Finally Home!!!

Hello from Grandville MI!!!!
Holy Smokes, you have no idea how awesome it is to say that.  As of last night at 11pm, we will always be a family of 5!!!  What an emotional days of traveling home is was.  We left China Wednesday morning - we started off the day in the lobby waiting for our guide.  Oops, something happened with her alarm and it didn't go off.  We were about to just leave for the airport but thank GOD Jeffrey had the front desk ring her room.  She felt terrible but we were off to the airport.  When we went to check in to our Beijing flight, the airline said 3 Hawley's didn't have any reservations...  Um, remember when I said a few blog post back that the Hawley's should not be traveling internationally?  Well, the pattern seems to have returned.  We were able to get on the next flight to Beijing and able to make our connection.  We had an hour delay on the Beijing flight to Detroit.  Good grief!!  Megan did ok on each flight.  She slept quite a bit on the long flight from Beijing but she was restless and kept crying out in her sleep.  Jeffrey slept about 10 minutes and I managed to get a few hours at most because Megan took up her seat and most of mine while she slept.  Finally in Detroit Megan was officially checked in as a US citizen by a rather crabby man but he did manage to say Congratulations.  Nice, huh?  Now we just need to get to Grand Rapids...  well, again things are not going to go smoothly.  1st we were delayed due to no cabin crew...  Then we were delayed due to no pilots.  Seriously!!!!  Then once we got down the jet way and the power goes out on the plane...  yep, what a day of travel.  We arrived in GR about 10 minutes late but we were finally HOME!!!!

We were greeted by my awesome family of my mom & dad, brother Mark, sister Nina and Jack & Emma, sister Bridget and brother in law Nick, Collin and Vivian!!!  AND, the 2 most amazing boys I could ever ask for - Jacob and Alex.  It was so awesome to see and hug them. The boys were emotional that we were home, but to finally have their sister home took the prize.

We drove home as a family of 5 - so weird but welcomed!!!  We drove down into our drive way colored with pictures and words with bright colored calk!!  Even some arrows to the front door in case we forgot the way!  Ha!!  Inside  - Holy Smokes - was a sea of balloons, a welcome home sign made by my awesome niece Emma, a crap load of cookies, flowers, food, and candy.  Thanks to all of my family for such a great welcome home surprise! Amazing still almost 12 hours later.  The boys couldn't stop playing with Megan and showing her all her new stuff.  She was in 7th heaven with everything.  We had to tell the boys to head to bed around 1:30 am but they didn't want to leave Megan.  The love her so much!!!  Megan even let Jacob hold his hand and pick her up shortly after we got home.  He quickly told Jeffrey that he beat him as it took Megan 3 days to do those things with her Papa.

Megan slept from 2am - 6 am which was shocking but she didn't go down without a fight.  Poor poopsie.  Not sure how she'd do in her big girl bed, Papa volunteered to settle in with our little chestnut.  I checked in on them at 4 and Megan was sleeping sideways and Jeffrey was all crammed up against the side rail.  See, she takes up a lot of room for a 21 lb little 2yr old.

We will see how the rest of the day goes from here sleep wise.  Megan has her 1st doctor appointment today at 3 pm.  She still has terrible amount of junk in her chest even after being on an antibiotic since we got her.  Any who, it's a crap shoot from here as to how long the jet lag lasts.  Hopefully, we will beat it very soon. 

As always keep us in your prayers!  Thank you so all the love and support each of you have given us.