We are alive.....

We are alive, it just doesn't seem like we have been the past 2 1/2 days since we got home. Things have been a blur but have been great.

First, the welecome at the airport was incredible. Many people in the adoption community have strong opinions against big welcome parties so we struggled with what to do about that. So many people wanted to see him and we wanted to see familar faces so in the end we decided to invite everyone. Every situation is different but we are 100% sure we made the right one. Thank each and every one of you that came out there and we heard from so many who couldn't make it and we missed you and hope to see everyone soon. Our friends Matt and Meredith took pictures and put together a slide show. You can view Matt's website here and our slideshow here.

Malachi has adjusted extremely well, especially considering the circumstances. For those of you at the airport he was not himself and remained in zombie stage pretty much until yesterday morning. Since then he has gone 90 mph. If we could just get these horrible diapers gone things would be great. Also he has this habit of waking up once a night, so if we could end that we would appreciate it as well:) Just kidding, we were so lucky with Leah pretty much sleeping through the night from very early on this once a night thing has been rough on us. We do know we are extremely lucky with this as well.

Leah is a great big sister. I'm off work today and when I went to get her out of her room her first words were, "Where's Malachi", not "Where's mommy" like they usually are. She loves him to death. We've experienced some slight jealousy and regression but we've been pretty lucky. We missed her so much and are so glad to be home.

Sarah and I are doing good our selves. Flyright does work for a jet lag formula so if you are traveling overseas we reccomend it. The flight back was great and Malachi was a piece of cake. He slept most of the way and the other time he just sat on our lap and played with his toys. We aren't really jetlagged too much except for going to bed early and getting up early. Hopefully as we get into a "routine" the next few days we will do better. We tried going to eat at Chilli's on Saturday, DISASTER, we tried Wal Mart today, BETTER, but not great.

We owe a ton of thanks to everyone who helped make this process possible. We appreciate each and everyone one of you. Most of all though thank you to our families. Sarah's parents gave up two weeks to come take care of Leah and watch our house. We are so thankful for that and Leah loved it, we can tell. Also thanks to my parents who left this morning. Without them yesterday we might not have made it. We pretty much hit the wall yesterday both physically and mentally. They watched the kids why we just zoned out. Thanks again to everyone.

My only complaint about the whole trip is our US Customs department. This is very arrogant of me I know but there is no reason why I should wait in line 2 hours with only 6 people ahead of me. Make the process simpler or add a line for adoptive parents or American citizens sponsoring immigrants. My wife sat covered in leaking baby diaper for 2 hours while the customs officers, who worked as fast as typical government workers, tried to assist people who could speak no english and had no idea what help the needed. So frustrating. Other than that our trip was awesome. All our suitcases made it both ways, ALL six of our flights arrived EARLY at every destination, our agency was great, and our hotel, well it was ok.

We'll post some more about our trip and our thoughts/reflections on the trip and then we'll shut down this blog and start a new blog about our family of four.

Later,
Adam