We are home!

We left our apartment in Moscow at 8am Saturday morning, that’s 11pm CST, for our 11:40am flight. But, our flight was delayed, first an hour and twenty minutes, then it turned it all chaos, and everyone cheered when the plane finally left the ground at 3:30.

We did get to make some new friends at the airport! My friend Jennifer is adopting, too. This girl is so sweet and so much fun. Go show her some love?

That’s our plane, waiting to find out what was going to happen with it.

He really loved watching all of the vehicles on the tarmac.

Gus is an awesome flyer. But, I was so grateful to have my mom to help me wrangle him on the plane. He barely cried at all, and after 9 hours, we made it to JFK. We had a good experience with customs there. We were about 3rd from the last in the line, but knowing we had a baby and an international adoption, we were quickly moved to the front of the line, before we even had the opportunity to ask.

Dancing to the Muppet Movie.

Playing on the floor.

Very excited about becoming a US Citizen.

From JFK, my dad picked us up and drove us to my parents’ house, where we spent the night. Gus got to briefly meet his cousins, aunts, uncle and grandpa. And one of my best friends.

Meeting his cousins.

Yesterday morning, I got up to find my laundry dried and folded, Gus’s bottles, bowls and spoon washed, and a bunch of new food for him to take on the plane. My mom is so thoughtful and made it so easy for me to get ready this morning.

I was so grateful we flew out of a tiny airport… going through security was so easy. Our flight went smoothly. He was awesome. Snack trap cups with yogurt drops or rice puffs worked great. He was busy with his hands and his mouth.

Our layover was in Chicago. They have a little “Children’s Museum”, which is like a play area for kids, which stuff about flying and planes. We hung out in there for awhile, so he could burn off some energy.

Then… home. My friend Danae filmed this for us.

Gus fell asleep in the car on the way home. He was so, so tired, and slept until about 2am last night. Then, he was up for about 2 hours, before I made him go back to sleep. Partly to help him adjust to our timezone, and partly because I was exhausted.

I can’t wait to tell you how Reed and Lena have been with him, but that could be another blog post. I am so proud of them!