Back home safely in the US!

It's a sinking feeling to have your name called over speakers in an airport, let alone in a foreign country. We had just finished eating lunch and were on our way to the gate when Shannon heard our flight had finished boarding, and they were calling our names. Turns out our flight was 20 minutes earlier than we had thought and they seemed to board very early. We were the last people on board, and they closed the doors before we even reached our seats. How embarrassing, but as long as we were on the plane we didn't care. The flight was 11 hours and was as bad as we had heard, and expected. There were tears from both mother and child. Gavin had at least 3 meltdowns, all for different reasons (no nap yet, hungry, bored). It was nice to have the extra seat for him as we had all three in the middle section. We resisted getting up and walking him around on board for our own sanity, since we heard that once they realize they can get up, they never want to sit back down. The other passengers may have paid a price for that though. When we arrived in Atlanta, it took awhile to go through customs/passport control, agriculture control (we had a Russian banana in our bag). The adoption paperwork only took a few minutes. We had to get our luggage and recheck it again. We had a giant sigh of relief as we exited the final security check and we were "free at last" inside the Atlanta airport. We ate at Houlihans to eat & kill some time and then rested at our gate (yes, we were early to the gate this time!). We all three slept on the 1 & 1/2 hour flight to KC, and landed around 9:30pm. We got chills when we landed and were giddy to get off the plane. When we exited the plane we were welcomed with a warm reception from our family & friends. There were welcome home signs, cheers, and tears. My brother had flown in to surprise us too. Gavin was warm, smiling, and playful with everyone who met and held him. We stayed at the airport and talked for over an hour before going home. Both our families came back to the house to see Gavin go into his new home. When we pulled in the drive we saw the outside of the house was decorated with "it's a boy" signs, balloons and a stork in the front yard. The inside of the house was decorated as well, and there were gifts for Gavin. We stayed up talking and laughing until 1:30am. Shane flew in Saturday, and family and friends spent the weekend at our house, eating, and letting Gavin run amuck. It's such a relief to be home. I am on parental leave for this week, and Shannon will be home with Gavin for 10 weeks before going back to work part time. Gary & Shane flew back this morning and Ellen is staying with us until Thursday. She will be a big help allowing us to get settled in and focus on Gavin. Again, thank you all for your thoughts and prayers for our safe return and the start of our family.
Note: We plan on updating providing updates Gavin's progress and will eventually have more updates on his little sister that is on the way (although posts will be a lot less frequent, so get some work done in the meantime!). We may/may not start a new site since this one is for Gavin, but haven't figured all that out yet.

A few videos from the airport:

More pictures from this weekend: