Our Joy Filled Journey: Go Home Day

The Asiana captain with Luke

Since almost the day we met Luke, he’s been asking/telling us “Go Home”. Sometimes it means he wants to go back to the hotel or move on to the next thing, but sometimes it’s a question about when we’re going to America. Well, today is “Go Home” day.

The trip has been long for everyone, but I have to imagine it has been longest for Luke. While things like the Safari Park and Disneyland are fun, I’m sure he just wants to move forward and get to America. And it will be good to “Go Home” and start family life with the seven of us. While traveling, the family dynamics are always a bit different – sometimes better and sometimes worse. I love the aspect of spending time together and not having to worry about work or the daily concerns of life since it allows more time to focus on everyone. But always being together and not being on a normal routine can create tensions and frustrations. So Luke has probably seen the best and worst of us as a family and he’s still willing to be a part of it all so that’s a good start.

The Blechacz family followed us to Hong Kong, arriving at the Sky City Marriott yesterday. We saw their family of eight at breakfast this morning all dressed in red outfits with "Hong Kong Disneyland" logos. They are headed to Disneyland before leaving on Sunday.

Luke in Chicago, officially a US citizen now

After breakfast, we finished up packing and took the shuttle to the airport. The check in took a long time because they were having trouble entering Luke’s visa into the system. Normal visas allow a stay of a certain length and generally require a return date or round trip ticket. But his IH3 visa is essentially a one-time, one-way visa. Apparently the computer system, at least for Asiana, was not easily accepting that. But eventually we got checked in. Our flight to Seoul was delayed by about 40 minutes so we had a little extra time at the airport. The check in area of Hong Kong International reminds me of Seoul/Incheon International with a large hall and aisles for carrier check in. I didn't spend too much time exploring the rest of the airport as I was trying to catch up with the blog, but it seems to be a shopping center than also happens to handle air traffic. We walked by several high end stores on our way to the gate and Cami and Dana spent some time shopping for last minute souvenirs.

Luke was excited to get off the ground in Hong Kong and the flight to Seoul was uneventful – about three hours. His one request was a window seat and with seven seats on the aircraft, we had a couple of window seats for him to choose from.

Luke enjoyed his window seat

Setting sun near Korea

Once we arrived in Seoul, we had to go through a screening process in order to transfer to our other international flight, but we did not have to go through immigration or customs, which was a first for us at Incheon International. We waited a little over an hour to board our next flight. The flight to Chicago took a while to get off the ground. We were a bit late leaving the gate and then sat on the runway waiting for a take off slot. After a long day of travel, we finally arrived in Chicago around 7:45pm, about 30 minutes late.

It was good to be back on American soil, but we weren't able to go home yet. We had to clear customs and immigration and I knew it would take longer because Luke's paperwork needed to be processed. We were finally released around 8:45pm where we were greeted by Grandma and Grandpa Meier (Bruce & Bonnie), Brian, Stacy and Hank Raemisch, and our driver Stefan Wahe, a dad of three adopted kids, host of Jacob and tireless advocate for children who need a forever family. Grandma had hugs and kisses for everyone including Luke and had packed little snack bags for the ride home. Ben rode with his buddy Hank in the Raemisch car while we piled our luggage and everyone else into our van. It was nice to be behind the wheel with a small sense of control after being driven around in crazy traffic for the last three weeks.

Ian and Luke sleeping

Our journey wasn't over yet. When we rolled in to our driveway a little before midnight, there was another surprise waiting for us. Some of our friends had offered to remake a room in our house, but we were not ready for the surprise they had waiting for us. The whole dining room, living room, kitchen, and our bedroom were transformed. The dining area had been repainted with a mock blackboard, several walls had been painted a light blue, pictures from our trip were hanging on the wall, the living room table was white and Dana's Midwest Airlines chairs were up in the bedroom. The house looked amazing. I'm pretty sure we threatened the kids with severe punishment if they messed it up that night.

Everyone was excited to be home and it took a while to calm down and get into bed. We were finally home - the journey has begun!