THURSDAY AND FRIDAY-DAY 1 AND 2-BEIJING

THURSDAY MORNING
We stayed up all night last night in hopes of being able to sleep on our long plane ride. At 6 am we loaded up the car. Confident that we had everything we needed we left our apartment. We stopped at Rivercity bagel to get the bagels that Amanda wanted. We went to Jim's Coffee Shop for breakfast to see my northend end mom. She didn't know we had received the ok to leave so what better way to tell her then show up right before we had to be at the airport. She fed us an omlet and then we picked up the Rummlers. Because our luggage wouldn't all fit int he trunk and therefore took up half the back seat, we had to wait for Glen to come back home so that they could all follow us in the van. We met KG's dad there so he could get us all checked in. Robin and Tristan drove our car to their house and that's where it will stay till they pick us up. We got on our plane and we were finally on our way at 9:30 am.

SEATTLE
We landed in Seattle at 10:40 am. We had a 2 1/2 hour layover and in that time got a message from Diana at our agency. Only 12 hours after our original 'ok' to fly and there were already issues. I won't go into everything now. We were talking online with Amanda and Diana at the same time. But in short, one person got involved and started questioning a few things with our plans that were previously approved but now everything is screwed up and we had a few minutes to decide whether to stay in Seattle until things were sorted or just go to Beijing on the faith that everything would work out. That's what we decided to do to. It was risky because we didn't know whether we'd end up getting stuck in China for 1 to 2 extra weeks! It was worth it to us however because we just wanted to get there! We got on the plane not knowing where we were going to sleep in Beijing or what we would do! Amanda just said trust me and call me when you touch down there and I will give you the details. KG was very uneasy! ;) It's the first time I've really seen any sign of stress in him since I've known him! At 1:15 pm we were headed for Korea. The flight was great. Very long! we each had our own screen on the back of the seat in front of us. We had about 20 movies to pick from, 10 different games that could be played alone or with someone else, and lots and lots of music. We slept on and off for about a half hour at a time throughout the flight so we were exhausted!

SEOUL
We landed in Seoul, Korea at 5:40 pm local time. We had a layover there and I lied down on some seats and took a nap. The set up there was amazing. There a flat screen tellie with full surround and all. Better then most have in their homes at home! Finally we left Korea for Beijing at 7:15 pm

BEIJING
We arrived in Beijing at 8:30 pm local time. We were completely relieved to see a man standing there with a sign that said JENSEN really big! Phew! This was brother Heinz Dickens. I just want to say how grateful we are for the church! Amanda had called sister Britton in Xi'an and said we were on our way and needed a place to stay so that we cold save money in case we ended up being in china a lot longer then intended and also someone to help us get around. She called the relief society president, sister Donya Harvey, in Beijing and it was all set up and they were so excited about it! She arranged for Heinze to pick us up and being us to her home. He had his own driver. Wow was that smooth! I cannot say enough how grateful we were not to have to worry about any of this! It was amazing to walk into their home, seeing all their Christmas stuff still up and being members of the church, just feeling so at home! Across the world in another country with people we had never met and feeling at home! We couldn't ask for anything better! What a small world it is too. Turns out Heinze daughter, Rian, married Chad Oiler from Boise whom I graduated high school with. Go figure. They had a huge bedroom for us with our own bath and were thrilled to have us there. They opened up their home and gave us fee reign. We talked and got to know them as long as we could but finally just had to go to bed because we were in such a fog! They have three children, all adopted from Taiwan. Jeremy, 15, twins Melissa and Marc, 11, and are fostering DJ, 5 until his parents get their travel approval. We hadn't really slept in about 46 hours so we went to bed about 11:30 pm, Friday night, and were fast asleep as soon as our heads hit the pillow!
DAY 1 AND 2 PHOTOS-Flight from Boise to Beijing
The Harvey's Photos