Home Again

We finally made it to our home around 9pm on Wed. night. Are we ever glad to be here. We stayed a total of 3 nights in Beijing, finally getting a flight out on Wed. at noon. The flight was delayed for only 30min. That was remarkable. The girls were so happy to see our driver, Mr. Brake, waiting for us at the airport in Nanjing. We finally got on the road around 3pm. The drive from Nanjing to our home in Yangzhou normally takes just under 2 hours. We arrived at our house at 9:15pm! And were very lucky. I don't know how we got through other than answered prayers. The expressways were completely shut down with drivers stalled anywhere from 22 hours to 5 days - in a car! Our driver took back roads. It was slow going, but we made it, thank the Lord. Walking in the front door, the house was freezing, literally. The heat was turned off while we were away. Our house is built out of concrete and marble/stone. There is no insulation, anywhere. Every room has an individual unit for a/c,heat and we cranked everyone up as high as it would go. An hour later the breaker tripped. It is not the one in the house, but the outside locked one that the management has to open. So, we finally get to our very chilly beds by 11 or so. At 4:30, when the girls woke up thanks to jetlag, it was still bone chilling cold. It hurt to move your head on the pillow because outside the outline of your face was cold. Our muscles cramped so bad because we wouldn't move from our warm spot. The girls were even spooning! Today the sun came out and it helped. Hopefully tomight will be better.