Finally, the trip

This will be a very long post, and it's more for my records. I have to write this post for my daughter and before I forget what really happened.

We left for the airport on Thursday September 17th. I kept it together while we said goodbye to Avery, but as soon as the car pulled away the tears fell. It was hard to leave my girl for 2 weeks but I knew it was the correct decision (and in hindsight it would have been a disaster if Avery was in China with us).

The flight was long, but we managed to get a few zzzzs (I did anyway, not sure about Blair). We arrived in Beijing on Friday afternoon and managed to stay awake until 8:00ish. Good old jet-lag quickly set in and we were awake around 3:00.

We set off for the silk market Saturday afternoon and did a little shopping (okay, a lot of shopping). The excitement was building, we were leaving for Xi'an on Sunday morning.

We met the Touchings/McGrath family that evening. They were meeting their son on Monday morning in Hunan, so each family was going their separate ways at the airport the next morning.

I think I slept from 9:00 until 1:00 and was up for the rest of the day. Jet-lag does not agree with me. I also kept Blair up from 3:00am, no sense in wallowing all alone, heh heh.

Once we were on that plane to Xi'an the excitement and nervousness hit again. I was going to be a mother again to a 2 year old little girl. I could not wait to see my daughter after this long wait.

We arrived in Xi'an on Sunday September 20th. This is when things started to go a little crazy. We arrived at the Gloria hotel at 1:30, and our guide (who is a tourist guide, never had an adoptive family before) tells us to hurry and get ready. We are going to meet our girl ASAP. Oh, and you have to change your money over NOW. We were told by our travel agent (agency rep.) that we did not need to change our money to RMB (I double checked with her 3 times about this). I knew that she was incorrect but she said that the orphanage told her they wanted American money for the donation. Anyway, after running around like crazy for 2 hours, we were taken to the civil affairs office in Xi'an. We had our guide and another guide who would take care of the adoption paperwork part.

There were 3 families meeting their children and each of us had our own guide plus the paperwork guide. I found this to be very strange, but I digress.

To be continued.