We made it to Beijing (China Day 1 & 2)

Hello all!

{Day 1}

After 20 hours of traveling we made it to Beijing. Our little Lightning Hope did as well as can be expected for a 2 year old. She actually really likes traveling but it was pretty long.

Here are a few pics from our first day. It was hard (for me, mama bear) to leave our big kids at the airport this time. I warned them about two weeks ago, when we bought our tickets, that I may be "randomly emotional" and that they should to plan on that. LOL. It actually didn't kick in until we were getting ready to pack the car. I lost it...tears all over the place. I love those big kids so very much, they're pretty much awesome, and all of the mama fears of not making it back to them came flooding in.

Anyhow we had a fine time making our way across the ocean and were ready to get to our hotel and lie down.

We were greeted by our fabulous CCAI rep. There was also one other family on our flight from Atlanta. We rode with them to our hotel and turned in soon after we got settled.

Our first flight of 7 flights over the next 15 days...

One of the cutest thighs our girl has done so far for this trip is that whenever we went down the ramp to go to our plane she would shout, "Tyyyyyyyyyyy..."

I love watching the little plane make it closer and closer to our destination as the trip goes on. This map is fun because both of our kids' cities are on this view.

**Lightning Hope - Pingdingshan and Son of Courage - Anshan)

Our first 5 -star bathroom in the airport. Funny

{Day 2}

The three of us were up at 3am this morning. Not great but it gave us a chance to Skype with our big kids and my mom and step-dad. I guess there is an upside, right? Baby girl LOVED it!

We met the other families at breakfast this morning. There are 6 families in our group. After breakfast we all headed by bus to The Great Wall. We loved it last year but it was so hot and humid that it made the climb miserable. Today the ground and structures still have a dusting of snow. Beijing got their first snow yesterday. I must say that it was beautiful and worth the second trip! We were all very cold though. Our poor little one froze. We decided to go up a different way this year, much steeper but fun to climb with another couple.

We walked up the other side this time. It was much much steeper and the snow added a level of craziness but we had a great time getting to know another family on our climb.

After the Great Wall we headed to lunch and a jade factory/store with our group.

Our little one was checking our her options...hahaha

We didn't end up buying anything this time. We are looking forward to getting our new son something special from his province. (next week)

 This little girl thought she was pretty funny while we were waiting for others in our group to make their purchases. I think she was a bit delirious from lack of sleep.

 hahaha

The people who worked at the jade factory were quite intrigued with our little pumpkin.

She loved animals. She kept saying "It's a nice horse."