Today, and tomorrow, are travel days. We left China at 12:50 and headed for Seoul, Korea where we had a 3 hour lay over. From Seoul we made the 10 hr. 40 minute flight to LAX. Emma slept probably 8 of the 10 hours, thank gosh. Once in LAX (arriving at 1:40 PM) we tried to get a stand by flight out - we finally left LAX at 12:20 (25th) and headed to St. Paul, Minn. We landed at 6:00 and our connector flight left at 6:35 - luckily we made it. From St. Paul we were finally headed home to Detroit - we landed about 10:20 Christmas Morning. Best Christmas gift of the year was being greeted by Madison, Mom, Dad, Uncle Gary, Michelle and Megan.
It is very good to be home.
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Blog: December 24th, Well Sherri was able to get her visa so we can finally leave China, and on time. The smog here is terrible for the last 2 days, you can hardly breath, but it has been about 70 degrees and sunny. We are not looking forward to so many flights and such a long one home with Emma, but we are praying all will go well and she will sleep for most of it. (If not there better be lots of booze on the plane). Looking forward to seeing everyone when we get home. Love Kim, Sherri and Emma
December 22-
Today we did some more site seeing with Ann and the Everitts. We went to White Mountain, which is essentially a park that has different gardens - a rock garden, rose garden, green house, a lake (that is the size of some ponds in St. Clair). It was a nice day here; in the 60's. After the park, we went to an Italian Restaruant for lunch which actually was pretty good. Aunt Kim and I had pizza - fairly safe. After lunch we went back to the White Swan so Emma could get a nap. In the afternoon after Emma's nap we decided to walk to a pedestrian shopping area - it was about a 10 -15 minute walk - would have been a lot shorter but there is a tremendous amount of construction going on everywhere. The pedestrian area means there are no cars so you don't have to worry about getting hit. There were shops here and lots of food spots - we basically just looked around to say we ventured out. On the walk back we stopped at Lucy's to get Emma some noodle soup for dinner and I can a nice, cold Coors Light. Emma was the only baby that through a fit during dinner; once she starts eating it is hard to stop her. If she is not full she throws a fit and cries - a great habit we will have to break soon. After dinner we walked around the White Swan once again enjoying the nice evening before we come home to snow - 2 days - yeah!!!
Today we did some more site seeing with Ann and the Everitts. We went to White Mountain, which is essentially a park that has different gardens - a rock garden, rose garden, green house, a lake (that is the size of some ponds in St. Clair). It was a nice day here; in the 60's. After the park, we went to an Italian Restaruant for lunch which actually was pretty good. Aunt Kim and I had pizza - fairly safe. After lunch we went back to the White Swan so Emma could get a nap. In the afternoon after Emma's nap we decided to walk to a pedestrian shopping area - it was about a 10 -15 minute walk - would have been a lot shorter but there is a tremendous amount of construction going on everywhere. The pedestrian area means there are no cars so you don't have to worry about getting hit. There were shops here and lots of food spots - we basically just looked around to say we ventured out. On the walk back we stopped at Lucy's to get Emma some noodle soup for dinner and I can a nice, cold Coors Light. Emma was the only baby that through a fit during dinner; once she starts eating it is hard to stop her. If she is not full she throws a fit and cries - a great habit we will have to break soon. After dinner we walked around the White Swan once again enjoying the nice evening before we come home to snow - 2 days - yeah!!!
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
December 21 -
Today was an important day...everything became finalized. This morning we had to wait in the room for a call from Ann, our guide. She took all of the paper work to the consulate to do whatever they do. We got the call that told us everything was okay. From there, our
oath ceremony was moved to this afternoon instead of Tuesday. So, in the afternoon we headed to the U.S. Consulate with many other families for the ceremony. Once at the consulate office, we waited for our name to be called up so we could sign some more documents-I brought a lot of paperwork with me that was required, I'm bringing twice as much home. After all the families signed their documents, so lady from the consulate talked to us about what their job was in each country. Learned an important fact I wanted to pass on to everyone. Before traveling out of the U.S., go to the website travels.state.gov and give your travel information. By doing this, if an emergency occurred while you were a different country, the U.S. Consulate would be able to locate you and evacuate you. Very interesting, only 1 couple in the room had done this. Would like to have known this before hand. So after the lady explained what the consulate does, all the parents stood up, raised our right hands and took an oath, making everything official. From this point, we wait for
Emma's visa which will be ready on Wednesday, along with mine, and I'll received a brown, sealed envelope with documents that I will present to immigrations when we land in L.A. At this point, Emma will officially become a U.S. citizen, at our point of entry, and the government will send a certificate of citizenship and I'll be able to register her for a social security number. After that, I'll just have to apply for a birth certificate in Michigan.
After the ceremony we had dinner at Lucy's again - can't wait to get home and eat mom's food.
Emma did very well through everything today; she seems to be shaking her cold, her temperature is gone and she seemed happier today. We don't have many pictures of her smiling because she is not a fan of the camera. We looked for the infamous red couch
that everyone gets their picture on, but there were about 6 red couches so we choose one and took Emma's picture. Until tomorrow...
Today was an important day...everything became finalized. This morning we had to wait in the room for a call from Ann, our guide. She took all of the paper work to the consulate to do whatever they do. We got the call that told us everything was okay. From there, our
oath ceremony was moved to this afternoon instead of Tuesday. So, in the afternoon we headed to the U.S. Consulate with many other families for the ceremony. Once at the consulate office, we waited for our name to be called up so we could sign some more documents-I brought a lot of paperwork with me that was required, I'm bringing twice as much home. After all the families signed their documents, so lady from the consulate talked to us about what their job was in each country. Learned an important fact I wanted to pass on to everyone. Before traveling out of the U.S., go to the website travels.state.gov and give your travel information. By doing this, if an emergency occurred while you were a different country, the U.S. Consulate would be able to locate you and evacuate you. Very interesting, only 1 couple in the room had done this. Would like to have known this before hand. So after the lady explained what the consulate does, all the parents stood up, raised our right hands and took an oath, making everything official. From this point, we wait for
Emma's visa which will be ready on Wednesday, along with mine, and I'll received a brown, sealed envelope with documents that I will present to immigrations when we land in L.A. At this point, Emma will officially become a U.S. citizen, at our point of entry, and the government will send a certificate of citizenship and I'll be able to register her for a social security number. After that, I'll just have to apply for a birth certificate in Michigan.
After the ceremony we had dinner at Lucy's again - can't wait to get home and eat mom's food.
Emma did very well through everything today; she seems to be shaking her cold, her temperature is gone and she seemed happier today. We don't have many pictures of her smiling because she is not a fan of the camera. We looked for the infamous red couch
that everyone gets their picture on, but there were about 6 red couches so we choose one and took Emma's picture. Until tomorrow...
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)