What a great last day! When we arrived in Seoul, we got a hotel room for 4 hours. It was so nice getting to take a shower, give Katie a bath and spend a little family nap time together. While in the airport, we also got some Dunkin Doughnuts and a bag full of Korean chocolates because our airline gave us two vouchers for free meals. Apparently since they thought our departing flight may be delayed, they didn't want us to go hungry; too bad U.S. airlines aren't so generous! In the end, our flight ended up leaving on time after all.
We had a great flight from Seoul to L.A., then a pleasant experience going through immigration at LAX. All we had to do for Katie was present a sealed envelope from the consulate. They took it, reviewed it, then told us we would be receiving our immigration paperwork in the mail; that was it! Once we got our bags and went through customs, Kevin's brother met us at the door and we got to visit for a while.
Finally, the time came for our last flight home. The 45 min. flight from L.A. to San Francisco felt like nothing after all the flights we had been on! Katie instantly fell asleep (and had a hard time waking up when we got off the plane) but at least it gave us a chance to relax before the big reunion at SFO.
At 3:30, we stepped off the last airplane of our long journey. As we did, we asked the pilot if we could take a commemorative photo with Katie in the cockpit; he was happy to let us. When we were explaining that we had just adopted Katie, the stewardess overheard our conversation and told us that she had also adopted a girl from Kazakhstan. It really is a small world.
As we walked down the terminal and headed for baggage claim where everyone was waiting, we breathed a sigh of relief knowing that we were finally home. After almost two months of being away, we were glad that it was finally over, and extremely happy that God helped us make it home.
(The pictures and summary from our reunion in the airport will be posted as a separate day...check back soon)