The shortest distance between two points

It’s go time.

We spent the day packing, running some last-minute errands, and a saying a few farewells. I must say that K-Mom did most of the heavy lifting here… my role is clearly a support function.

One of the reasons we chose our adoption agency is because of the “travel group” set-up they have. Our travel group consists of about a dozen families, some with kids already, some without, and for one family in our group this is their second adoption from China. We will fly together, stay in the hotels together, meet our daughters together, and finish the adoption process together. We hope to make some long-term connections within our travel group so our families can stay in touch for years to come. Already K-Mom has been in frequent contact with some of the mommies regarding luggage-packing strategies.

So it’s a great set-up as far as we are concerned, but the agency is east coast based which means so are the families in our travel group. Because weekend flight schedules are limited here in Arkansas, we have to fly to Newark tomorrow in order to meet up with our travel group. On Saturday we leave for Hong Kong.

Which brings me to a question we often get asked about our trip halfway around the world: “…Do you head west, or do you head east?” The answer is: Neither. We head north. Just about due north. And that's because the fastest way to the other side of this big blue marble is over the top. It's my understanding that we will pass inside of a couple hundred miles of the north pole. In total, our flight from Newark to Hong Kong will be about 8,100 miles in sixteen hours. Yikes.

We get to Hong Kong Sunday evening, and will spend the night there. Monday a bus will take our travel group to Guangzhou and on Tuesday, “Gotcha Day”, we will have our baby at last. We are so, so, very excited.

I will do my best to keep you posted over these next few weeks. Blogspot is one of many websites blocked by the Chinese government, but I have a plan. And if that plan doesn’t work then I have a back-up plan as my dear cousin, Ms. Booty Homemaker, has agreed to post any emails I lob over the Party’s firewall.