On The Move

As many of you probably already know, we have arrived in the states for a long overdue trip. It has been 2 1/2 years since we've seen our family and friends in the states but wanted to combine it with our adoption trip at the same time. Since we had to take Elizabeth onto US soil, we delayed our trip until now.

This is a picture of Elizabeth waiting in the airport to board our first flight.



Shawna, Elise, and Elizabeth on the plane settling in for the looooong flight to the states. Though we sat on the runway in Beijing for 2 hours before leaving, then had to circle for an hour before landing in the states, we managed to get to our destination on time. The 5 hour layover in Chicago helped :) Though I must say, we originally thought 5 hours would be plenty of time to get us through customs and her through the Immigration process--turns out we were wrong :( After losing 3 hours and the long lines through customs, we made it but wouldn't have if they hadn't bumped us up in the Immigration line. We were ohh soooo grateful as that allowed us to make our last flight. It's not that we asked, the lady just did that saying since all the rest of us were US citizens and Elizabeth was the only one immigrating, she didn't want to make us wait through the long line of entire families immigrating. If she only knew! We thought we were going to miss our flight until she did that. SOMEONE was surely looking out for us! Yes, just like He's done soooo many times through this whole adoption process!!

Elizabeth is now a US citizen!! Once we passed through Immgration in Chicago, it became automatic. Now all we have to do is wait on the official paperwork, which can take up to 45 days. In the meantime, we've been working on other paperwork in order to allow us to return her to China.