Little Sister Cora : Home Sweet Home!

I can say with certainty, we all were never so happy to get home the other night! We arrived back to the house at about midnight on Thursday night. A big thank you to Teri for picking us up, waiting with a big teddy bear for Cora (which she loved) and hugs for us all. And another shout out to M&M for having groceries for us when we got home, and a welcome home sign. And lastly, to Michael and Barb for helping out with the house and Sheeta. Everything looked great when we walked in! Oh, and before I forget, James and I just finally got back on Facebook and read all the notes. I wish I could have read those while in China - I forgot to tell y'all that we coudn't access FB or the blog from China, so the only way to get msgs to us would have been via Gmail. Your words of support and encouragement are so sweet. We definitely need them, maybe even more so now that we are home! We were happy to be able to talk to our family and some friends via skype while were in China a few time, so at least we had that connection.

But back to the trip home....

I think we figured it was a 26 hr travel day. Left the hotel at 9am for the airport on Thursday. The flight to Seoul was fine, 3.5 hrs. I kept thinking, MAN, I have not had to deal with a busy 5 yr old for a LONG time! I was laughing about the fact that Cora is not obsessed with screens like Sophie, so it makes plane rides so much more difficult. She has an attn span of about 10 minutes, and then wants to move on to the "next thing". Well, I only have about 5 "next things" for her, and then I was like Uh Oh! But that part was fine, I think I got her to watch some Ponyo (really the only movie or tv we have that she is interested in). I don't think any of us fell asleep on that leg, well I am sure James did some, but we all know that is just a given.

We got to Seoul, and had a very short layover, until our 10 hr flight to Seattle. A nice Korean Air attendant grabbed us, and a few other families, and rushed us through customs and security so that we could make the flight. Kind of stressful, but we were happy NOT to have a long layover, so I guess it was good. Except the lady was going so fast, and I was carrying Cora, and I was like, "wait up!!". She did not care that i was carrying a pretty heavy, small chinese person.

Next leg was pretty terrible, but we made it through. Sophie sat on the aisle, I was across the isle, and then Cora next to me, and a koren guy on the other side of her. James was 4 rows back, unfortunately. Sophie was an angel, except I felt bad because she really wanted to snuggle with someone and fall asleep, and she was all on her own. So instead of sleeping a wink, she just "tableted" and "ds-ed" the WHOLE 10 hours. Cora slept about 5 hrs, I think, but woke up quite often kind of crying and writhing around. The korean guy seemed kind of pissed off, but whatever. I was just trying so hard to keep her comfortable, that I maybe slept an hour or so myself. So yes, the 10 hrs felt more like 15.

But Cora was SUPER happy for most of the journey. Smiling and laughing, and literally pulling me onto the planes and around the airports. And she started talking in Chinese! Like she decided we were okay, and she could could open up more. So that was super cute, and we just love hearing her talk.

One funny thing once we got to Seattle. Sophie was exhausted, almost falling asleep standing up. We unfortunately had a 6 hr layover, so we decided to set her up with a bed on the floor. When Cora saw that - Sophie with blankets and pillows, she just kind of lost it. All we could think of was that maybe she thought this was our "home", and she did not think it was cool? So the poor thing was pretty upset. I found a chines family, that I heard speaking what I thought was mandarin. I asked the younger boy if he would translate for me. He was really sweet, and explained to Cora that is was not our home. That was have ONE more plane ride, and then we would be home. After that, she was good. She obviously was very tired too, so who knows what was going through her head. So again, dang it for us not speaking some mandarin!

The last 3 hr flight was a breeze - slept a little, watched more ponyo, and we were home. After Teri got us home, Cora just had fun checking everything out. She was very curious about Sheeta - I think that was kind of a lifesaver for us. And maybe after seeing a bunch of pics and videos of sheeta, it helped her put together that this is home? Who know, really, but she loved the going up and down the stairs, was excited about her new baby dolls and room, and generally pretty happy.

It took us till about 2:30am to get her to fall asleep, though. She was in the bed with me, and just wasn't having it. Combo of overtired, nervous, and just "screw you, I'm not done exploring and don't want to go to sleep" And then our STUPID alarm went off at 4:30am, and woke us all up. So yep, 2hrs was our big first night sleep. She just cried and cried after that, and then we just decided to throw in the towel, and get up.

Here are some pics from our first morning....we did a stroller walk at like 7am, and she was a super happy camper!

Laura and Lucy at the Chimealong Circus! Our friends from Atlanta that we palled around with. Made our trip SO much more enjoyable to hang with them!