Our adoption and life adventures!: We are Home!

What a long day of travel...whew! We had to be to the Bogota airport by 9:30pm on Monday night for a 1:10am flight. Seems like a long time, but we needed that much time to get through everything. I think we finally boarded the plane at 1:25 am. We kept busy with Kayella (yes, she decided not to go to sleep like we were hoping).

Can you tell how tired she was at his point?

Once ours bags were hand searched again before boarding we got pulled to the front of the line to board first. I guess in Colombia people with infants always go first. The lady that sat next to us looked at Kayella and rolled her eyes, I am guessing she was thinking, great a baby on an overnight flight. Kayella didn't take her bottle going up cause she was too interested in watching the take off then decided to take it once we were up in the air then fell asleep. Once we landed the lady next to us said, wow, she's a great baby. Come on, we already knew that!

Then we landed in Miami, Kayella still sleeping and went through the immigration process for us and then had to go through a separate process for Kayella. We were prepared to be sitting there for a long time. We got put in the little room and the officer said, give me 5 minutes. Oh, did I mention we were the ONLY ones going through at that time. He was a great person, he was explaining everything to us and what to do. We got to talking about the process and he said that we were lucky to be able to come into immigration this early cause if you are on the 10am landing flight, it takes forever. We ended up being done with her immigration and sent on our way. It felt good to get rid of that super secret envelope! We got to our gate, Kayella still sleeping, and then got a plastic bottle of pop, you know how good that felt after drinking glass bottles of pop. When we got through everything we had to go back through security since we went from International to domestic and of course, I with the baby get pulled aside to get a bomb residue testing done. Ted was so happy to have to handle 3 carry ons, 2 laptops, no belt on, 2 pair of shoes, all the change from his pockets and all the other little stuff. It took about 10 minutes and the officer said, you are good go ahead! DUH!!!

Next flight to Dallas! Another look from the person next to us and then I think he was pleasantly surprised that he could sleep on the plane cause guess what?! Kayella did also. Once we got to Dallas Ted had to get a Starbucks and I got a pretzel. American food, here we come. Then we found out that there was something in Minnesota with the weather, which no one can figure out yet and our airplane was put out of commission. An hour later they decided that we could fly and landed in Minnesota 1 hour late. I was not happy when I found out the flight wasn't moving. It was 2 1/2 hours to landing at home and I was ready. Poor Kayella just wanted out of the Ergo Baby and to roll around. We were lucky to be in the side that only had 2 seats so we enjoyed that with no rude looks. Many people on that flight were just flying into MSP to go shopping at the Mall of America. Wow! They do not know what they are in for, run away and run far!

Once we landed in Minneapolis Ted and I were all smiles and they announced the weather, 37 degrees F. We were so happy to hear that! It has been a month since we have been gone, when we left it was 60 degrees F. We rushed through to get our baggage and when we were coming down the escalator we saw Jan and she was so happy! We were so happy to, it was nice to have a familiar face greet us. We were waiting for our bags to drop into the carousel and Danielle came rushing in. She jumped on the light rail from school to make it to see us. What a cool experience to have. When we got done at the airport, we needed to pick up a few things so we ran to Target & Wal-Mart after we got home, my dad came and saw Kayella.

So now, we have been settling in nicely. We have had lots of visitors and the help has been amazing. It is weird not having to do everything right now, I can make her a bottle and give her to someone to feed. I still look for her when someone is holding her and she still likes to know that one of us is in her sight.

Last night, Wednesday we surprised Ruby with Kayella. Jan told Ruby that she needed to put the gift she bought her in her room and Ruby was excited to go in there cause she had not seen the dresser that Roxanne bought for her. We had the video camera set up so we will put that on later. Ruby walked in the room and went a few feet then turned and had the look like she saw a ghost. She said it took her a minute to realize that we were really there. She was so excited to see us and of course Kayella. She told us before we left that she didn't want to know when we were coming home, just wanted it to be a surprise.

Ruby was excited to feed her a bottle.

Kayella is a pretty dang well behaved baby. She barely makes a peep unless she is babbling, blowing raspberries, smacking her lips or laughing. She is definitely a keeper and we are so lucky to have been chosen for her! This weekend we are heading for a quick trip to Hutch to meet my family. Right now, Grandpa Todd is here to meet her and later we are going to Grandma Jan's work. We were supposed to go to my work today but there is a stomach flu outbreak going on and decided that next week would be better once stuff starts clearing. Tomorrow we are off to daddy's work. Half the state of Minnesota is waiting to meet her!