We are here! After 26 hours of travel, we are settled in our hotel and ancipating getting our daughter. We are very thankful for all of the prayers and well wishes for our journey.

We said our goodbyes to the 3 amigos at my parents house on Friday afternoon. They handled it really well. Owen is our worrier and we could tell he was a little anxious. He had asked me earlier if there was a way they could bring Lydia to us. Faith was so sweet hugging Brian bye. She held on for the longest time and said she didn't want him to leave. Cade has surprisingly handled us leaving very well which is surprising since he is our sensitive child. Brian and I stayed up the whole night packing and preparing the house for the kids. We left some surprises for them and my mom in the kitchen. We also left small gifts for them to open throughout the trip. We have already face timed with them several times. Owen has had many questions and we have loved him being so interested in everything. I am doing really good emotionally. Last trip I could not speak to our kids without crying, so...so far so good. We will see as the trip progresses. We flew from Birmingham to Detroit then to Beijing then Taiyuan. I enjoyed watching several movies and sleeping on and off. Brian did not fair so well. For the first time in all his travels, had motion sickness and threw up on our landing in Beijing. There was alot of turbulance and many people became sick. We meet our guide at the Taiyuan airport. Her name is CoCo, seems young and is very sweet. She traveled with us to our hotel and went over our schedule. Our hotel is extremely nice and roomy. All of the personel have been very polite and speak English well. We settled in last night and had a great nights sleep. Breakfast was good and now we are hanging out in the room before going to exchange money and grab a bite to eat. We leave here at 2:10 to meet our guide and head to the Civil Affairs building to get Lydia. Lydia has a 5 hour train ride to where we are. Her orphange is in Jinchang City and we are in Taiyuan. Taiyuan is a large city with alot of activity and many tall buildings.

We are soooo excited to get our girl. Through out our adoption we have been told what Lydia can not do. We have peace we are in God's will for our lives and are hopeful for what Lydia can do. We are prepared and are ready to teach Lydia how to love and give her everything she needs to be live the life God has planned for her. We truly love her soo much! She is chosen, pursued and loved.   I know it will be hard. There will be days we have to choose love. There will also be days of pure bliss. We are so excited to watch God work in Lydia's life and change us in the process.