Our time in the US, welcome home!

We made the trip and survived with two kids under 3!  We planned to stay with both sets of grandparents while on the vacation so it would be much easier with the kids to have a house and extra help, plus extra time with grandma and grandpa!  We spent most of our time seeing family and friends, we had our schedule booked before we even left China!  We are very fortunate to have such wonderful family and friends, many of which have made extra efforts to keeps in touch through text messages, phone calls, video chats and mailing items, we appreciate you all!!!

It was great to see everyone, and to let Blake experience some of the fun things we know are out there to do at home, but not the same in China!  We went with some friends to the Phoenix Zoo, the Children's Museum, we found ourselves riding about 4 different trains on our visit, luckily the weather was good and there were parks with trains!  Blake is very much into trains and saying choo choo!  When we return next time we are taking him on the BIG TRAIN to the Grand Canyon, when I was booking it online and showing him photos he just continued to say BIG Choo Choo!   lol  While in Phoenix we of course ate at many of our favorite restaurants, got in our fair share of Mexican food and enjoyed the convenience of everything being in English and having western restrooms everywhere we went!

I found myself at the zoo just pulling out the changing mat and changing the kids diapers, while my friend took her kids to the bathroom to do it because they actually have diaper changers in the bathrooms in the US!  The things you forget!  We were able to do some shopping while we were home too, mostly clothes to bring back for the kids in their next sizes, some new shoes for Blake (his feet just keep growing), kids medicine and a few things for Brian and I. Ultimately we had 2 huge duffle bags filled with things to bring back, again mostly clothes!

Part of the trip we drove to Vegas to see my parents, and my brother.  Jayme was turning 30 this year so I was able to talk him into meeting us in Vegas so we could celebrate!  Brian and I took him out for a nice streak dinner, grandma and grandpa watch the kids and sent us to a show!  It was a really nice night out!  The next night we were able to get out to a movie too, oh what a treat that was!!!  During the day we played at grandma and grandpa's house, we found a museum with moving Dinosaurs that Blake thought was very cool, and we also went to the big park near their house with Dinosaur bones!  It was quite the adventure in Vegas....and we even had some Mexican food too!  Then time to drive back to Phoenix to round out our trip and head back to China.  I told Brian, "I wasn't home sick until we came home." It is amazing what we forgot while be gone as far as conveniences and the freedom we have driving ourselves, we knew that we missed the people but we also missed the place and things!

 I was lucky enough to celebrate my birthday while we were home, and Brian bought me a new Coach purse and wallet!  We went to my traditional Don & Charlie's restaurant for dinner and enjoyed some great company as well.  Thank you all for the wishes I received from so many of you on phone calls and texts!

Here are some of the photos we have with friends and family from our trip!

                                                                           

                                                                                   

While it was exhausting to be home for such a short time, we got dr. appointments completed, spent time outside in the sunshine.  Having the kids off on their schedules and time zones was tiring for us too, we ran around everyday to do something or see someone and still missed some people.  The good news is that we will be moving back to Phoenix and will resume our lives seeing all our friends and family again.

After 16 days in the States we were on our way back to China, we had a few tearful goodbyes, packed up our 5 bags, golf clubs, pack 'n play and stroller and headed to the airport.  We checked all the bags, and boarded our first plane to LAX, the flight was short and uneventful, the kids were tired since we woke them at 4:30am, but when traveling for so long and across time zones there is no good time to leave.  In LAX we had a few hours to get some breakfast and let Blake stretch his legs!  Once we boarded the plane to Shanghai we were on our way!  Blake was in his over sized seat happily playing with his iPad games and toy dinosaurs, he took a naps after about an hour of traveling and was out!  Grace was pretty tired as well and she was easy on the plane, i would say she did better on the flight back to China than to the States.

At LAX before out flight!

On the airplane to China!

Once we arrived in China it was the next day and it was also 6pm, our flight was about one hour late arriving.  When we got off the plane we headed down to baggage claim, 4 bags, golf clubs, pack 'n play showed up (we had the stroller from gate check)....so there was one bag missing!  We waiting about 40 minutes before realizing there were only 3 other people looking for bags and we should probably go over to the help counter.  While discussing this we looked down at Blake, who had just vomited all over the iPad and himself in the stroller.  Oh joy!  We got Blake cleaned up, it seemed that maybe the milk they gave him on the plane had been sitting out too long and was curdled....ewww.

Brian filed a report with the baggage claim which was not American Airlines but the Shanghai airport personnel and we left....without the kids luggage.  We have still not received our luggage, we were told it was in PHX and they would forward it on toi LAX then PVG, it never made it to LAX apparently.  This was the bag with Brian's nice Canon camera, my Medela breast pump, all the kids clothes we had taken in their current sizes, Blake's new shoes, three pairs of my shoes, some of Brian and my new clothes, toys and books, etc.  This was not the bag to lose.....did I mention my new Coach purse was in there too?  Yea, not the bag to lose.  We have to wait 30 days before we can file a full report, really.....how realistic is it that you will find my bag in 30 days if you couldn't find it in 5 days, where the hell could it be people?

So now we are back, in our apartment in China.  Blake is back at school and in his routine, Brian is back to work, and I am home with Grace.  Trying to get her back on a regular sleep and nap schedule.  We enjoyed our time at home, have many good memories, and we did load the photos to the computer before we left Phoenix so we have the memories captured as well.

I will try to continue my posts of our adventures in China!  Next is a count down to my family coming for a visit in the end of April!