Greetings from Beijing!

What an amazing day. And it just never seems to end. About 28 hours ago we got up, dropped the kids off at farm school and headed to the airport. The flight, all told, was relatively easy. We met our friends Andrea and Laura at the gate who just happened to be on the same flight to Chicago with us. Then in Chicago we met our travel partner, Laura and had to run through O'Hare to make it to our Beijing flight on time. We got on the jetway and they closed the door behind us.

The flight took about 13 hours and we were surprised to learn that we were flying straight up and over the North Pole, then down over Siberia to land in Beijing. Somehow we had imagined something more westward, like L.A. to Tokyo, but when the first map of our progress appeared on the screen and showed us over the Hudson Bay, we figured otherwise. Fittingly (or ironically) we watched the movie "Eight Below" about a bunch of sled dogs in the Antarctic. We took naps, ate, read, walked around, did some Sudoku and the next thing we knew, we were landing.

Our guide is named Iko. She is a Chinese woman who speaks very good English and has been very patient and helpful with us. She had a van waiting to take us to the hotel where we napped for a few hours and then we were taken to a Chinese Acrobatics show and to dinner at a Chinese restaurant.

Right before we left the room for the show, we checked our email to find that Grace's foster family had emailed us back and sent pictures. So the $40,000 question is...is it the same girl from the photos? And the answer is.....no, but she's pretty darn cute her own self and her lip has been repaired none-the-less. So we're re-adjusting to a new image in our heads and getting ready to go get our Gracie on Monday. The letters from her foster family have been so warm and reassuring, so we are really looking forward to meeting them and learning all about Grace.

Tomorrow we will see the Great Wall and Tiananmen Square with Iko. So now, even though it's almost noon home time and midnight here, we are going to try to get some sleep. I'll post the new pictures so that you all can start recognizing her as well. We will also be taking down the post with the other pictures since we will soon have many more accurate ones to put up.

By the way we are adding this part later. We have discovered that we are able to publish to our blog but we are not able to view it from here. It is apparently blocked within China (a bit too much freedom of speech I guess) so I don't know what it looks like, but can only assume that it's posting the way I want. Please email us with any info and comments at shojnacki@sbcglobal.net since we can't read the comments on the blog.