Home Sweet Home

I feel like its been forever since we said goodbye to Korea. Its been a busy and tiring 48 hours. We drove to the airport in Seoul during the daylight hours this time. Its so beautiful - mountains, valleys, inlets of water and rivers. I would love to go back to Korea and explore the areas outside of Seoul to see the smaller cities and landscape.

Our flight left on time and we were off to Tokyo. It was a very surreal feeling for me to leave Seoul with this baby on my lap. When the wheels went up it really started to sink in for me - we are taking him half way around the world, away from his country, and we are his family. All of the sudden I felt an awesome sense of pride and responsibility (mostly responsibility!) for this little person who is now ours. Wondering what the future holds and looking forward to our homecoming.

I wont get into the gory (and I mean GORY) details about the Tokyo to Detroit flight except to say that nobody slept, one of us had a digestive "situation", two of us had to change clothes, two of us were yelling - me to the flight attendants and Alex to everyone on the plane, and two of us were crying pretty much the whole way home. It was the longest 11 hours of my life and our arms are very tired from rocking a 25 pound baby the entire time. Poor kid. He had a tummy ache, and was exhausted and sad. We felt so badly for him. I am begging all of you to NOT fly Northwest/Delta airlines on your next trip ... you'll be better off. What a poor excuse for an airline. I have never experienced such rudeness and poor customer service before.

Once we arrived in Detroit he perked up and was very happy. He loves the USA! We had to wait for quite awhile to get through immigration due to a "national computer issue". And, the guy who was working the booth had no idea what to do with our adoption paperwork. We almost missed our flight to Omaha but we ran through the airport and made it. Then when we got to the gate they told us it was overbooked and we may get bumped. GAH! So we waited some more and they finally got us on. We were so happy. We were off to Omaha. Well, almost, Alex had a dirty diaper and they had to hold the plane at the gate until I changed it! (see paragraph above re: the "digestive situation").

We had a wonderful homecoming in Omaha. It's all such a blur... we were so tired. I remember Adam running towards us with a sign and a flag and his "I'm the big brother" shirt on. He was, and still is, soooo excited to have us home and to have a little brother. It was so nice to see everyone there to greet us.

Once we got home, we ate some Nebraska beef (no more Korean barbeque for awhile!). Tim had a peanut butter sandwich and I had some cheerios. It was heaven! Alex went to sleep great and slept for 2 whole hours! It was playtime at the Brown house. Tim and I traded off playing with him until about 6:30 am. Then it was time for Adam to get up. :o). It will take some time to adjust to life with two kids, but we are really having fun so far. Alex loves to watch Adam and giggle. Adam LOVES to entertain Alex. First off when we woke up, Adam taught Alex all there is to know about Star Wars - he sang the theme song, dressed up like Darth Vader and watched the movie. Alex was very polite and listened attentively. Tonight we went on our first walk around the neighborhood in the stroller. It went well, and Alex loves to be outdoors.

Alex is a little afraid of Buster and Charlie, so we are working up to the grand entrance of our other dog, Buddy in a couple days. Buddy is much more aggressive and playful so I think Alex may have difficulty with him at first, but they will be fast friends.

I took a 3 hour nap this afternoon so I am feeling pretty well rested. Tim is going to bed early tonight. We will try to get some sleep before our little guy decides to wake up for playtime again! Here are some homecoming photos. Not sure why they are showing up here so small in size - I'll work on that.