China: The Conclusion

It's 3:00 in the morning and I'm wide awake. Actually, I'm enjoying a bag of BBQ Bits and Bites Snack Mix and washing it down with some tasty Diet Pepsi ... hmmm, I wonder why I'm still awake. Stacey is fast asleep and Kaitlyn is still operating on China time so we've spent the last couple of hours playing and she is now napping in the chair next to me. I can't get enough of this little girl.

We have safely arrived back in Canada after a 10 hour flight from Beijing to Vancouver and a 4 hour flight from Vancouver to Toronto. We spent last night at the Carr's who live just outside of Toronto, and then Stacey's parents picked us at the Carr's this morning and we came home. Sadly enough, the Asian Invasion is over.

The flight's home were somewhat uneventful. The most exciting part of the flight was when I almost walked into the bathroom on an old Chinese lady who forgot to lock the door. When the door cracked open (get it ... "cracked" open ... hehe) I caught a wiff of whatever this lady was depositing and discovered a resolve I never knew I had until that moment. Suddenly, I didn't have to go as bad as I did only a few seconds before. I could wait. I would wait. Gladly.

My adventures in airplane bathrooms continue. I've discovered that if I want some excitement in my life, I need to buy an airplane ticket ... doesn't matter where the plane is going ... and make somewhat frequent trips to the bathroom. Pre-flight laxatives might be a good thing. The longer the flight, the greater the chances that something is bound to happen. What a great way to meet people!

The feeling of being home is a little bittersweet. We spent so long preparing for the last two weeks - planning, praying, anticipating, spending ample amounts of time on the toilet contemplating the complexities of parenthood - and now it's over. Except some of the toilet part. We're still paying for some of the Chinese food we ate. Furthermore, I'm a little surprised at the number of references to toilets and toilet-related activities in my recent posts. I suppose we could call that "potty humour." Again, hehe!

It was pretty awesome to arrive at the airport last night to a bunch of family there to welcome us home. We were expecting to see my mom and Len (Carol Anne's husband) at the airport because they were our ride home. We were very pleasantly surprised to see my side of the family from Peterborough along with a very cute little girl named Brooke, another recent addition to our extended family ... the happy parents are my cousin Lisa and her hubby Jeremy. Brooke was fast asleep at the airport so play time was unavailable. Oh well, that'll come soon enough. It was also great to see Jen, Matt and Karen, and Corrine and Alvin and their boys when we got home.

Kaitlyn did incredibly well on the flights home. She is a trooper. She seemed to do much better than Mommy and Daddy who got a combined 90 minutes of sleep of the way home.

Our last couple of days in China were spent visiting the Summer Palace, the Biejing Zoo, Tiennamen Square, and the Forbidden City. All of these places were sufficiently awesome and again, all places crawling with Chinese people as far as the eye could see. My favourite part of the trip - outside of meeting, greeting, and keeping Kaitlyn - was visiting Tiennamen Square. It was absolutely huge and, in some respects, intimidating. When you learn some of the history of the Square and recall some of the more recent events / tragedies that have taken place on that ground, a visit there becomes that much more meaningful. If I remember correctly, the Square can hold more than 1/2-a-million people within its boundaries.

There wasn't much of a guided tour available for us at the Square so we were left to wander the grounds and take pictures as we pleased. Again, even though Tiennamen Square is so big, it was still mass chaos because of all the people. It was like that everywhere we went; by the time we reached the end of our trip, we were ready to come home.

I understand many of you have been faithfully checking the blog for updates on our trip. My apologies for letting a few days pass in between our last couple of entries but as you can imagine, we've been a little busy. Thanks for joining us in our trip to China; we're glad we've been able to share our experience with you like this. Of course, you're welcome to keep checking up on the blog since we'll likely be sharing more of our experience - both in China and with Kaitlyn - over the next little while. It's hard to capture absolutely everything in one or two entries so we'll be talking more about our trip as time goes on.

There are also some people who deserve a big thanks for making some things happen. First, thanks to our parents for all the obvious reasons. And to my ma-in-law (aka, mother-in-law, Bev) for posting all the pictures over the last couple of weeks while we were in China. I had difficulty posting the pictures over there because the Internet connection was painfully slow so I emailed select pictures to her and she was able to post them on the blog.

Of course, posting the pictures would not have been possible had it not been for Braden lending us his unbelievably sweet digital camera. He's also taking care of our furry four-legged friend, Dreyfuss, for a few weeks. Hat-tip to Braden ... thanks, man.

Also, thanks to the Carr's for a lot of different things, but most of all, for your friendship. You guys have gone above and beyond the call of duty for us when you didn't have to, and in the process, have taught us more about love and grace. You've impacted us in more ways than the most obvious one that is still napping in the chair next to me.

There are a lot of other people that need to be thanked and we'll get to doing that over the next little while. In the meantime, thanks for checking in ... and keep coming back. I'm sure we'll have a few more stories to tell that are totally unrelated to toilets.