Greetings from Las Vegas

Made it back stateside -- to Las Vegas for Christmas weekend.

As we boarded bus taking us from White Swan Hotel to Guangzhou Airport, one guy sighed, "Good-by, China; hello drinks-on-ice." Everybody ready to get home, particularly new parents starting up life with their adopted daughters.

We flew from Guangzhou to Hong Kong, then changed planes for flight to LAX. All went pretty smoothly. Lots of empty seats on the long flight: Susie and I spread out over four seats. Jeff, Valerie, and Malia had two sets of three seats, each set with an aisle seat, and we were right behind them, so that made moving Malia around quite convenient. Flight had tail wind, so we arrived after about 12 hours, nearly an hour early.

Our departure time was 130 pm, China time (Did you know all of China is one time zone - Beijing's?). Malia slept the first couple of hours, then was awake for the duration. I don't think J, V, or I slept at all; Susie had a couple of short naps. Valerie spent a lot of time standing and walking with Malia -- think she (Malia) had a little tummy distress. (I'm typing this from Las Vegas library and didn't bring my camera, so unfortunately, can't attach any pictures. Later.)

We arrived in LA about 900am, Friday. Lots of uncertainty for Jeff and Valerie flying to Denver, but their flight did go eventually, after some mechanical delays. In Denver, though, their friend who was to pick them up was unable to get to the airport. So, it was a $100 cab ride home, but cab was able to handle the roads.

We were scheduled out of LAX at 300pm, so with that amount of layover time, we thought we might catch an earlier flight. Wrong! We hadn't figured on the Southwest Airlines check-in scene. Long lines, winding in and out of the terminal building, first to get boarding passes and baggage tags, then to send bags thtough x-ray, then to get ourselves through screening. Must have been the busiest travel day of the year -- Friday before Christmas! If we had tried to change flights, we would have had to work our way through another line, but with the crowds traveling, the chances of finding earlier seats available seemed pretty remote. So, we just congratulated ourselves for having reserved seats and not choosing to play the stand-by, fly-free game, and went with the flow. Daughter Mandi, as I'm sure most of you know, works for Southwest Airlines, so we have great sympathy for airline workers at times like these, and other times, too. Anyhow, we got checked in in about an hour and a half and had time for a leisurely lunch and chill-out period before the flight to Vegas.

Slight hitch on the other end as our baggage didn't get in to the terminal for about an hour after we landed, but it was great to see Heidi and get to her house around 600 pm. I think that was a mere 27 hours from the time we left the White Swan. Time for some Ambien-aided sleep.

Some wrap-up notes later.

Cheers.

Rob and Susie