Hong Kong, and then Finally, Finally Home...

The beginning of the end started two days ago, when we finally waved goodbye to our wonderful friends in Kunming and hopped on the plane to Hong Kong, the last leg of the trip.

{She's Chinese and she sort of knows how to use chopsticks.}

The plane landed along an island runway that was right on the shore of the ocean, with the outlines of mountains in the distance. After we went through customs, we drove into the city and passed by literally hundreds of high-rise apartment buildings, built into the green mountains that cover Hong Kong island.

{View from the hotel window; typical Hong Kong.}

We arrived at the beautiful Conrad Hotel, where we met our cousin, Susie, who had arranged everything for us to have a pleasant stay on our last night in China, and ate lunch by the pool. Then, while Jay, Angelle, Rebekah and Anna took a nap for a while, Micah and I left with Susie to drive around and experience what little bit of Hong Kong we could before leaving in the morning.

{Our Hong Kong tour guide and wonderful cousin, Susie. Thank you so much for everything!}

We drove all the way to the southern end of the island and back up to the northern end where the city (and our hotel) was, passing beautiful villas and compounds built into the sides of the mountains, overlooking bays and inlets and the other, smaller islands that dotted the horizon out in the distance. After stopping at Susie's apartment and seeing the amazing view there, we stopped by a beach nearby to get our feet wet in the Pacific Ocean.

{At the beach...and loving it.}

We stopped by the hotel afterwards, picked up everyone else and headed out to the nearest tourist attraction, The Peak, where we could see the Hong Kong skyline and had a candlelight dinner overlooking the bay.

{View from the Peak, daytime.}

After dinner, we took one last look at Hong Kong's beautiful skyline and boarded the famous Peak Tram to head down the mountain back to our hotel. We even managed to find our way back to the hotel by using Susie's directions and asking a few policemen along the way.

{Us on the tram, a little tired.}

{View of the night skyline from the Peak. Simply amazing.}

Hong Kong is a very, very amazing city (interesting fact: I could actually access the blog in Hong Kong and read through the comments, but due to our short stay could not post while we were there) and was a nice close to our long, somewhat hard, but very memorable trip here in China.

And now, for special thanks for special people who helped us through a special trip...

To our amazing trip coordinator, Elsie. We definitely could not have done this without you and we appreciate your longstanding patience. I will always remember that look you gave us, the numerous times we walked up as you were standing there, waiting for us, by the bus.

To Cindy, Aggie and Rebecca, our local guides in Beijing, Guiyang and Guangzhou respectively, thank you for your support and your friendship!

{Amazing Kunming friends, with Micah and I.}

{More amazing Kunming Friends, with Angelle and Rebekah.}

To our amazing friends in Kunming and their wonderful support staff and precious children- thank you for welcoming us into your lives for such a short period. It was such a great experience being able to visit for a few days.

{Me, blogging.}

Thank you so much, to our cousin Susie for taking us around Hong Kong and understanding where we were at the end of a such a long and hard trip. We enjoyed our time, although it was very short, very, very much.

I cannot say enough about our Baton Rouge support team during the Guangzhou crisis....but, here goes...

To the wonderful Jerrie LeDoux, Ginger Stringer, our social worker, Paula Davis, Mr. Joshi, Dr. Elofson, and all of our friends at the offices of our Senators and Congressman...thank you so, so much, again.

To our precious grandparents, Momee and Papa, thank you so much for all you have done while we have been gone. Your welcome presentation made coming home all the more special.

{Papa's 'Welcome Home' Sign. The Chinese was so good, we thought it must have been a Sumrall sign. Good job, Papa! The Chinese says 'Welcome Home!'}

To my great friends: Pairrain, Caroline, and Aunt Vicki, the skypemasters (Aunt Vicki has been trying to get me on skype for a while). Thank you for helping us to set everything up and to communicate more directly with so many people. That encouraged us so, so much!

To our wonderful Chinese tutor, Mrs. Ling Zhang, who prepared us as much as she could for the language barrier in China. We hope we made you proud! :)

To my very good friend, and your very own Blog Editor, Kevin Roddy. You do not understand how much we appreciate what you do. You turned a censorship problem in a foreign country into something that touched people all across the country, and touched our family so very much. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

To all of those who prayed, supported and gave to our family...too many to name, but it meant so much to us. Thank you so much!

Now, we are finally, finally home with six people in our home, taking a good, long rest. Stay tuned for a few more pictures of Anna in the days to come.

To all who followed us the 8357 miles, it was a wonderful trip in so many ways. Thank you for letting us share our story. Anna is home, at last.