Thanks to everyone who followed our blog as we traveled through China. At long last, we are back home. In the end, everything worked out fine in China and all the paperwork was successfully completed. We also had a very good experience on the long flight back. Once we arrived, we've had to take a little time to settle in again - we were all jet lagged and we also all caught colds, so Natalie got to go to her first US Doctor. Due to these changes, we had to take a little break from blogging, but based on everyone's requests for more Natalie photos, we've just now added 14 new pictures, even one of her crying.
Since we've been back in Dallas, the weather has been warm and sunny, which is quite a contrast from when we were in China (we only saw the sun for part of two days during our 2 weeks there). Natalie has had to get used to the sunlight. The biggest struggle so far has been with the time difference (14 hours). Natalie has had some trouble adjusting, but she's doing much better today (day #8). During the last few days, we have had to learn how to deal with a whole new variety of baby maintenance (i.e. nasal congestion, stomach upset, nail trimming, irritated skin, cold medicine delivery, etc. - of course, there's always diaper changing, which has remained more or less constant).
