God is Good, All the Time

I thought about calling this post "Get me off this ride so I can throw up", but God was good to us in so many ways yesterday that we do need to give Him the credit for getting us through the day. We had what was probably our first relaxing morning yesterday since arriving in China. We had nothing to do!

It was snowing outside and cold so we just hung out in our hotel room playing with Futing. Nice! We met our guide at 1:40 to check out and then went up to the hotel playroom to wait until we were to leave for the airport at 3:00. (We were to fly from Shenyang to Guangzhou, as planned.)

We cleaned up the playroom and went down to the lobby at 3:00 only to be told by our driver to come back at 3:30 ... so back up to the playroom we went. We came down at 3:30 only to be told our flight was delayed and we would leave at 4:30 ... so back up to the playroom we went. (Did you ever see the movie "Groundhog Day"?) We came down at 4:30 and thankfully got in the van and went to the airport.

Arrived at the airport and checked in our bags only to have my hairspray and shaving cream raise the attention of airport security. Our guide helped us convey that they were not dangerous. (We love Maggie!)

We were then told we had to hurry that our plane could leave at any moment, so we went running through security carrying our bags and Futing and got to our gate only to find ... no plane! I started to panic a little thinking we had missed the flight. No one around us spoke English. Jeremy asked a few people near us as best he could. A Chinese business man gave us a little reassurance, and a very nice woman who spoke English quite well "just happened" to strike up a conversation with us. She was a real God-send! When our flight was announced, there was a surge of people towards the gate and she was able to confirm for us that we were headed in the right direction. We had not missed our flight. We knew that all the flights were delayed because of the snow ... what we didn't know is that all of the electronic departure signs were not being updated to reflect the new information!

Finally, at 6:30 PM we boarded the plane. Futing was great. There were a few issues with him kicking the seat in front of him. But not too bad. When the cabin lights dimmed, he started to have a "mama moment" and we reassured him and gave him his coat to hang on to. (He doesn't like the dark, we think.) He finally fell asleep. Our flight landed at about 10:45. We got to the hotel about 11:30 PM and Futing who was asleep in my arms proceeded to pee all over me while Jeremy checked us in. What can you do but laugh and take a shower?

We got up to the room to discover a crib and 2 single beds. Futing is too big for a crib so we are going to have to make do. Maybe we'll figure out something better in the morning.

All right, that's it for now. We better rest while we can.