a lie.
We were pointed to the immigration line vs. the US citizen line as Milo had to have his US citizenship paperwork (remember the super secret envelope?) processed. The immigration line was VERY long and slow and I have to say that we were less than impressed by how the folks trying to come into the US were being treated. For anyone who doesn't know (I'm looking at you customs officers), you can't get someone who only speaks Mandarin to understand you by increasing the volume that you are speaking English. Apparently this is not a universally known fact. We couldn't believe there weren't any translators to help these poor people.
We watched time tick by as we waited and waited. Milo was less than impressed by standing still in this line and I only kind of tried to quiet him as I hoped a crying baby would speed things up a little! (it didn't)
We were then put into a different line to finalize his citizenship. We kept telling people that we had a tight connection to catch and it really didn't phase anyone. My grandmother (yes you Granner!) could have processed paperwork faster than these people.
After 14 hours of travel and 2 more to go, this mama was ready to throw a major tantrum of her own if they made us miss our flight. They finally finished our paperwork and we RAN to get our bags, recheck them and find our gate. By some miracle, we made it to gate JUST as they were doing the last call for boarding.
Thankfully Milo slept for a good portion of this flight and the other portion played with the guy across the aisle from us. Thank you mister, whoever you are, for noticing that these 2 very tired new parents needed a breather!

Looking tired, but grateful to be on the last flight and for a sleeping toddler

After close to 10,000 miles flown, 16 hours in the air and 7 hours of layovers, we made it home. Due to our quick layover in Seattle, our bags didn't make it until the next day, but at that point we barely cared. 

It really sunk in as soon as we landed how loved we were and how anxious our family was to have us and our little Milo home. From Brian's parents graciously picking us up at the airport, to my parents hosting a party for our family to see us and then understanding when we only spent a few minutes there because we were bone tired (I still don't really remember much from that evening!) to getting home to a clean house stocked with groceries. 

The first week was really such a blur and I don't think we would have eaten at all had it not been for the family and friends insisting on bringing us food every day. 

We can't thank everyone enough for your kindness and grace during that time!