We received information our last evening before the "big" flight home that hurricane Irene was on the way and that there was an even larger typhoon looming to threaten our trip home. We quickly learned that the typhoon would hit the day after our departure!!! Whew!!! I never really thought hurricane Irene would affect our coming home!!! When Mom lightly mentioned that they will come to detroit to pick us up, if needed, I was sure there would be no need!!! Besides a quick prayer, I immediately pushed the thought out of my mind as we had to finish preparing for the long journey home.
I find it VERY hard to believe a 15 hour flight can go quickly!!! I mean, think about it. Fifteen hours, on an airplane with 4 (FOUR) children. We each had our own monitor for choosing our own movies/music or watching the flight via an on flight moving map!!! How cool is that!!! Yes, I know I am a geek, but watching the flight and all we were passing by in the world was the most fun to me!!! I would often point out to the kids, "We are flying over Japan." I really thought I would get excited replies, "Oh wow, Mom, we learned where Japan was last year!!" I had visions of the kids asking, "Wow what else are we flying past?" I just couldn't get past the blank, monotone "Cool." replies. grrrr!!! Don't they KNOW they will probably NEVER fly past Japan, Russia or the Aluetian Islands......well at least for a LOOOOONG time!! I was wishing I could have called my sister, sister-in-law or one of my fellow homeschool Mom's (someone, ANYONE) just to hear them say, "Hey we learned about that!!!" "This is reinforcing the learning from last school year" or "They (my children) will forever have a map in their head of the geography they learned." sigh, shaking them and saying, "This is EXCITING!!!!" probably would have also not received anything but weird looks from both my kids and our fellow passengers!"
Anyway, back to the flight.........HOLY COW, it FLEW!!!! We didn't sleep much and at one point I prayed to God to help us sleep at least a little. He again answered, (I think I wasn't specific enough). Julia slept about 2 hours, Joshua and Jacquelyn 4, Jianna, off and on for about 4, David 2 and me, uh hem, about 10 minutes, total. I dozed three times to be woken by questions from my little ones having trouble with their electronic devices. There is a blessing in that though! I did not get a huge headache as I usually do when I can't sleep AND I have NEVER before gone for more than 24 hours (I actually cannot remember how many hours we ended up traveling.....it was something like 36 hours, if I remember, my brain will not function that deeply right now to add it up either, I will tell you in another post). Anyway, I have never gone without sleep for so long and felt sooooooo good!!
Hurrican Irene, I have little so say except that it never occurred to me to have all of you pray for clear weather to return home!!! Isn't that kind of prayer usually reserved for winter around here?!?!? LOL!! There is another huge blessing in having our flight from Detroit cancelled, no it wasn't that we received a better flight, no it wasn't that we ended up flying into Harrisburg instead of Newark NJ, it was Mom and Dad coming to the rescue!!!! Ahhhhhhhhhh!!! (that is one huge sigh of relief). When I told Dad we'd have to stay in Detroit until Monday, I barely got the sentence out of my mouth and he said, "No, we're leaving now and we'll figure out the details on the way." Our heroes came in their shining armor-like vehicle equipped to hold 8 people AND all our luggage!!!!! If it weren't for them driving out to pick us up, we'd still be in Detroit waiting at yet another hotel to come home. The earliest flights are scheduled to go out Monday afternoon and we likely would have been able to fly home Tuesday!!!! Instead, we got some MUCH needed rest today!! Mom's response to our thanking them, "That's what parents do, besides, I have never seen that part of the country."
Well, I am off to bed. Our little cherubs are sleeping soundly. It feels so good to be home!! Before I go, some pictures......
Jianna LOVES the swimming pool!! She's the cutest girl with a mohawk, I've ever seen. lol!
We took a tour of the Beijing Hutongs!!! That was a lot of fun! It was really neat to see how many Chinese people still live and have lived for hundreds of years!
In the months leading up to our China trip, Joshua only wanted to see one thing.....PANDAS. We saw them at the Beijing Zoo and the Guangzhou zoo!!
I haven't forgotten, I am still working on posting a video. Thanks again for praying for our family! By the way, I have now enabled the comments section....I think. LOL! I tried before but wasn't sucessful but I think I fixed it now.
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