Final Day...home sweet home...

We decided to go out on one last adventure before heading for the airport. Four of us walked from our hotel to Tiananmen Square, which took us about 20 minutes. It's fun to walk through the neighborhood areas and take in the culture, and we are entertaining to the locals as well. The Square was already busy for it being 8:30 am, but mostly with Chinese tourists. There is still lots of construction going on there, as it will be a busy place during the Olympics. Mostly what still needs to be finished is landscaping, which they do beautifully in China. They are placing large screens throughout the Squares so that the local people can watch the opening ceremonies. Security is really tight there too. They also have a big electronic sign with the countdown on: 25 days, 10 hours, 57 minutes and 50 seconds:) We walked around a bit, bought some souvenirs at the Olympic store, and headed back to the hotel.

Our flight home was uneventful, which is always good. The Beijing airport opened a beautiful new international terminal, which they have running smoothly. The only trouble we had was at the very end of our journey, entering the United States by car from Vancouver, Canada, where we flew into. Our car was randomnly selected by the computer to be thoroughly searched. We had to go inside the building and answer some questions while they searched the car inside and out. It's all a blur to me though.

It was great to be reunited with the kids. Kaia was crying when we got home and very clingy, but all is back to normal now. Last night was the best night's sleep we've got in quite some time, and Mike is napping on the couch right now. I am hoping to hear an update on the cribs soon, and will post here. We did get an update on the newborn that was at the Chaoyang orphanage. They wouldn't let us hold him until the last day we were there, and when we saw how bloated his tummy was and insisted he be seen. Fortunately they listened, and they sent him off to the hospital right away. Later we found out he got sent to the Shenyang hospital four hours away, where they performed a surgery on him at 11 that night. We are trying to get him and another heart baby hooked up with one of the foster homes we visited, as they both new more care and attention than they are getting in Chaoyang. Please keep that in your prayers.