1 week follow up

It's been a week, so I figured I should post an update. We arrived home late last Friday night. 

Originally, we were scheduled for 3 flights for our ride home. Seoul-San Fran, San-Fran-Chicago, Chicago-Paducah. It turned out that our 1st flight was delayed 3 hours, which would have caused us to miss our second flight. So we had to enlist my father in law to call United and get us re-booked (since we didn't have international calling on our phones). He was able to get us on an Asiana direct flight to Chicago! This was such a blessing! One less flight and the plane was not nearly as crowded. Casey and I had an empty seat between us, so I got to spread out! It was NIIICE. I slept a solid 8 hours and squeezed in two meals and the Hunger Games movie. 

(Slippers y'all).

Our flight change left us with a little more time on Friday to explore the city. We toured two different hotels that we might stay at for our next trip. Although we loved our hotel, we will have Lola with us next time and need more space.

Of course we had to eat some street food!

After our hotel explorations we decided we better head to the airport. Of course, we were starved once we arrived because our bodies had become accustomed to just walking all day and then eating big meals!!! We darted upstairs to the food court after getting our boarding passes and turning in our wi-fi egg. Casey was DONE with Korean food so he ordered a burger at Shake Burger. I decided to eat "actual" Korean food for my last meal, since we were, in fact, in Korea. It was pretty delish! 

Then, we got ice cream at this amazing spot where they make the ice cream right in front of you using some sort of nitrous process? Crazy cool! 

Since we had a couple more hours to kill I started researching blogs about fun things to do in the Seoul airport. Well....I found a girl who had blogged about all these fun themed cafés inside Incheon airport such as Charlie Brown Cafe and Hello Kitty Cafe. Oh my stars!!!! I was pumped (because we hadn't tried enough lattes on this trip). 

We started off for Charlie Brown Cafe near gate 12. We looked and looked, but it was nowhere to be found. No worries. All I really wanted was to find the Hello Kitty one. I LOVE HELLO KITTY!!!!! She said it was near gate 24. We arrived at gate 24 and looked up, down, and all around. It too was nowhere to be found. What on earth?!? We asked around only to be told that it was no longer in business. Color me 52 shades of disappointed.😱

My new goals for our 2nd trip now include the following:

3.) Hello Kitty Cafe

2.) Buy Casey a suit

1.) BRING LOLA HOME!!!!

#3 and #2 goals are also contingent upon how well Lola is doing and if time allows. She will obviously be our #1 goal. Perhaps Lola is a big Hello Kitty fan as well and we are just meant to experience it together! A girl can dream.......

So now we just wait. Wait to hear that we have preliminary approval (which we hear usually takes a couple of weeks) and then wait to be given a date for our visa hearing. We are hoping we get to travel home with her sometime here in the next 4 weeks. Please pray for us. Even though 4 weeks is a short time away, this mama is struggling. Now that we've met Lola, held her, played with her, smelled her, and loved on her, it is so real. We need our daughter home. The boys are so excited to meet their sister and I can't wait until this family of 5 is all under one roof. We love you Lola. We will be back for you soon!!!!

This was her 1 year old birthday picture. Isn't it the sweetest?!?