Letting bygones be bygones

I told you all in an earlier post that soon I would fill you in on the rest of our China trip and the 30 hour journey home to Missouri. Well friends, I'm thinking it may not happen. I would LOVE to reminisce with you about the last week of our trip and fill in the details with the incredible sites we captured on film. But...I think I might just skip it.

I'm soooooo sorry. I know, it's terrible of me. But as great as some of the memories are, there are other memories I would rather forget. The illnesses (all 3 of us at one time or another), the stuggles with bonding, the fears and tears (mostly Noelle's...), the miserable 30 hour marathon flight home (with motion sickness), the squatty potty facilities w/out t.p. (actually, you sorta get used to them after your 5th or 6th time), etc. Our 2 weeks in China, however, DID bring us to some dear, precious families who will always be special friends to us and Noelle. We loved our guides - Rosa, Maggie, and Jane. We saw some fabulous sites that delighted and amazed us (I still can hardly believe we climbed the Great Wall!!). And, of course, we were given the gift of a lifetime - Noelle JiaZhen.

You see, I would rather look forward than backward. I am blessed to be back in our own house with our sweet daughter and my wonderful husband. I am blessed to be back in our town with our friends and worshipping with our church congregation (more like our family). I am blessed to be eating good ol' American food and sleeping in my sleep number bed. I am blessed to snuggle on the couch with my family and our 3 cats. I am blessed to have 2 marvelous parents and 2 fabulous parents-in-law, and a whole host of great siblings (in-law) and nieces and nephews. I am just blessed!

So if Eric and Noelle decide to take a vacation without me and I'm just bored to tears, I might take the 39 hours needed to post all the photos from the trip (dial-up, remember) and write a travelogue. Otherwise my sugestion is this. If you really want to see photos or hear stories from the trip, check out the blogs of the Denzel Family and the Woods family (fellow Hefei-ers), or some of the other AWAA families who traveled in mid-March. Several of them have written in great detail about the whole experience, and some even have photos/video of our family. Happy blog viewing!