Day One

It is 2:30 am February 2nd and Jake cannot sleep. So I put a movie in for Jake and I'll share with you what our Day 1 was like.

Our day started out very early. We left our house at 6am and dad dropped us off at the airport. We all had butterflies in our stomach. Our flight was a bit delayed in Wichita, it had to be deiced due to the snow fall we had that morning. Two inches within 2 hours, cold and wet. We landed in Chicago around 10:15am and on our way in from the tar mack Jake slipped and fell into the slushy, ice melt dirty snow. Thankfully we were close to a bathroom so Scott and him wiped him down with little residue on his clothes. While I took care of his backpack, Tugger, the black stuffed dog that looks like Tucker, Shelley's dog, which had his head sticking out of it was wet too. Everyone is dry now, on to our next gate. Of course there was a Starbucks on our way and I treated myself to my favorite drink. We then stopped at Chili's for a snack.

Our flight to Beijing was not full at all. When we checked in in Wichita the agent suggested we upgrade to the Economy Plus for more leg room. What a great investment. You would not believe how much 5 inches really is until you sit down. It was awesome! We got settled in and up we went. My gosh, my butt flatted out at least 3 inches from sitting down for such a long time.

Food, food and more food. It seemed like very time we turned around they were serving snacks, drinks, lunch, snacks, dinner and water throughout the entire flight. The food was pretty good too, except for the green beans and carrots. It never failed, every time we were served our meal Jake had to go to the bathroom.

Scott and I cat napped off and on during the first 5 hours and Jake, he just played his GameBoy, looked at his homework, but too tired to concentrate and watched a couple of movies. Finally, at 9:30pm CST he gave in and went to sleep. Once Jake fell asleep so did we. We woke up to our last meal, lunch, 1am CST. We landed at 2:15 CST, 4:15pm, February 1st in Beijing. Customs was a breeze and we did not wait too long for our bags. We meet up with 4 families and headed to our hotel, which is beautiful. We got checked in, exchanged some money and dropped our things off in our room, and you guessed it, we went and ate. I guess it was dinner, 7:30pm Beijing, we ate a traditional meal, for us that is, pizza and pasta. It too was pretty good. No ice in our glasses, just cold soda.

Back to our room, we got settled in and off to bed. Everyone is very tired and Scott is still not feeling well. He has got quite a head cold. Hopefully after a long nights sleep he will be felling better in the morning.

Today, February 2nd we will have breakfast (we are told it is awesome, I'll let you know tomorrow), we meet up with our group at 8:30am to start some site seeing. We are going to the Forbidden City and the Summer Palace.

We'll download and post our pictures today.

Take care!