Day 1: The 24 hour journey

At 8:30 am on Wednesday,  January 13th, we left our house to head to the airport. David, Toby and I began our adventure to the other side of the world. Saying goodbye to Bethany, Luke and my baby girl, Cassidy was not easy because we are a tight-knit family that normally goes on these adventures together. My children are such a blessing to me and I missed them the second we separated.
 I was so proud of Toby. He followed us and didn't run away from us. Now I will say that he tried to lead us because of his independent nature, but for the most part, he was a trooper. The only time he got in trouble was kicking the seat in front of him on the airplane (Sorry Kimberly) and accidentally spilling water on the same person. (Sorry Kimberly..again) He did not want to watch cartoons or do any of his activities that we brought, so entertaining him was challenging for three flights equaling  16 hours of flight time. Out of those 16 hours, he slept 4 hours off and on. TOUGH!!  His favorite thing to do was watch the progress of the flight on the monitor.  He asked some great questions about that like " Are we going to see Santa because he is north?" (We actually did fly over the North Pole so I told him that Santa was on vacation at the beach so we couldn't see him.(:  ) He also asked me about heaven and God since we were in the clouds. What a joy!  He also told me that he felt very happy to go to China to get a new sister. I am praying that this will be the case after they meet.
At 10:00 pm (China time on Thursday, January 14th )we arrived in our room in the Garden hotel in Guangzhou, China. It was 9:00 am on Thursday at our Ohio home. 24 hours!!!! Longest day ever,  but God answered our prayers for safety. The hotel is very nice and thankfully since our daughter is from this same province we get to stay here the entire 2 weeks. Huge blessing!
Confession...So ever since we adopted our child that has no record of his past, I'm always curious about his biological parents. Who were they? Did they have another ethnicity since Toby has such dark skin and big eyes? Where are they now? Do they ever think about him? Well, on a funny note, I sure did think that the man behind us on the 13 hour flight could have been a match.  He loudly passed gas (because I can't say the other word) the entire trip and made lots of similar noises that Toby makes. The smells were very similar that Toby even said "Did I do that?" Lol
Well, that is the end of Day one and a half since we lost half of a day with the time change. Thanks for your continued prayers for us and our 3 at home. Love you all!