sat: heading home

one last spin through the play park, one last swim in the pool...and our second adoption, which we started working on when xia was exactly fuxi's age six-and-a-half years ago, was done.

we were nervous and elated and cranky and pissy -- and we managed to laugh at ourselves (and one another) a good bit. at least this time, neither jeff nor i screeched, "don't let the baby fall off the bed!" only to find that baby soon, indeed, managed to fall off the bed. (though fuxi did slide into the space between the bed and the wall on jeff's watch at one point, and while he got a bit tense, she was completely nonplussed and was extracted without incident... by mama.)

i dream of a day we can take the girls back to china and live for a year. luckily, we're so old that we may be able to do that after we retire -- and before fuxi is out of high school...!

the 12 hours from hong kong to los angeles weren't as horrific as they could have been, based on the train debacle... but they were not comfortable, and the big people did not get very much sleep. (i did finally get to see "the artist," which is an awesome movie, as the little one squirmed.)

and then, there it was. the brilliant afternoon sunshine glittering over the city of angels. the air was crystal clear and downtown la rose majestically against the mountains... the ribbons of highway tied into bows made my heart leap a bit. we presented all our paperwork to the good immigration folk, and fuxi was soon admitted as an american citizen. welcome home.

our adventures weren't exactly over: know that there is wally park, and wally park express.

when we finally made our way back to the car, we buckled fuxi into her brand new car seat (i managed not to pinch her chubby little legs with the belt buckles) and were off. we had to stop to get an oc register of course, which happened to take us near an in-n-out burger, which required us to introduce the girls to the quintessential socal meal.... seriously, we don't do burgers much, but that one tasted pretty good.

dogs were all in one piece and extremely happy to see us -- thanks to melissa and kristen and diane for looking after them for us.

now, the real adventure begins.