And we're off like a herd of turtles...

Yesterday was chaos to say the least. We scrambled and packed, counted and sorted money...lots and lots of money!... and picked up and bathed dogs and did laundry and repacked and picked up some more, chased some paper for our travel package, emailed our poor case manager late in the evening in desperation on some MIA paperwork, packed some more, recounted the money .... into the wee hours of the morning. We left the house at 2:30 a.m. and headed to Mitchell. By 5:30 we were in Chicago.

Now it's time to let you in on a little secret. Our travel agent, assigned through our adoption agency, is a big giant idiot. We hate her, I mean really really hate her. I won't go into it here, this is a happy place...ha!...but here's how she rolls: She originally wanted to book us directly out of Chicago. We said, "well, it's doable but it's a two hour drive and we'd rather leave from Mitchell (Milw)". She said, "Ohhhh, OK...yes, two hours is too far to drive, I'll book you from Milw to Chicago and then directly to Beijing". Excellent. Then -- after many other things that irritated, angered, annoyed and frustrated us ... we got our final itinerary exactly 11 hours before we had to be at the airport. All in military time. Did we have time to check it? Nope. If we had it would have taken her 30 hours to get back to us anyway (her average response time) so we just figured it would be fine, how bad could it be?

After finally settling on the flight to Chicago at 5 a.m., after 3 days of little sleep followed by not going to bed at all last night.(and looking forward, oddly enough, to the 14 hour flight to China so we could finally sleep)..we had time to review the itinerary. We arrived in Chicago at 5:30 a.m. .. our flight to Beijing is at 1:00 p.m. YES. A SEVEN HOUR layover, two hours from home. We could have driven here almost 3 times. We could have gone to bed. We could have almost walked here from Milwaukee.

Did I mention how much I hate our travel agent?

But with that said, here we ARE! Full of coffee with two games of Farkle under our belt. We look comical with our money belts that are oh-so-not disguised under our shirts so full of cash they are (if you want a definition of stress look under adopting internationally and the requirement to bring 10K in cash with you overseas). I actually look pregnant because of my money belt...irony at it's best. ;) Walter is passed out on the bench next to me. We'll be boarding fairly soon so wish us luck. After this it's all smooth sailing!! (Right?...please say "right!").

Next stop, Beijing.