We Left on a Jet Plane - or Two! (Wednesday, April 9, 2014 & Thursday, April 10, 2014)

After a whirlwind of packing over the last week and VERY little sleep on Tuesday night (because we were so excited/anxious), we flew from Charlotte to Chicago early Wednesday morning.

It was not an ideal plane size for our boys' first airplane flights - but they did a GREAT job on the two hour flight.  The plane was tiny - only 2 seats on each side of the aisle and the carry-ons had to stowed below because there was no room on board!  And we sat apart from each other because the flight was sold out.  And our small child might have fallen asleep on his neighbor.  

We landed in Chicago and had McDonalds lunch in the beautiful O'Hare Airport.  While waiting for the plane to depart, we met up with a couple also on their way to adopt from China - thanks Amy Regret de Leon for introducing us through email.  It's such a small world - I graduated from college with Amy who happens to live nearby the sweet family we had the pleasure of meeting together.  Good luck Morris family.

Then we boarded a plane in Chicago directly to Beijing.  Wow - the economy class seats were SOLD OUT.  So that means we sat shoulder to shoulder with our neighbors.  I'm thankful our traveling companions are small 8 and 5 year olds!  We were very thankful for the seat back entertainment that had a variety of movie and TV series options.  Some very excited boys were finally able to see Frozen.  And someone else may have been able to watch EVERY episode of Friends, How I Met Your Mother and The Big Bang Theory that our airline made available.  We were also able to recognize a favorite drink at our house while on the airplane - Sprite.  13 hours later we landed in Beijing at 3:15pm (NC time 3:15am).

 Our sweet guide, Helen, met us at the airport with a driver and rode with us to our hotel.  What we thought would be a 45 minute ride turned into well over an hour!  Gridlock, crazy drivers, no air conditioning in the van = car sickness for Mommy and Daddy and a nap for Ian and Aidan.  Helen helped us check into the hotel, had a very delicious Pizza Hut pizza delivered and stopped to buy us water bottles on our way to checking in.  We ate dinner, Face Timed with our parents, took a walking tour of the spectacular hotel and are now ready to sleep!

Tomorrow will be our first day of touring Beijing.  We are very excited to see all the tourist spots we've been studying about for the past couple of years!