WE ARE HOME

Finally, after the longest flight of our lives (trumping the flight over there), Emma Lee is home and enjoying her new surroundings. Our biggest challenge is making her understand that this is it - this is finally her new home, and not the latest hotel we've checked into it. I think she gets it.
She was officially sworn in as a U.S. citizen at the American consulate office in Guangzhou on Tuesday. We had to raise our right hands and swear a bunch of stuff, mainly that we don't tell lies. We were then given a sealed brown package full of papers that we had to present to the immigration officials at the airport when we arrived in Chicago on Thursday.
We flew to Hong Kong on Wednesday night and left China for Chicago on Thursday afternoon. We left Hong Kong at 12:45 p.m. on Thursday and landed in Chicago at 2:15 p.m. on Thursday. But, no, it wasn't a two-hour flight. We lost a day in the process.
As you can imagine, the flight back wasn't nearly as pleasant as the flight over there. Emma Lee was a wild woman for the first eight hours. She just couldn't sit still, jumping and rolling and flipping all over the plane. She just wouldn't go to sleep. We had to keep getting up and walking around the plane. Finally, after eight long hours, she finally fell asleep and slept the final six hours. She then slept two more hours from Chicago to Charlotte.
We had a big welcoming group in Charlotte, and we weren't sure how Emma Lee would react to all that. She was a little shy and in awe at first, but it didn't take her long to warm up to everybody.
By the time we got home, she was going from person to person and playing with them and sitting in their laps. It's strange; for two weeks, she would have absolutely nothing to do with anyone else, particularly Chinese people, who, I guess, she thought were going to give her away again. But she has taken to her new family very easily. She played with Sam and Jackson and Grandma and Pap last night and is sitting in Grandmama Pat's lap playing this morning. It's like she's known them forever. She's running around the house, yelling and screaming and playing, talking Chinese and about to tear the place apart, just like she's supposed to do. (Though we're going to have to do something about all the musical toys she's gotten as gifts. That's just not funny!)
She even slept in her new bed last night, with Sam sleeping on the floor beside her. I went to check on her this morning, and she wasn't in her bed. She had fallen off the bed, between the wall and the bed and was just sitting there looking around. She didn't care; she seemed as content as she could be.
One neat thing happened this morning. We have been putting our hands together and saying the blessing with her before every meal. For two weeks, she has kept her eyes opened and looked around like we were crazy. Not this morning. Prior to her first meal in her new home, she put her hands together, closed her eyes and bowed her head. God is good!
It's been an amazing journey, but we are glad to be home and glad to be beginning the new phase of our lives.
Now, I'm going to kill Jackson for posting those photos of me without my shirt on.