Travel Journal - Day 1

We’re Off!!

October 26th. The journey has begun on this cool morning from Worthington, MN. Hoping to ease our connecting flight in MLPS we caught the first flight out of Sioux Falls. All went well and we arrived in MPLS. After a quick breakfast the girls went on there first excursion. We had enough time allowing them to do a little pre-trip shopping at The Mall of America. I hope we don’t have another carry-on when they arrive back at the airport. That was as far as Dana got with the journal entry!! As I am typing this first entry in our journal, our plane has just gone over Edmonton, Alberta. We are approximately 3 hours into our flight. While sitting here thinking about what is ahead of us, I can’t help but smile thinking about the day before we were to take off. The outpouring of well wishes, phone calls, hugs from super friends, and knowing that we have so many friends praying for us is absolutely awesome!!! Mom and dad too, expressed the wonderful support they received from their special friends. We are just so thankful to our awesome God for leading us on this journey and supplying us with so many friends who are thinking about us and praying for us! Keep it up!! I keep thinking about how Taya is going to have her whole world turned upside down in a matter of days. Being taken from the only person she has really known, her foster mother, and handed over to total strangers will be so traumatic for her. Hopefully she will see in a short time the overwhelming love that we have for her and her heart will open up to us. We are sooooo close to holding your little sister boys!! ( : The plane flight over hasn’t been that bad so far (only 3 hours into our 16 total hours in the air!) We will be flying into Tokyo, Japan, have a one hour lay over, and then fly 4 more hours to Beijing. I’ll add more when we get to the hotel……….. Well, we got to Tokyo fine, and changed flights to get to Beijing. Mom and Dad had business class the first leg of the trip (we get it coming home), but they had us use the business class seats for the last 3 hour leg. Let me tell you, business class is GREAT. The seats recline to a flat position, and we were treated like royalty! What a treat, and a great way to get some shut eye. Our flight into Beijing arrived on schedule, and we easily went through customs and got our baggage. As we were exiting the baggage area our guide Sheri was waiting with a sign for us. There was one other woman who brought her sister and brother in law along that were with us. We are here a day ahead of the others, and Sheri informed us that tomorrow she will be going to the airport a total of six times to get families that are arriving to join our group. There are 27 families in all that will be here to get their daughters. Even with the short ride to our hotel Sheri gave us a lot of information. The one special piece that I will share with you all is that we leave on Monday at 11:00 to fly to Nanchang to get our daughters (12 families going to that province) and we will receive them at the hotel at 4:30. She informed us that babies from the Jiangxi province are known to be very small in stature. Possible world class gymnast?? I don’t know!! ( : Our hotel is very nice and we have the day tomorrow to rest up before touring starts on Saturday. There is a Walmart (not the real name) 1 minute away as well as a KFC and Pizza Hut. We may try to venture out a little bit tomorrow afternoon sometime. Well, we are headed to bed. We will post again tomorrow.

Dustin and Jonah….we love you and miss you!!! It won’t be long til we are home, but we know you are having a great time with your friends!! Talk to you tomorrow hopefully on the panda phone. We haven’t gotten it yet, so wait for us to call you the first time.

Until tomorrow… Amy and Dana

**Jonah, You need to email us and let us know how your football team did in the playoffs!! How has "Camp Hagen" been? Of course I’m sure that you haven’t even thought about playing Xbox with your best buddy? RIGHT!! I’m sure you’re having a super time!! **Dustin, Don’t be too hard on the Vande Kamps!! Make sure that Austin takes you out to do chores with him. He said that there was a lot of scooping to do, and I’m sure that can help with your conditioning for hockey!! ( :

Please pray : That we all stay healthy That Taya will adjust to us easily That we have a safe trip That our boys and wonderful friends watching them have a healthy and safe 2 weeks while we are gone.