We're home!

Just a quick post to let everyone know we're home.  It was a very trying journey but MeiLin did a great job on the plane.  She didn't sleep much over the last twenty-seven hours so I'm hopeful she sleep tonight.  I plan to post more pictures tomorrow. 

I have to say -- we are absolutely the most secure family in the world.  We had to go through two security checkpoints in Ghangzhou.  We landed in Tokyo, took a bus from the plane to the terminal and went through another checkpoint (they took my water that I had purchased in China -- I was not happy because MeiLin needed a bottle).  Therefore, I had to purchase water in Tokyo -- I had no yen and didn't know where to exchange money so I ended up using the dreaded credit card.  I can tell you that I do not recommend buying McDonald's in Tokyo -- while the water was only $1.40 in USD, a Big and Tasty combo meal and child's chicken nugget meal cost $16.00 USD.  However, the food tasted out of this world (I'm just not sure it was worth $16.00). 

We finally landed in Chicago after riding the airplane for 11 hours.  My ankles are as large as grapefruits from sitting so long -- I even got up and walked a few times.  We went through the immigrants/visitors line where an immigration officer quickly glanced through our paperwork and then directed us to a line.  That immigration officer looked through our passports, scanned them into the computer and then stamped them.  He then looked through MeiLin's paperwork, stapeled a few things to a pink folder, put a bunch of papers in the pink folder and directed us to the baggage claim for international.  We claimed our bags and then went to another immigration officer who looked through the pink folder and he directed us to another immigration officer sitting behind a desk.  He looked through all the paperwork, stamped a few things and returned only MeiLin's passport.  We took our bags through customs and then to the connecting flights desk.  A very kind United agent asked where we were going and took our bags for us.  We then were directed to the domestic flights part of the airport and went through security again.  While I'm glad that airlines and governments are taking precautions, it quickly moved from the ridiculous to the sublime today especially after traveling for twenty-five hours by the time we debarked from the last plane!

Hope everyone gets a good night's sleep tonight.  I know I'm looking forward to it!