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What a wonderful word. I am so glad to be here!

I will do my best with this final post. My brain feels a little sluggish, I am not quite sure if it is day or night or what country I am in. I am surprised by the quiet, the big spaces between houses, how fast people drive here and still feel some disbelief that we are finally home.

Our trip back went well. Julia slept some on every flight. She slept 6 hours on the long flight over the ocean. She had a bassinet and I had empty seats on both sides of me, so we were able to spread out and do quite nicely. Going through immigration and customs in LA was a breeze. We had heard some horror stories about that, but it went very smoothly and the US now has a new citizen.

We had a contingent meet us at the airport. One of us was very glad to see the people who came to meet us and one of us starting crying and clinging to the other with all her might. You can decide who was who. Julia was a little nervous and didn't want me to set her down or hand her over to Doug. But she only had 8 hours of sleep (about 5 hours short) over the past 28, so crying and all she was doing pretty good. She did alright with the carseat - only a few stomping her feet complaints and she and Helen fell asleep on the way home.

It was about 11:00pm when we got home, so we decided to feed Julia some lunch. (It was lunch time on the other side of the world.) As we were making it, she was wanting to get down and play with her siblings and the toys. That happened much sooner than I expected. We had some snacks and got the kids into bed by midnight. It was such a wonderful feeling to walk in the rooms and see our THREE sleeping children all safely home - I had been dreaming of this day for the last year and a half. I went to bed shortly after, but my brain decided it needed to keep going, so although I was super tired, I had a hard time falling asleep. At about 2:00, I decided to take an Advil PM and pretty much as soon as I swallowed it, Julia decided it was time to get up. She was still not very happy to be with Doug alone, so I brought her back to bed with us and kept her curled up in my arms, and we both slept (albeit fitfully) until morning.

Julia had a great day here. She really warmed up to Doug, so that allowed Doug to spend most of the day with her, while I spent most of the day playing with Thomas and Helen. Julia and I did well with our sleeping schedules today so hopefully we will be on track soon.

On a final note, Doug and I can not express how grateful we are for all of you. Initially, we were quite surprised and overwhelmed by how many of you were faithfully following our trip. As things became more drawn out and the circumstances became more difficult our surprise was replaced with overwhelming gratitude for you and for standing with us during our journey. We are so very thankful for you and your support.

We look forward to beginning this next chapter in our lives. The details of the next chapter won't be quite as exciting, so the blog entries are probably done. (Those of you who read them at work will have to find something else to occupy that time.)

Thank you again for your support during this chapter. It would have been so much more difficult without all of you.

Love from all of us,

Doug, Barbie, Thomas, Helen and Julia Binh An Atkins

P.S. I didn't see the last two posts that Doug wrote, so that is why there are duplicate titles and some things are written about twice. This is perfect proof for why the blog should be done, we are already telling the same stories over again...