We are in Beijing

  It is 5:07 AM Thursday morning right now and I can't sleep! We are in China though!!  THANK GOODNESS! I really can't believe it!!  No delays, no cancellations of flights!  24 hours prior to flying out I was afraid the winter storm that was hitting Chicago would keep us from making our flights but it did not.  It was not the most ideal flying situation, especially landing and taking off but we made it.  I have come to realize I will be experiencing a lot of FIRST for me on this trip!  The biggest and most important one of all is ADOPTING A CHILD!!  1st time adopting and so I  would have to say lets do it again!!  But, there were others over the last 15 hours!  1st time landing in a plane where the ground, roads, even runways were completely covered in snow!  They have huge bull dozers out pushing the snow to clean paths for the planes.  It was one of the smoothest landings I have never had!!  1st time seeing the plane you are getting ready to fly to Beijing on completely covered with snow and they were having to de-ice and de-ice that plane!!   1st time truly realizing how long 14 hours is!!  Our flight from Chicago to Beijing was 13.35 hours!  It is a long time, A VERY LONG TIME!!  Rheagan was excellent however at the 2 hour mark she did ask the question--  Are we almost there??  We watch the flight path on the TV screen in front of us and it showed how far we had gone and how much farther we still needed to go.  We watched TV shows, movies, we colored and Rheagan wrote a lot in her journal!!  Luckily, it was not a full flight so we were able to spread out!!!  We have decided to try to stay awake as long as possible knowing that when we would land it would be midnight in Beijing!!  Rheagan actually beat Shawn and I on this one.  When I woke up it was 3:30 AM and the girl was still up!  I think she is just so excited like we are for the next 18 days!!  We are so thankful we are in here in our Hotel Room.  It is very nice and our guide, Emily seems very sweet.  She will be with us until we leave for Shanghai.  Today, is a relax day--Rheagan told us last night she wants to eat at McDonalds and go swimming.  And Yes, they do have a McDonalds!!  We are going to take it easy, trying to get our bodies adjusted to the time!