Thursday, March 8, 2012

Sterling Mei: (27) Under One Roof

Pic Credit ~  Kayci Kyung Roh: Driver, Photographer, Friend
And Sterling's Honorary Uncle


It is 2:00 A.M. and I have been awake now for 34 hours. The house is quiet, with my wife and my 3 children asleep. MAN! Can I tell you how incredible that feels? My THREE CHILDREN! I have promised them all omelets in the morning, so I better get on with it...

You have not lived until you have travelled 7500 miles in 30 hours with a 14 month old. I highly encourage it. For those of you who like to see what you're made of... try this one on for size! I can tell you with full honestly that we have completed it with a smile on our face and we are very happy tonight.

I can also tell you a few of our experiences: Sterling's ticket was processed incorrectly in Guangzhou and we nearly missed our flight (but we made it), the boarding pass for myself and Sterling could not be processed when we reached Beijing and threatened our ability to get on our flight (but we made it), our luggage was incorrectly tagged and we nearly missed getting it sent to Dayton (but it made it), our seats were incorrectly processed by the carrier and we were told that we would have to sit apart on the 13 hour flight home (and yet, not only did we sit together but we were upgraded to Elite), and as we crossed the international date line we were showered by beer, courtesy of the 3 idiots behind us (and we received free merchandise from our carrier).

Still though... I consider it impeccable timing. I was watching the in-flight navigation, and just as our plane icon ticked past the international date line, and today become yesterday... BOOM! Beer explodes out of a can, sprays up on the bulkhead over us, and falls down like rain on our three heads. What could we do? All I can tell you is that Kellie and I have learned how to travel. We threw back our heads, began slinging beer off of our faces, and roared with laughter! OK, so there may have been about a 5 second window that was near critical on the rage spectrometer, but we found the humor and we ran with it!

Keep in mind that we have been slap-happy spent and exhausted all day, and please laugh with me and not at me when I tell you that we fully intended to explain to: the customs official, the immigration official, our friend Kayci who picked us up, and my in-laws and children (who greeted us at our house at 11:30) why we smelled like a brewery... but, we totally forgot! Oh. My. I. Wonder. What. They. Think?

Here is this family, adopting an infant... and they smell like they have bathed in beer. Well, yes we did, and... yes we did. 
First photo taken with the kids together
So, tonight we find ourselves home with 3 children for the first time sleeping under our roof. Well, mostly sleeping... Sterling has awoken with some fuss twice while I work to edit my earlier posts and type something near-coherent here. The child-monitor again sits on our nightstand, scavenged from the depths of the basement to carry the night-piercing screams of another of our children. 

I think I better get off this computer and be prepared to answer the next squall. Otherwise, I may be typing a blog of a different tone tomorrow.

It has been an incredible two weeks, and I appreciate all of you who have taken the time to pull up my thoughts. Our sights will focus on these next few months of simply enjoying our family, and then this spring we begin on another incredible journey... simply following our hearts and reconciling our actions with our belief.

As always, I ask you to pray for us. It is easy to ask for safety, and wonderful to receive it, but our minds  are focused on things that we hope will outlast us, so as you pray for safety... please also pray that we follow the vision of God. 

I would rather our family do something great, than live a safe life. For me, this is reconciliation of living to belief.

And... oh yeah, I nearly forgot the reason I wanted to post this blog: To show you the photo time-line of how Sterling dealt with the flight.  She was an absolute trouper. Here are pics of her, chronologically from initial take-off to final landing...











I think that sufficiently explains it. 


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