August 29--Return Home!!!

I can't believe we are finally coming home after 2 weeks in China. The oath-taking ceremony was quick and a huge relief as we also received Sophia's visa to travel to the U.S. When we go through immigration in Detroit she will officially be a U.S. citizen. We went back to the Italian restaurant to celebrate our last dinner in China and tried to get to sleep early as we knew it would be a long day the next day. We had our bags out of the room at 5 a.m. and woke Sophie just before we went downstairs to meet the bus at 5:50. We made it to the airport and made one last-ditch effort to upgrade to business class but it didn't happen. C'est la vie. Fortunately, Sophia picked this day to be a real trouper in the travel department. She managed to sleep a little on each flight (including 6 hours on the flight to Detroit!) and was generally pretty happy sitting in her own seat on the plane. Our first flight (to Tokyo) departed about 8:30 and we arrived about 5 hours later after a brief delay. This meant that we had about 45 minutes to clear immigration and security in Japan and traverse the airport to our next gate. Fortunately, the Detroit flight was waiting for us and had strategically placed Northwest reps at several points along the way to keep us on the right path. Then it was on to Detroit--11 1 /2 hours of sheer torture, mainly due to the fact that it was a packed flight and there was absolutely nowhere to stretch your legs and both Michael and I found it impossible to sleep. By the time we made it to Detroit we were running on fumes and once again had a very short layover to clear customs/immigration, recheck our bags and dash to the commuter terminal for the last leg to Knoxville. Fortunately, we made all our connections and arrived back in Knoxville on schedule about 5 p.m. (5 a.m. China time--yes, we've been awake and traveling for 24 hours). All of our parents and Nicholas were there to greet us, and I've never been so happy to see anyone in my life. Sophia was not excited about the ride home in the car, and she crashed hard once we arrived--no worries about not liking the crib! :-) Michael's parents are staying until Sunday and my Mom and Dad will come back mid-week to help get us over the hump of jet lag. We are so grateful to be home!!!