It's just like having a puppy!

We are zeroing in our last adventure of this trip...26 hours of travel an we are finally home. I've held it together for the most part but today when we were handed a certificate from the US Attorney General that said (in this order) her name, date of birth, city, state, country of birth, adoptive father, adoptive mother, date of adoption, and city, state, country of adoption it made me cry. It was all in past tense. Done. Finished. She is forever ours as recognized by the Chinese and American governments. When we land in San Francisco tomorrow, she is a legal US citizen with two parents.  And then thought of coming home began to overwhelm me. No, not the thought of traveling for hours and hours with a toddler scared me, but the overwhelming love we are coming home to. Our sweet girl has no idea how many people already love the daylights out of her and want nothing but for her to be happy and loved. We are coming home to such a huge family both literally and figuratively and I hope we always appreciate this.  Each person who reads this and many more who do not, have been so wonderful to us and we are just boring adults. I can only imagine how they will feel the first time they hear her squeal with delight or say their name.  We are also leaving an incredible family here that we built over the last two weeks.  Karen and Jeff have been with us since day one when we were both still just couples without kids.  We have bonded over first time parenting and eating more noodles than stars in the sky. We have laughed at our kids songs and delighted in people complimenting our children. We've also protected each other when we are followed by curious locals and been each other's photographer for this new chapter in our life books. Our children have become friends, pointing and smiling when they see each other and then speaking mandarin and laughing until they fall on the floor. It is probably a conversation about our parenting skills but I'll take their joy no matter why it comes. And they only say one or two words at a time so we must not be that bad. Saying goodbye to them was the only sad part of leaving but we have created bonds that will last hopefully a lifetime. Our final request is that you say a prayer that we have easy travels and we look forward to seeing you on the US side!!