"Home at last, home at last, home at last... God Almighty, we are home at last!!!
Yes, 35 hours after we walked out of the 2nd floor lobby of the White Swan we were walking in our front door, and boy was that ever a surreal feeling when I looked around our living room.
Okay, now to the other news you are really wanting to know about... how the kids did on the plane.
Guangzhou - Tokyo... uneventful overall... unless you were the flight attendant that came running every time one Baden BingBing hit the "call" button. Yes, this darling little boy is a button-pusher, literally and figuratively speaking. Savannah is a trooper traveler and has been since her very first flight when we left Nanchang Jiangxi to go to Guangzhou... 4 hours stuck in the airplane before our guide finally convinced the flight crew to let our group (13 families) and another agencies travel group off the plane because of the children, then enduring another 4 hours hanging out in an airport not equipped to handle all the stuck passengers... all because of a monsoon storm in Guangzhou. This trip she again traveled with flying colors. BingBing took things a bit differently. Take off in Guangzhou was hard... started screaming the minute his seat belt was buckled with Scott, in front of me and Savannah, trying very hard to console him. The remaining 4 1/2 hours were great... for PJ and me. For Scott, it was spent keeping BingBing from hitting the attendant button, trying to get him to watch the movies available (oh, how I would love to meet the genius who came up with putting individual screens and on-demand programming on planes!)... which really became me watching the motions of BB taking his headset on and off, while Savannah sat quietly beside me engrossed in Shrek 3. Our descent into Tokyo was similar to the beginning of the flight. Oh, the boy slept about 20 minutes of the flight and Savannah didn't sleep at all.
We arrived in Tokyo with about 5 hours to kill... 45 minutes of which was spent trying to find out what happened to our strollers (apparently the JAL guy at the gate in Guangzhou thought we were getting off in Tokyo (Narita) and set our strollers to be picked up at baggage claim. There we stood, two parents who knew there was still one heck of a journey ahead of them, one girl who is always up for a good adventure and one boy who didn't know what to make of what was going on, holding tightly to his blanket and Diego rolling backpack, while desperately longing for his "cha" (phonetic Pinyin for "car"... he thinks his stroller is his own car.) After about 10 minutes of us standing at the jet way a nice attendant came up to us, concerned that something was wrong. We explained that we were waiting for our stroller that we were to get at the gate and handed her the claim tickets we'd been given in Guangzhou. She asked us to follow her to the JAL service counter inside the secure area where she explained what was going on to another woman. Both women were very apologetic for what happened and the second woman ran off to baggage claim to retrieve our strollers for us. BingBing exlaimed "Cha a la!!" over and over again when he saw his stroller, climbed on in, put his blanket on his lap and when Scott handed him his Diego pack he hugged it tight. He was once again secure in knowing that he had his things, his treasures. Savannah climbed in and within minutes was asleep.
We get through security with no wait (the upside to lots of time to kill is that you can let your fellow passengers battle their way through while you walk right on up) and then found our way to the shuttle that takes us to the main International building where all the good stuff is... Tiffany's, Hermes, Coach... basically it was Rodeo Drive in an airport. We found a place to sit down and eat. Savannah slept through lunch while BingBing relished his hot dog on a stick, Cajun potato wedges and a bunch of the Udon noodles from my soup. I am now thoroughly spoiled for sushi... I picked up one salad roll and am still kicking myself for not getting several, though my Tempura shrimp Udon noodle soup was also quite good. Scott took BingBing to the bathroom and came back, exclaiming over the toilet. Apparently he found the one that provides the options of a heated seat and bidet, along with pressure options for the bidet. In China we got squatters and in Japan a spa treatment... go figure on that one. The other treat at the airport was being able to order something and not worry about what you were eating. Arigato Japan! Savannah eventually woke up a couple hours later, which by this time we'd found our way to the gate, so I took her to the cafeteria there (vastly different from BowlBowl where we'd eaten earlier). She was happy with her hot dog and juice, really happy when we found the play area, and even happier when she'd made a new friend while waiting for us to leave. BingBing was happy to have charmed a couple of elderly ladies who were giving him treats as Savannah and I walked up from the cafeteria. Mr. Energy needed some winding down so I did what my parents did with us as kids... found an area of the terminal who had no one around and got him to run, which proved to be another learning moment for him. He didn't know how to run after someone, so there the two of us were... me teaching him how to chase me and he discovering how fun it is to chase mom. We looped our end of the wing several times to the point where he was starting to fall down. I went back to take Savannah for a walk and let BingBing have some time with Scott and then Scott took Mr. Energy back out for another walk. Needless to say he slept about 6 hours of the nearly 8 hour flight from Tokyo to Honolulu. That flight was on a circa mid-80's 747 and we got to ride on the upper deck... which back in the 80's was First Class. BingBing displayed his "emperor" attitude when he balked that there wasn't a personal tv screen on the back of the seat in front of me. (We saw this similar attitude each time he walked into the White Swan, acting as if he owned the joint.) The upside was that there was lots of leg room, which allowed us to lay BingBing on an airplane blanket on the floor to sleep, and Savannah ended up stretching out on the other two seats for a few hours. About 2 hours after she fell asleep she woke up crying, sobbing and saying that she just wanted to go home (I just realized that I left out her remarks as she saw land as we approached Tokyo... "Yay! We're back in Seattle!!"). Finally I got her calmed down enough and she fell asleep watching Mulan on the DVD player. BingBing was awake when we landed in Honolulu, looking around with an expression as if something big were going to happen. He didn't know it, but something big did happen... he became a US Citizen at touchdown. The upside to traveling through Honolulu was that not many people were in the Immigration line, and it took all of 10 minutes. Now, checking our bags back in with Hawaiian Air and going through all of the agricultural security was another story. We anticipated a 6 hour or so layover in Honolulu, and spent a good portion of it trying to figure out options for getting us back to Bellingham since Hawaiian wouldn't check our baggage through to Bellingham and having to get our bags at baggage claim, re-check them in at the Horizon counter and get to the plane would make us miss our flight to Bellingham. This is where some thank yous need to be handed out...
Toni, thank you for the wonderful offer to come retrieve us at Sea-Tac and have us crash at your house. Thanks for being a wonderful friend.
Mom, Dad, Teresa, Jeff and Nat... thanks for driving down from Bellingham and battling all of the crazy construction on I-5 to do so. Jeff, Scott told me that you were terrific with Baden on the way home and that you did a great job trying to teach him some new words. Thanks buddy! You make me a very proud aunt and Godmother. Andy, I know you wanted to be there and hope you are feeling better very soon. I've missed you! BingBing reminds me so much of you. Nat, thanks for making your PJ's day... she missed you too sweet girl. Mom, thanks for driving us "girls" home. I am still laughing over your remark about downtown Bellingham being scary at 1 AM, even more so after Cathie telling me that Sammy exclaimed that it's scary in the daytime. Very observant on both of your parts. Teresa, I'm glad you finally got to meet the boy that goes with the picture you found last November 30th. It is quite obvious from how he has taken to you that he also feels the connection the two of you have.
Oh, BingBing earned a nickname for his alias personality when he wigs out... BingBong. On our descent into Seattle the poor boy just lost it, the same out of body anger he expressed last week came out with Scott undoubtedly wanting to unbuckle the boy and hold him. The minute the seat belt came off he was high-fiving Scott, PJ and me all over the place. Once again he was the happy guy.
Today was nice and mellow. We woke up around 10, with the kids waking up about an our or so later. (Savannah and I went to bed around 2:30 - me sleeping in her bed and the guys - who were sleeping in our bed - around 3 am... the night owl little boy wanted to keep on playing.) My mom saved the day and brought us Starbucks (hint to anyone who comes over on Sunday... Starbucks will help get the door open before 10... ), along with our coffee grinder that we'd forgotten at her house from earlier in the summer. Teresa and Nat came over around 2 or so, giving the three kids a chance to play together. I can't wait to get Caleb in the mix, I think he will be a great friend and cousin to Baden, though I'm half afraid of the trouble those two will get in as well.
So now you are all wanting pictures, and believe me I'd love nothing to get them on here. Scott is going to try and fix the computer in the morning and I hope to have something on the group tomorrow.
Thanks for all of the friendship, joy and support you've all shared the past two weeks. You guys make a great cyber travel group.
Hugs to all,
Tassie"
Yes, 35 hours after we walked out of the 2nd floor lobby of the White Swan we were walking in our front door, and boy was that ever a surreal feeling when I looked around our living room.
Okay, now to the other news you are really wanting to know about... how the kids did on the plane.
Guangzhou - Tokyo... uneventful overall... unless you were the flight attendant that came running every time one Baden BingBing hit the "call" button. Yes, this darling little boy is a button-pusher, literally and figuratively speaking. Savannah is a trooper traveler and has been since her very first flight when we left Nanchang Jiangxi to go to Guangzhou... 4 hours stuck in the airplane before our guide finally convinced the flight crew to let our group (13 families) and another agencies travel group off the plane because of the children, then enduring another 4 hours hanging out in an airport not equipped to handle all the stuck passengers... all because of a monsoon storm in Guangzhou. This trip she again traveled with flying colors. BingBing took things a bit differently. Take off in Guangzhou was hard... started screaming the minute his seat belt was buckled with Scott, in front of me and Savannah, trying very hard to console him. The remaining 4 1/2 hours were great... for PJ and me. For Scott, it was spent keeping BingBing from hitting the attendant button, trying to get him to watch the movies available (oh, how I would love to meet the genius who came up with putting individual screens and on-demand programming on planes!)... which really became me watching the motions of BB taking his headset on and off, while Savannah sat quietly beside me engrossed in Shrek 3. Our descent into Tokyo was similar to the beginning of the flight. Oh, the boy slept about 20 minutes of the flight and Savannah didn't sleep at all.
We arrived in Tokyo with about 5 hours to kill... 45 minutes of which was spent trying to find out what happened to our strollers (apparently the JAL guy at the gate in Guangzhou thought we were getting off in Tokyo (Narita) and set our strollers to be picked up at baggage claim. There we stood, two parents who knew there was still one heck of a journey ahead of them, one girl who is always up for a good adventure and one boy who didn't know what to make of what was going on, holding tightly to his blanket and Diego rolling backpack, while desperately longing for his "cha" (phonetic Pinyin for "car"... he thinks his stroller is his own car.) After about 10 minutes of us standing at the jet way a nice attendant came up to us, concerned that something was wrong. We explained that we were waiting for our stroller that we were to get at the gate and handed her the claim tickets we'd been given in Guangzhou. She asked us to follow her to the JAL service counter inside the secure area where she explained what was going on to another woman. Both women were very apologetic for what happened and the second woman ran off to baggage claim to retrieve our strollers for us. BingBing exlaimed "Cha a la!!" over and over again when he saw his stroller, climbed on in, put his blanket on his lap and when Scott handed him his Diego pack he hugged it tight. He was once again secure in knowing that he had his things, his treasures. Savannah climbed in and within minutes was asleep.
We get through security with no wait (the upside to lots of time to kill is that you can let your fellow passengers battle their way through while you walk right on up) and then found our way to the shuttle that takes us to the main International building where all the good stuff is... Tiffany's, Hermes, Coach... basically it was Rodeo Drive in an airport. We found a place to sit down and eat. Savannah slept through lunch while BingBing relished his hot dog on a stick, Cajun potato wedges and a bunch of the Udon noodles from my soup. I am now thoroughly spoiled for sushi... I picked up one salad roll and am still kicking myself for not getting several, though my Tempura shrimp Udon noodle soup was also quite good. Scott took BingBing to the bathroom and came back, exclaiming over the toilet. Apparently he found the one that provides the options of a heated seat and bidet, along with pressure options for the bidet. In China we got squatters and in Japan a spa treatment... go figure on that one. The other treat at the airport was being able to order something and not worry about what you were eating. Arigato Japan! Savannah eventually woke up a couple hours later, which by this time we'd found our way to the gate, so I took her to the cafeteria there (vastly different from BowlBowl where we'd eaten earlier). She was happy with her hot dog and juice, really happy when we found the play area, and even happier when she'd made a new friend while waiting for us to leave. BingBing was happy to have charmed a couple of elderly ladies who were giving him treats as Savannah and I walked up from the cafeteria. Mr. Energy needed some winding down so I did what my parents did with us as kids... found an area of the terminal who had no one around and got him to run, which proved to be another learning moment for him. He didn't know how to run after someone, so there the two of us were... me teaching him how to chase me and he discovering how fun it is to chase mom. We looped our end of the wing several times to the point where he was starting to fall down. I went back to take Savannah for a walk and let BingBing have some time with Scott and then Scott took Mr. Energy back out for another walk. Needless to say he slept about 6 hours of the nearly 8 hour flight from Tokyo to Honolulu. That flight was on a circa mid-80's 747 and we got to ride on the upper deck... which back in the 80's was First Class. BingBing displayed his "emperor" attitude when he balked that there wasn't a personal tv screen on the back of the seat in front of me. (We saw this similar attitude each time he walked into the White Swan, acting as if he owned the joint.) The upside was that there was lots of leg room, which allowed us to lay BingBing on an airplane blanket on the floor to sleep, and Savannah ended up stretching out on the other two seats for a few hours. About 2 hours after she fell asleep she woke up crying, sobbing and saying that she just wanted to go home (I just realized that I left out her remarks as she saw land as we approached Tokyo... "Yay! We're back in Seattle!!"). Finally I got her calmed down enough and she fell asleep watching Mulan on the DVD player. BingBing was awake when we landed in Honolulu, looking around with an expression as if something big were going to happen. He didn't know it, but something big did happen... he became a US Citizen at touchdown. The upside to traveling through Honolulu was that not many people were in the Immigration line, and it took all of 10 minutes. Now, checking our bags back in with Hawaiian Air and going through all of the agricultural security was another story. We anticipated a 6 hour or so layover in Honolulu, and spent a good portion of it trying to figure out options for getting us back to Bellingham since Hawaiian wouldn't check our baggage through to Bellingham and having to get our bags at baggage claim, re-check them in at the Horizon counter and get to the plane would make us miss our flight to Bellingham. This is where some thank yous need to be handed out...
Toni, thank you for the wonderful offer to come retrieve us at Sea-Tac and have us crash at your house. Thanks for being a wonderful friend.
Mom, Dad, Teresa, Jeff and Nat... thanks for driving down from Bellingham and battling all of the crazy construction on I-5 to do so. Jeff, Scott told me that you were terrific with Baden on the way home and that you did a great job trying to teach him some new words. Thanks buddy! You make me a very proud aunt and Godmother. Andy, I know you wanted to be there and hope you are feeling better very soon. I've missed you! BingBing reminds me so much of you. Nat, thanks for making your PJ's day... she missed you too sweet girl. Mom, thanks for driving us "girls" home. I am still laughing over your remark about downtown Bellingham being scary at 1 AM, even more so after Cathie telling me that Sammy exclaimed that it's scary in the daytime. Very observant on both of your parts. Teresa, I'm glad you finally got to meet the boy that goes with the picture you found last November 30th. It is quite obvious from how he has taken to you that he also feels the connection the two of you have.
Oh, BingBing earned a nickname for his alias personality when he wigs out... BingBong. On our descent into Seattle the poor boy just lost it, the same out of body anger he expressed last week came out with Scott undoubtedly wanting to unbuckle the boy and hold him. The minute the seat belt came off he was high-fiving Scott, PJ and me all over the place. Once again he was the happy guy.
Today was nice and mellow. We woke up around 10, with the kids waking up about an our or so later. (Savannah and I went to bed around 2:30 - me sleeping in her bed and the guys - who were sleeping in our bed - around 3 am... the night owl little boy wanted to keep on playing.) My mom saved the day and brought us Starbucks (hint to anyone who comes over on Sunday... Starbucks will help get the door open before 10... ), along with our coffee grinder that we'd forgotten at her house from earlier in the summer. Teresa and Nat came over around 2 or so, giving the three kids a chance to play together. I can't wait to get Caleb in the mix, I think he will be a great friend and cousin to Baden, though I'm half afraid of the trouble those two will get in as well.
So now you are all wanting pictures, and believe me I'd love nothing to get them on here. Scott is going to try and fix the computer in the morning and I hope to have something on the group tomorrow.
Thanks for all of the friendship, joy and support you've all shared the past two weeks. You guys make a great cyber travel group.
Hugs to all,
Tassie"
The following day we had a small "Welcome Home" party for Baden, giving him a chance to meet more of his cousins, aunt's, uncle's and to see one set of his grand-parents again. Boy that was a fun August evening! This was also the occasion in which we discovered that Baden has a thing for Greek food, especially hummus. Weeks later I was still finding pieces of pita bread wedges hidden throughout his room. .jpg)
Playing in our backyard with his new cousins. At the time the crowd pictured ranged from 10 years to 3 1/2 years, with the youngest being a trio of 3 year-olds.jpg)
Playing in our backyard with his new cousins. At the time the crowd pictured ranged from 10 years to 3 1/2 years, with the youngest being a trio of 3 year-olds.jpg)
It didn't take him long to figure out this important maneuver... when you want control of the soccer ball, just sit on it..jpg)
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I look at these pictures and marvel at how much my little boy has grown in the 28 months he has been home. I also wonder at how something that seems has been so much longer has only been just 28 months.
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