So, Gracie Is Finally Home

8061 miles and 14 hours by air, and a 2 hour car ride and Gracie is finally in her new home.

The flight didn’t go as badly as you would have thought despite taking so long. We bought a seat for Gracie on the way home, so we had a group of three seats to ourselves. Gracie was pretty fidgety, but she tool three naps for a total of seven hours or so. She is just taller that the width of an airline seat, and won’t sleep in our arms. This meant that Angela and I were somewhat cramped when she was sleeping. The lights in the cabin were out, and we couldn’t use the overhead light, so we pretty much sat there in the dark when she was sleeping.

Despite this I managed to get some reading done and finished the book I brought with me. I saved over three months worth of crossword puzzles from the paper, but didn’t do a single one the entire trip.

The rest of the kids did well, too. We were spread our over the plane, but we got up a lot to walk around, fill bottles, chat, etc.

The veggie meals on the way back weren’t as good, but they weren’t bad. When we confirmed our travel reservations, we ordered baby meals for Gracie. Three times on the flight she got two bottles of baby food and a bottle of juice. This worked out well for us.

We caught a serious tailwind on the way back and arrived an hour earlier than scheduled. Unlike the last time, the flight took us up the coast of Japan and Russia, across Alaska, and then down Canada into New York.

We were seated in the back of the plane, and this meant that we were one of the last groups off of the plane. The walk to customs took a few minutes, and there was a decent sized line by the time we got there. Newark doesn’t differentiate between US and foreign visitors at immigration, so there was one big line. Besides, we would have to go through the foreign visitor line since Gracie was still a Chinese citizen at this point.

The actual amount of time at the immigration window was pretty quick. We got to the window, and handed the officer the brown envelope with our passports. There was no problem with our passports. The officer scanned Gracie’s passport and broke the seal on the envelope. He flipped through the packet to double check that things were in order (and since it was sealed, it was), stamped the visa, and Gracie officially became a US citizen.

After than we went down to baggage claim, and all of our bags were already on the carousel. Customs was quick, too, and we made our way to the exit. I think immigration, baggage claim, and customs took about 45 minutes total.

Freddie and Joyce (Angela’s brother and his wife) signed up the the travel alerts from the airline, and realized that the flight was an hour early. They were waiting for us at the exit along with the families of the other local people.

We arrived home around 4:00pm. My mom was there, along with Kristen, Laura, and Joey. Gracie was a little scared by all of the people, but she did well as long as one of us was in eyesight. We talked for a while, and then ate dinner. Gracie did meet Sparkles, but was scared by her.

I didn’t sleep on the plane, and Angela only managed to catch 2 or 3 hours. I went to lie down at 6:30pm, and Angela and Gracie came up a little later.

Gracie woke up around 11:30pm, took a bottle, and is now wide awake. Angela and I are She is now in her second set of pajamas, and are getting ready to watch a Baby Einstein video.

Now that we are home, we won’t be blogging as much, but we will update everyone on how Gracie acclimates to her new home.  The next few days will be tough on us with the jetlag on top of an exhausting trip.  It is going to take Gracie about two weeks for her body to adjust to a 13 hour time difference.

We are very excited for everyone to meet Gracie, but we have a rough two weeks ahead of us.  If you want to visit, please check in first.  We will be keeping some very off ours until Gracie is fully acclimated.