Chicago Images (What?)

The Jacksons are suckin' it up again this year. Well, we missed our flight to China again! If you remember last year when we were going to China to get May Lee, we missed our flight to Beijing. The good part last year was that a crew member was late, so the airlines took responsibility and paid for our lunch and hotel in Washington. We missed a day of touring in Beijing, but it didn't affect our timing for getting May Lee. We had many little things go wrong, lost luggage, etc., so we made a Jackson Motto - Suck It Up. So here we are again, but this time we are in Chicago and because the delay was weather-related all financial responsibility falls on us. What is so devastating to us is that we were supposed to get Joseph Monday - China time, but your Sunday night (China is 13 hours ahead). We had no touring day cushion this time. We are unsure how things will work out and how this affects the rest of our trip. We are waiting to hear when and how we get Joseph now. We leave on the same flight, just leaving a day later, leaving at 12:40 p.m. Sunday and arriving in Beijing the next day at 3:30 p.m., your Monday, our Tuesday.

Background info: we boarded in Nashville but sat on the runway for an hour and a half unable to take off because of visibility issues in Chicago. Of course I (Lynley) immediately cried and then prayed. We landed, and found our connecting flight to China had been delayed, so we thought we would make it, but then our plane sat for another hour after landing unable to get to a gate assignment to de-board. When we finally got out, we sprinted a mile to the departing gate to find the plane had already left. Instead of the "Journey to Joseph" it felt more like "The Amazing Race to Joseph". It was a roller coaster of emotions as the plans kept changing.

Please pray against the enemy as many things are going "wrong". Coleman has stayed cool and is reminding us the Lord is in control; He's going to work it out.

So, we sucked it up and tried to make the best of it. Good thing these clothes are comfortable because we'll be sportin' 'em tomorrow as well - no luggage. We took a cab to the Sears Tower. You can see our name is honored here as well. The elevator took us up 103 floors. We learned the Sears Tower is 283 Barack Obama's high. Here we are laying on the glass ceiling, freaky!

We had Chicago style pizza for dinner at Giordano's. Coleman said it was the best pizza he'd ever eaten. We all agreed, but then again, thought it could be because it was the only meal we'd eaten since 7:00 a.m.. We then headed out to Dave & Busters for a little fun.