Welcome Home Alicia and Olivia!

Well, here we are again... We have been in China for over 2 weeks; experienced a new country, met new people and made new friends, learned some new words in another language, shopped till we dropped, ate till our bellies ruptured, laughed a little, cried a little and most importantly received the wonderful gift of two little daughers! (the crying was from toxic diaper fumes blinding me!) I have learned to change diapers and its not that bad... Not that good either but I'll roll with the punches that life hands me (that or my wife will) What an experience but I am happy to be home with my new "instant family - just add water". (babies have a lot of water!) OK, well not so instant since it did take over a year from deciding to do this till now!

I just want to thank Grace's mom for all the care, work, and wisdom that she has taught us (at least me) from this whole adoption experience. Grandma your work isn't done yet!

I want to thank my dad for making us eat till we dropped. It is in our experience that when whenever we eat out my father over-orders the number of plates for dinner. I am glad to say that he has not changed a bit! For an old guy he sure likes to eat alot! Thanks for taking care of the babies when we needed a break.

THURSDAY - We left our hotel at 12:30pm and headed for the airport. We were the last two families left from the adoption group to leave. The others left the day before and the Nova Scotia group left at 8:00am in the morning. When we got to the airport we found the 10+ families from the Nova Scotia group still at the gate waiting! Their flight was delayed till about 7pm! They will have been at the airport and on the plane for 24 hours before arriving in Toronto to catch a connector to Nova Scotia! Poor babies - poor parents! We were on our plane at 4:00pm but was stuck on the tarmac for an hour because the airport was really busy! For every takeoff there would be an airplane landing and we were the 20th plane in line for takeoff!

Olivia slept on the floor and Alicia slept on the chair between Grace and myself. My Jim and Betty were next to us across the isle. Olivia sleeped pretty good for 6 hours and Alicia only about 4 hours. She constantly kicks while she sleeps (good thing I have a soft belly)

When we arrived at YVR it we had to take the girls to immigration to start their citizenship process - they fast tracked the babies! Their were at least a hundred immigrant hopefuls in the immigration office and I'm sure glad we didn't have to wait! At the terminal we had some people waiting for us! Grace's dad, Bert and her sister Ann (with video cam in hand), our friend Juliana and her kids Liam and baby Schuyler! Thanks for the stuffed animals Juli, the babies love them!
At home we were happily welcomed back by family.
This is Angela meeting with Alicia for the first time! Cindy baked a tasty "Welcome Home" cake and decorated the front of the house with balloons and a "Welcome Home" sign - too cool and thanks Cindy. It was great to see everyone and nice to be home again. But nicer still was to be home with my "own family".

Hey! The blog doesn't stop here. Stay tuned for more...

UP NEXT... Home on the Range!