Wo Men Zhong Yu Dao Le!

In order to avoid as much language atrophy as possible over the next 6 months in America, I think I should just blog in Chinese as much as possible.  So today's title is "We Finally Made It!" 

A little travel quirk about me, for those of you who care: I always try to straighten my hair before a long plane ride.  Curly hair inevitably gets thrown into a tangled knot on the back of my head, and it's not so comfortable to lean against a big mess of hair against the plane seat.  Plus, straight hair travels better and I look a little more alive to the world once we reach our final destination.  Perhaps a little vain but that's what makes quirks quirky I suppose.

After spending the weekend in Beijing with friends, we made it to the airport with plenty of time to navigate our way to the Air Canada check-in counter.  When I was shopping for flights a few months ago, the only options I could find were all Chinese airlines.  No offense, China, but I'd rather not ride in our of your airplanes across an ocean.  So I didn't.  We rode a Canadian airplane and were served by women who ended their sentences in "Eh."  

Our flight left at 6 PM on Monday night.  We've really come to appreciate red eye flights with the babies.  They sleep, I sleep, Kevin watches movies (planes are not intended to make 6'4" people comfortable), and we all get there in a much more cheery fashion.  There were a few times that Micah rolled off his seats into the floor while he was sleeping, so two Chinese grandmothers posted themselves as sentries over him.  I will certainly miss the ever-willing helping hands available in China.

We landed in Vancouver around 1 PM on Monday to find that our connecting flight to Dallas had been cancelled.  But as soon as we made it to the customs desk, a flight representative found us and presented us with eight tickets rerouting us through Phoenix.  Very impressive customer service, Canada.  We didn't hardly have a second to sit down at our gate because we move very slowly and our layover was quite short.

The boys slept the entire flight from Vancouver to Phoenix, which earned us the thanks and praises of all our fellow passengers.  The flight from Phoenix to Austin, however, did not garner such accolades since we were "those people" on the plane.  Micah made up a game with the people behind him that involved pulling down the arm rest and shouting (and I do mean shouting) "Hello!"  Let's just say that that hour and forty-five minutes lasted much longer than the eleven we had flown previously.

My parents met us at the airport in Austin, and that was a sweet moment.  Our airline had actually called them that morning to inform them that our flight had been cancelled, so we would be forced to spend the night in Vancouver.  Vancouver with the green trees and beautiful mountains.  In a free hotel.  With food vouchers.  Would that have been so bad?  Well, maybe not but getting a hug from my mom was certainly better.

The boys slept decently that night from 2 AM until about 7:30 AM.  We had belated Christmas the next morning complete with a tree that my mom left up.  

Now we're just getting settled into life, trying to get over jet lag and figure out heads & tails here in America.  I'll have to save my first impressions of American life for later because it would be wise for me to get some sleep.  It's only the third night in this wacky new time zone and our little buddies think that midnight is an excellent time to wake up and play for a few hours!