Final Leg Home

Pics: Gracie and Diana on flight from Hong Kong to Tokyo. Gracie sleeping en route from Tokyo to PDX.
Right now I'm writing this in the skies just outside of Japan. Gracie is sleeping (yeah!) a sleeping baby on a long flight is a good thing.
Gracie is so beautiful and we are so blessed to be her forever family. Just writing this almost brings me to tears. Between a lack of sleep and the emotions of this event I'm not sure just what to do :-)
While we were riding the bus last night from Guangzhou to Hong Kong I glanced over at Diana as she was holding a sleeping Gracie and it hit me just how right that it all was. All of the time, paperwork, anxious moments, delays, more delays, more paperwork, and all of the money boils down to this moment of a precious little girl asleep in her mother's arms.
It didn't matter any more that Gracie had been abondoned by her birth parents at a carwash. She is now ours forever and when we clear US Immigration and Customs it will all be final. As it is right now there's no turning back but those final moments of waiting will be so worth it.
At the Portland airport Gracie will meet her new grandparents and some other members of her forever family. She'll probably be scared but that won't last for long once she realizes how Christmas works :-)
Often when I look at her I wonder what's going through her mind how much she remembers of her life the way it was and what she thinks about us.
One thing I know is that this journey has been a powerful reminder of the lengths to which God went to express His love to us and if this is in some small way how He feels when His orphaned children come home then His heart is blessed beyond measure.