October 2007

Wow. I cannot believe we have been home with Jillian for a whole month now. I truly intended to do an update before now, but the time has just been flying by. And of course we were a little out of practice when it came to life with an infant so things have been a little “disorganized” around here. But all is well and we are starting to get into some more stable routines. Of course then in a couple of months I’ll go back to work and we’ll have to start over on those routines, but we’ll deal with that as it comes.

Anyway, in case you didn’t know, we all made it home in one piece. The flights home were long but for the most part uneventful. From Tokyo to Portland we were fortunate to get bulkhead seating with a bassinet. The bulkhead was wonderful with all the extra legroom, but Jillian was not interested in the bassinet at all. She really didn’t sleep very much on the way home, none of us did. So by the time we got to Portland we were wiped out! We got off the plane in Portland knowing it would be a very short 1 ½ hour layover before making our connection to Seattle. Unfortunately what should have been a speedy trip through customs/immigration with the critical “brown envelope” turned out to be a lengthy wait as no one seemed to know what to do with us, or any of the other families who also needed to be processed. After about 30-45 minutes somebody must have opened the manual because suddenly they got out their little red stamps, did whatever it was they had to do, and sent us on our way. We were one of the last families out, and were held up again when we tried to get our baggage cleared through customs so we could recheck it. We had an interesting discussion with a customs agent about Karl’s lovely new “Ping” golf clubs, got a bit of a lesson on the laws regarding the importing of “counterfeit” goods to the U.S., and were sent on our merry way, still the proud owners of two sets of made-in-China clubs. Whew. Unfortunately that lesson in economics delayed us just long enough to miss our connection to Seattle. Ouch. We were booked on the next available flight, but not until 1pm, and it was only 9:40am!! And of course our body clocks were way off…by that time we were pretty much sleep walking. We opted to make the best of it and have some good old American food, and then promptly all fell asleep while waiting for our 1pm flight. What a sight that must have been! I swear we would have missed our flight again had it not been for the nice family, also returning from China, who were kind enough to wake us up when our flight started to board. I still don’t think Brett remembers waking up and getting on that airplane!

We finally landed in Seattle to the warm welcome of my sister Sarah who took two trips to the airport that fine day, and our good friend Jug who had been kind enough to drive all the way to the airport only to wait half the day for the flight that we were “really” on! We still have that Rolex for you somewhere!

We arrived home to some beautiful balloons and a banner outside, most mysteriously delivered by my wonderful co-workers Kelly and Vicki. Thank you very much, it was a nice sight to see. Inside the house we were welcomed by more balloons, baby necessities, and big people necessities too. Doughnuts and juice never tasted so good! Thank you to JD for all of that!

Jillian is doing fabulously since arriving home. She is such a happy and loving baby. We are all having such a good time with her, and she has fit in so well to our family. We hit the ground running when we got home, with the kids heading back to school a few days later. Jillian had a chance to visit both Megan and Brett’s classrooms and received a warm welcome from all. She sees the world with such “wonderment”, which may not be a word but it is the word I think of when I see her seeing things. She just looks around, takes things in, and really seems to carefully consider what she is seeing and experiencing. It is a lot of fun to see the world through her eyes, and try to figure out what she is thinking.