Look! Team Murray is all together!

About 30 hours after leaving our hotel in Guangzhou, Gretchen was jumping up and down in the airport parking lot and says "Look! Team Murray is finally all together!" Indeed.

The trip home was brutal, but Cameron handled it like a champ. It was only by the grace of God that I was not puking on the flight heading into Newark. The two things that make me lose it are 1. severe motion sickness and 2. hearing other people throwing up. The last hour of the flight was so bad that the airline attendants were passing out barf bags with the customs forms. Upon arrival, Immigration officials state "we all looked at each other and couldn't believe the pilots had decided to land in this weather." Great. Not exactly the "welcome home" that I was anticipating.

I had Officer Grumpy Grumpington process us through customs and immigration. All of the paperwork is done in China with their government as well as the U.S. Consulate so they send me into the US with a sealed package to give to the immigration officer upon entry. Cameron became our son in China on June 27th and then became a US citizen the moment we stepped foot in the country Friday night. I decided to stop respecting the fact that we were in Yankees territory since everyone was so gloomy and ruining my mood and started exclaiming to all of them "Well, the US has its newest Red Sox fan!" I made sure they saw me change Cameron into his "My Mommy and Daddy think I am a great catch!" Red Sox shirt and his new baseball cap.

Flights were cancelled and delayed all evening Friday, but we eventually made it home. It's hard to really know how these things will go. There is so much preparation and so much prayer, and I tried to not place any expectations on the whole thing. Is Cameron going to be scared? Excited? How will the girls react when they see me? I worked to push the questions aside and see what would happen. Cameron was exhausted and so was I. I was overjoyed to see my baby girls again. As much of a nightmare as the travel was, it was behind us and I will remember the moment when my daughters met their brother for the rest of my life.

They were excited to see me, but their welcome for their brother was so touching and so deeply genuine, that the rest of the tired travelers all had to stop what they were doing to watch it all. It was very late, like seriously hours past their bedtime. They were so happy that they could not contain their joy. It literally spilled out of them in loud squeals and giggles. They kept running around in circles around him and Gretchen could not stop hugging him and saying "You are here! You are here, Cameron! It's very nice to meet you. You are my little brother!"

He wasn't quite sure what to make of them but was carefully taking it all in. They were showering him with their stuffed animals and kissing him and hugging him over and over again. Their complete joy and total acceptance of Cameron was mind-boggling to me. It really made me think about how God wants us to respond to the people He has placed in our lives. There were no questions in their hearts. They saw him as their gift of a brother and could think of no other way to respond but by jumping up and down in excitement, running around in circles and squealing with glee at his mere presence.

Madelyn then spotted a sheep cellphone hanging around Cameron's neck. This sheep is called "Pleasant Goat" "Happy Goat" or "Happy Sheep" in China. It's some popular Chinese cartoon character that Cameron would point to whenever he saw it in China. I eventually bought him this obnoxious piece of plastic junk molded to look like a cellphone that plays this ear-piercing annoying song over and over again. It's the theme song from the show.

Madelyn seeing this new toy that she wants, then says matter of factly "Look, Cameron, we share. Here is my horsie, passing him her stuffed animal. Now you give me the sheep!" He might not understand a lot of English yet, but he sure understood what Madelyn was preparing for him, so he took off running. Madelyn then started chasing him to get the toy and then Gretchen started chasing them because it seemed like the right thing to do at the time.

I was in line at the claims department trying to get Continental to pay for my new stroller that they broke in half. I don't know how that is even possible. That thing made its way all through China and back to the US and somehow the fine folks at Continental break it in half from Newark to Boston. I am half talking to an uninterested employee in the claims department and half watching my 3 children chase each other around the baggage claim area over a piece of junky plastic that I so wanted to "accidentally" leave in the hotel room in China.

Then I notice that the scenario began to change on its own. Cameron started laughing hysterically at all the running. Madelyn seemed to forget why she was chasing him in the first place. And Gretchen was only in it for the thrill of running around in circles anyway. The three of them just ran and laughed and ran and laughed and you couldn't help but be energized by all of their giggles. The weariness seemed to lift from every traveler in the entire airport, even after midnight. We all just sat and watched these three run and run and run.

Joy. Pure joy.

The lack of sleep was followed by another airport run in the morning to drop off my mom who was flying to Pittsburgh for a week before heading back to Texas after helping Geoff for the past week. The three Murray Monkeys could not stay awake on the car ride. So, with joy in our hearts and laughter on our lips, our new life together officially begins.