Sweet Home California

We landed on American soil yesterday and this country gained its cutest new citizen.

Fortunately, the trip home was pretty uneventful.  Unless you call me puking all over the Hong Kong airport and Gianna puking all over the airplane floor an event.  Then, it was eventful.  But other than that, everyone else did great.

We got home to a clean house, a clean car, fresh flowers, a stocked fridge, a home cooked dinner and a lawn with "Tallulah" mowed into it courtesy of my cousin Brandon and his girlfriend Jeanne.  You guys are the BEST.  Thank you so much.  I realize I probably failed to thank you as profusely as I should have given my Ativan and viral induced stupor.

We walked in the house and played a little game of "Welcome to Your Life" with Tallulah.  Her little eyes were bugging out of her head and when she opened the cabinet full of baby toys, I think she may have had a mini-stroke.  Needless to say, she has loved exploring every inch of this place.  I don't have too many pictures yet, because I'm using what little energy I have to unpack before Nathan has to go back to work and to deal with all these new demands placed on me.  After 2.5 weeks of being catered to, I've lost my stamina and almost have my own mini-stroke when my family becomes hungry and turns to ME with want in their eyes.

Re-entry is always hard with the jet lag.  Last night, the girls were all up a lot.  When I put Tallulah in bed at 8pm, she went right to sleep, but woke at 10pm ready to play with all her new toys.  I held fast to my tried and tested rule of getting over jet lag and made her lay in our bed.  She looked at me like, "What kind of fresh hell is this?  You bring me to this new land of snacks, toys and entertainment, but then make me lay in a dark room doing nothing?"  But everyone finally fell back asleep and we slept in til 11am.  Normally, I would've gotten everyone up at 9 or so, but I was (and still am) so sick that I lost track of reality for a while.

I'll probably post a few more updates here in the next month or so.  And I'm also going to use this blog to journal about her surgeries.  After each adoption, we turn our kids' blogs into books for them to read later in life and I think that her surgeries will be an important part of her early story.  So you aren't rid of me quite yet.

Thank you all again for all the support over the past few weeks.  We really appreciate it.