We're home!

Hi everyone -- I have many more photos to post, but for now I just wanted to say we got home from China safely. Ting Ting did great on the plane, and she slept for much of the trip. I'm hoping we'll have a quick transition to the new time zone (although I was up at 1 a.m. playing ball with her, then again at 5 a.m. feeding her noodles. But she conked out again about half an hour ago and is sleeping soundly in her crib).

Many, many thanks to my crazy sister Kay, who took the day off work and flew to Chicago just to shoot video of our arrival and get a quick glimpse of her new niece before she had to catch her return flight. You could have knocked me over with a feather when Lance called out to me that she was there. I had stopped to chat with the extended family of travelmates Chuck and Lynette, who were there in force with signs to welcome little Dani. Kay had already met all of them, of course, and most of my other travel mates, too, I found out. We couldn't convince her to stay -- she had to get home because her son would be home from school soon. But now we have priceless video of our triumphant return, and we can't thank her enough for this wonderful surprise.

Meanwhile, my mother and father had flown in for a few days (they flew to Midway and took a cab to our house while Kay was jetting off to O'Hare). Lance and I took a limo home from O'Hare and arrived just a few minutes after Mom and Dad had brought in their luggage and changed into their "Lao Lao" (grandma) and "Lao ye" (grandpa) sweatshirts. Little Ting Ting had slept during the limo ride and so was a bit overwhelmed when she came into the and was greeted by strangers. But it only took a few minutes before she had warmed up to her grandparents and was charming them with her smile and little giggles.

I have wonderful photos and will post them as soon as I can -- plus I have some more photos of our trip to share.

Thank you all for all the support while we were away. Lance would check the blog each morning and read aloud the comments posted overnight. It was really fun for us to share it all with you.

Now, on with real life!