From Iowa to Colorado to Utah to LAX

Many of you are probably thinking "About time!" Sorry for the delay, we have had a lot going on and getting settled in.
Can you believe it?! We're in CHINA! Before we arrived in China we need to take a step back to the 1st couple legs of our journey to get here.

Leg 1- Colorado...We spent a some time with the Jensen, Browns, Collins and Gallegos families. For dinner we met and went to the classic place of Casa Bonita! Here's a picture of the boys and their cousins

Here are the boys with their Great Grandpa John and Grandpa Ricco playing games. (not video!)

Leg 2- Utah...We spent the rest of the time before flying out with the McQuiveys, Grahams and Parkers. We went to the Open house of the Ogden Temple and did some other errands that needed to be done before heading overseas.






Spending time with all our family was great and fun. Everyone was so kind and a HUGE Thanks to all of you who opened up your house to us! We love you!

Leg 3-Los Angeles...We got the chance to spend a whole day (15 hour lay over) in the City of Angles. I think really this is where the adventure began or started to have some wrinkles.

After arriving and learning we would have to pick up ALL our luggage and re-check it in at the international section of LAX we found out that we could not check in till 4 hours before take off. Dragging 10 pieces of luggage back and forth was not fun. Which meant that the little car I planned to rent would not work. I called and called and called and finally got through to the car rental place and found a solution that would accommodate our situation. Fix=Toyota Sequoia. OH YEAH Day saved!

USS IOWA here we come! (or went) What a treat it was to tour the battle ship and since we are from Iowa...you can't beat free!

We stumbled across the South Korea Friendship bell

Some took a cat nap while in transit

We had our last meal/dinner in America, Red Robin...yummmmmm!!

Lastly we stopped at Hermosa Beach. It was Perfect weather and a great way to end the day.

Finally back to LAX, stand in line, check in luggage, stand in line, go through security, make it wait a couple of hours and then on the plane again heading to CHINA!

I will update our Journey of legs 4 (Guilin and Yangshuo) and 5 (Arrival to Huai'an) tomorrow.