3 years ago today...

ross and i began our 16 day journey to china to meet and adopt xixi.

the above photo was taken at bwi at around 4:00am. 6 of my beloved hopkins students jumped out from behind a large plant near the air canada desk and gave us a wonderful surprise send off on our 20 hour journey to china.

the days preceding our trip were a blur of activity. we got "the travel call" only 72 hours prior to arriving at the airport. my dad had given us his frequent flyer miles so we were able to fly for free (YAY!) but spent several hours on the phone with USAir buying and rebuying tickets for our flight.

the floor of our basement was covered in travel items- clothes for 3, diapers, medicine of all sorts, cheerios, important documents...all to be packed in 2 suitcases and 2 carry on bags.

13.5 months of paperchasing, praying, hoping and waiting were coming down to the wire-

a plane trip over the north pole and 6 days in beijing were all that separated us from a country we had begun to love and adopt as our own , becoming parents, and xixi at last having a family....

it's hard to remember what life was like before that plane trip

we can't wait until our next farewell departure to china!!!