We made it!!

Eliot taking his shoes off to go through security...


Eliot was so sweet at the airport!


They're actually letting us get on the plane! No one was running after us to stop us!



There happen to be an empty seat in between Lisa and I!! So great!

We spent 4 hours in immigration. Yikes.

Where to begin???? Well, after leaving the hotel at 6:15 a.m., we finally arrived home at 10:30p.m. Eliot was a trooper and I have no doubt that his favorite part of the day was the hour that Lisa and I RAN through the airport from concourse to concourse as our flight (that we were already hours late for thanks to immigration) had been delayed and we kept being told to go to another gate and we had 15 minutes to get there. (It's a long story!) He was in the jogging stroller and kept raising his hands and squeeling like he was on a roller coaster as I darted in between hundreds of other travelers. We still don't have our luggage yet but we have very little to complain about. We had quite the welcome home party at the airport. There were balloons, signs, gifts and most importantly the faces of family and friends I hadn't seen in months. I was so blessed to get to hug them and speak to them face to face. How amazing and good for the heart! AND...they all got to meet a very sleepy but happy new American citizen!

So, I'm home now. Eliot's sleeping in his ever-so-spacious crib, the dogs are running under my legs, and Russ is reinstalling the car seat for our trip to Target. It should feel weird but instead it just feels right. I've had moments of temporary amnesia where I couldn't remember where my pajamas were and had to look in two cabinets before I remembered where our bowls were, but I'm surprised at how normal and fitting it feels to see Eliot here. He's interacting with all our visitors like he's known them all along and is happily crawling in and out of his nursery like it's normal for all his stuff to be in there. Russ and his parents welcomed me home by taping some random groceries together like at the Bodegona. Oh, memories!

There was a moment last night when Russ looked at me in the car and said, "It's over, it's really over" and we looked at Eliot. He was smiling and pointing as he looked out the window of the car at St. Louis. Moments like that define the state of my heart.

Thank you to everyone who called or emailed to say welcome home. Each message makes the experience even richer. Thanks to all who came to the airport and waited it out to see us come home. Thanks to my Antigua family who sincerely wished me well, I miss you guys so much already. Thanks to Allie for coming this morning and helping me organize my dishelvedness and for bringing me Bread Co to the airport. (I feel like I should thank the academy...this is getting out of hand...)Okay, I'll quit and just add a bunch of pics to this.

Sorry it took so long to get this up on the blog! Thanks for being patient!!


The crowd!! (including a news crew from Fox2 news! What?!)



Eliot's shirt reads, "Sorry to have kept you all waiting".

The fam!


Quite a long day for Little Man! He did great though!


Eliot at home this morning, enjoying his new world!



Oh, the joy.