Here safely

Hello from Beijing.  We are here and we are (mostly) alive. With dad it is a near thing. He is incredibly stiff and sore. I feel bad at how rough the trip has been on him. Catching the family up on what all has happened.
Monday while preparing to leave I realized Baby Bug had all the symptoms of a UTI, so off to the doctor we went. Yup she has one. As well as putting her on antibiotics, I got the lecture about keeping her hydrated on the trip, not an easy thing. I also scraped my finger while putting up Mei Meis crib. It was so small I barely noticed I had done it, and certainly didn’t stop to do anything about it. Tuesday morning when I woke up my finger was sore I glanced at it to find a blister that was shooting off red fingers. Sigh, I lanced it ant put polysporin on it and a band aid. Then Baby Bug woke up with a cold. On travel day, with over 20 hours in the air, she has a cold. So know I am wondering about ear pain.  S my brother, had come up to help us get ready (THANK YOU S!!!) and called to see if we could bring 4oz bottles of cold medicine on the plane with us, the answer was not without a doctors note. So off to the doctors again to get the note. I have a wonderful doctor’s office, so they just had it waiting for me to pick up. Then it was home to load the car. S and dad had to fit the luggage like a jigsaw puzzle. We had been told to be to the airport 3 hours early because security was heightened for September 11th. We planned on 2 ½ as we couldn’t picture it being too bad at SLC. We could have planed for 30 min. and been fine. We sat and waited in a nearly empty terminal. Baby Bug was good but busy. The gal at the gate was having fun watching her. She told us her son and daughter in law were waiting for a referral from China. She the proceeded to pre board us ahead of every one else.  After we boarded the flight, Baby Bug wanted to know if we were there yet, because she was tiered and wanted to go to bed. She then proceeded to inform us that flying was boring, boring, boring, and she only wanted to fly in helicopters from now on. LOL. For all that she was well enough behaved. In LAX the 3 hour 20 min layover was just enough time to get checked through and use the rest room. We were able to get seats reassigned together. It turns out that the flight was about half empty. All the flight attendants were great and spoiled Baby Bug. One in particular fell in love with her and gave her chocolates and let us use the business class bathroom. You would not believe how good Baby Bug was! She entertained herself most the flight. The only down side was that she only slept about three hours. But she was so good that dad and I had the option of sleeping. I slept less than Baby Bug though. Dad did better, but still didn’t get much rest, and he needs it more than Baby Bug and I. I did fine until the last little while, and then I went in to a doozy of a migraine. I was not fully functioning. We deboarded at HK to find that the stroller clips (to hold two umbrella strollers together) had not all made it through to HK. We had to wait for the check in counter to open, and while watching for the China Air counter to open, didn’t realize it was being checked in at another counter. I finally asked when it would open, and was told to go to the other counter. The line was huge, and VERY slow moving. The lady who checked us in told me what gate then wrote on the ticket the # 70. Dad heard 26, I don’t remember hearing anything. I still am not sure what the seventy was, but if I had looked at the tickets I would have known the gate was 26. Keep in mind I was still fighting a migraine. We went out to gate 70, the furthest gate in the terminal. And then had to RUN the whole way back to 26. And we still just barely made the last boarding call. The China air flight to Beijing was NICE. Larger seats than we had on Cathay with more leg room and they served a nice breakfast. Baby Bug fell asleep on this flight and really didn’t want to wake up. We finally got her awake only then she wanted to be carried. What with the luggage that was difficult to do. She was doing OK until we hit the (long) lines before showing our passport. Then she fell apart and could not get it back together. She screamed and cried. The security guard finally put us through at the front of the line. We got the care packages off to China Care. We were met at the airport by a guide who brought us to the Jiangou Garden Hotel. The Hotel we stayed in last time was the Jiangou Hotel. I had thought they were the same hotel. Mom, the hotel you and dad stopped at to get a cab on the way back from the Forbidden City is the one we are staying in. The room is much larger and there are two double beds rather than two twins. It is worn at the edges, but clean. Mom I am sending you pictures of the room. Baby Bug was trying to fall asleep in the car on the way here but perked up once we got here. We took a cab to pizza hut (Baby Bug’s request) and it took a lot of work to keep her awake then she perked up in pizza hut only to fall asleep on the way back to the hotel. After I broke my back carrying her up to the room, she woke up and is now laying watching Berenstain Bears. Dad is in bed asleep and I will be following soon. We love and miss you.