China thanksgiving

Eric and I have so much to be grateful for, there's no question about it. I never though I'd be grateful for Thanksgiving itself...but this year, I am. It's pretty amazing that not only did we have amazing friends to share a Thanksgiving with, but we actually had an authentic meal to eat! I'm still impressed that we managed to pull it off. Even though the American companies here in China give a vacation day for Thanksgiving, Thursday is generally just another work day. Eric saved his vacation day and he'll use it during our Christmas trip. The expat families usually get together and celebrate Thanksgiving on the weekend. Eric and I were lucky enough to have 2 Thanksgivings: one at our house on Friday and another on Saturday at a friend's house. It was a crazy weekend filled with food, friends, and sticky fingers! I'm pretty sure I ate my body-weight's worth in pie over those 48 hours. 

Xiamen: we'll sleep when we're dead

Our families have been reminding us that we haven't updated our blog in forever (its been just over a month since our last update). It's not that we haven't had a lack of interesting things going on in our lives. No, quite the contrary, we've had altogether too much filling our time since about October. I must say, I'm not complaining about being busy. It's been very nice to be involved in lots of great things.

Back to the update... In October, one of our besties, Matt and Caroline moved back to the States from China. We hadn't been to Xiamen to visit them, and we decided to fly up the weekend before they left. The Kleins know how to party hard, and this week, they did not disappoint. We took advantage of every waking moment, and also moments where we probably should have been sleeping. We had a blast.

Holiday in Hong Kong, jet lag not included!

It's been a bit since we've checked in. October has just flown by, and boy has it been choke full of awesomeness. We started out with a trip to Hong Kong during Chinese national week. I started teaching 3 days a week, Eric got quite a few new projects at work, and we both  received challenging callings for our church. In addition, every single electronic device in our home broke within a 10 day period and many needed replacing. To complete our month, we took a short jaunt up to Xiamen to visit Matt and Caroline before their China send-off. Part of me looks back at our time here in china and thinks, Wow, I can't believe we've been here only 2 months! The other part says, Dude, have we really only been here 2 months!?! It feels like so much has happened in such a short period of time. It might take me a couple days, but I'm going to post our pictures from the big events over the past few weeks. I think that Hong Kong is a good place to start.

Getting back to "normal" life

*This was a blog post I wrote 3 weeks ago, and forgot to publish, oops*

This week, we finally had some good news. Our Residence Permits came! That means we're officially chinese citizens. JK, we're not. But it means we can come in and out of the country as we please. These permits are good for a year, but I'm told that the renewal process is much simpler than the original application. Thank goodness. In total from start to finish, the entire process took 4 months! We started mid-May, received the temporary visa mid-August and the permanent one mid-September. Holy cow. 

Being "tourists" with the Kleins

After our week of being the non-hired help, Matt joined us for the weekend. We finally got finally got some well-deserved time off from scrubbing floors. It was also my birthday on the 7th. Although it was a weird birthday, I was so happy to have my friends to share it with. We spent the day in the city and then went to this amazing mexican restaurant in Shekou (the neighborhood we live in).  Technically it is the ONLY mexican restaurant in Shekou and perhaps Shenzhen, but it really is fantastic. We ended the weekend with watching movies and eating a lot of junk food and cookie dough. It almost felt like we were back in the states, almost.

In Luohu by a giant shopping center (the bargaining kind).
Caroline, Eric and I all bought wallets.

How many times can you visit Ikea in a week?

Wow, it's been a crazy couple of weeks.  After two weeks of hotel-living and red tape as long as the Great Wall, we finally moved into the apartment. We moved our suitcases over and not but 4 hours after, our hired help arrived in the form of Caroline Klein. I had pretty much called up the Kleins the week before and begged them to fly down from Xiamen. Boy, was she a life-saver.

Chest x-rays and broken elevators

We have been in China for almost two weeks. It was a long time coming and we finally made it. The process to get a Chinese work visa is far more complicated that we thought it would be. The difficulty in getting ours is that I am getting a work permit, which is the complicated part. After the almost two months of paperwork before we left, once we arrived we had to continue the process by getting a medical exam. We did this the first day. In about 45 minutes total we both had the following procedures done: an interview, EKG, eye exam, chest x-ray, ultrasound, blood draw and a urine sample. Let's just say HIPPA, the FDA, customer service and patient privacy aren't concepts that have made it their way to China yet. The picture below is where we left our sample cups after the last exam.

Moving day: my life-saving skills, chinese border patrol, and more

Where to begin...oh yeah, we moved to China yesterday. That was interesting.  Any guesses as to how many bags we brought? I'll give you a hint, we took a lot. The answer is 9 bags: 5 checked and 4 carry-on. And we were still tight on space. 3 of the 5 checked bags were EXACTLY 50 pounds, the others 48 and 49. Not bad for a bathroom scale. For those of you who are considering a foreign move, here's what you need to do. Corral all of your possessions in one room, rent a dumpster, and throw 75% of it away. It'll make things a WHOLE lot easier, I promise.

This is us in the Salt Lake airport at 5:30 am. Don't we look chipper for 4 hours of sleep ;)

Yes, we're FINALLY moving!

For those of you who've been wondering, why are Crystal and Eric still in the states...here is your update. Our initial plan was to move the first week of July, but our ridiculous visa company dropped the ball on several things. They kept pushing back our departure date 2 weeks at a time because our visa paperwork wasn't being processed correctly. I'd like you to know that our paperwork has made it around the world about 3 times by now. We had to send in our passports, marriage certificate, diplomas, and a few other things. Don't ask me why the Chinese needed our OFFICIAL marriage certificate or Eric's college diplomas.

But after 2 or 3 date changes, we finally have one that's going to stick: August 18th (in one week!). Our visas are currently winging their way to the states as we speak. Once they land in Chicago, they will visit our nation's capitol via express mail to get their final stamp of approval at the Chinese embassy. And ONLY THEN will we be able to move. Eric and I are really hoping to avoid a situation like the movie "The Terminal" with Tom Hanks. Can't you imagine Eric and I looking very sad and pathetic in the Hong Kong airport, while eating saltine cracker/ketchup sandwiches? Well I can.

That being said, we are reasonably certain that we will have the correct documentation come August 18th to enter Shenzhen. Eric and I are extremely happy to be finally heading to our final destination. We've been enjoying a relaxing stay at the in-laws house (ha ha ha) but are ready to move forward with this new chapter in our lives. Eric and I are going to be around this week. Feel free to call or email, we'd love to chat with you before we go.

Alaska/Vancouver/Washington

     You know the Primary song that goes, "Oh what do you do in the summer time, when all the world is green..." Well my favorite answer to that question is, go on vacation! Eric and I really enjoy traveling, and we've tried to take full advantage of our limited breaks together over the past 4-ish years. We planned to go on a graduation trip during May, originally to the Mediterranean, and then to Pacific Northwest. After we planned the trip, we found out that we were moving to China. So what did we do...we decided to go on more trips! Because when you're planning an international move, you have UNLIMITED time (sarcasm). I still to this day don't understand how we managed to get everything done in the 2 or 3 oddly-pieced-together weeks we had at home. 

     Our first trip was to the Pacific Northwest. We flew into Vancouver and hung out for 2 days, then left for a 7 day Alaskan cruise. We then drove from Vancouver to Kamloops BC to visit our good friends Ferrin and Michelle. From there, we drove to the Olympic Penninsula, near Seattle and enjoyed the "sunshine". All in all, an amazing trip. I'm in love with the perfect combination of ocean, mountains, and greenery that the Pacific Northwest has to offer. I would definitely consider moving there some day.

The Lion's Gate Bridge in Vancouver

The view from the ship,
it looked about like this every day

The Mendenhall Glacier, near Juneau AK

Aren't we so cute

Juneau's port, taken from the tram ride up the mountain.
We had 4 cruise ships traveling the Alaskan coast at the same time

We went dog-sledding! Eric was so excited, he was ready to stay
on as a musher. Note the lack of snow, this is their summer training camp.

Margerie Glacier, in Glacier Bay National Park, absolutely incredible.
We saw so much glacier calving that day, probably 3 or 4 major events.

Remnants of the glacier, bright blue.

The Margerie Glacier is about a mile wide, our cruise ship
got within a quarter mile of the edge!

Sea kayaking in Skagway

In Kamloops with Ferrin/Michelle and clan

Our view from the AMAZING B&B we stayed at in Port Angeles

The Hoh Rainforest, a must-see if you visit Washington

EVERYTHING is covered in green moss

It's like something out of a Dr Seuss novel

Rialto Beach, beautiful black pebble sand with lots of driftwood

At Cape Flattery, the most north-west corner of the continental US

Cape Flattery

Mom, are we THERE yet?

 Welcome to our brand new blog! Take off your shoes, get comfortable, and stay a while. Eric and I are excited to share all our adventure with you: our family and friends. In the off chance that you've been living under a rock, Eric and I are moving to Shenzhen, China. Shenzhen is right next to Hong Kong, on the southern edge of China. We're very excited for the adventures ahead. When are you going to China, you might ask. That's a great question, I might answer. The plan was to leave this week, but we had some visa hiccups. We're waiting on the final word before we buy plane tickets. In the mean time, we've had quite a few adventures. First thing's first... packing up up the house. Holy cow, it was a crazy process. I really don't know where all this stuff came from, but apparently we have a lot.

We had the movers here last week. Eric's company had our stuff packed up and shipped to china in a container. Nice huh! The part that made it interesting, was that we had to sort through all the stuff first. We had to decide what went on the shipping container, what went on the air container, what got put in the storage unit, and what got hand carried in our luggage. After the china stuff got sent off to the wild blue yonder, we took several truck/trailer loads to the storage unit (pictures to come) with the rest of our furniture. June 30th was the last day in our house. Our entire family came to help us with the cleaning and other last minute projects. We were so grateful for all their support. We said goodbye to our beautiful house and handed the keys off to our amazing renter. Now, we're living at Eric's parent's house until we ship off. 

Our packing material, 2 foot roll of bubble wrap and 1 foot roll  of foam

Giant roll of plastic wrap

Completed wrapped couch

The "china" pile

We packed these containers with food

Allison packed these giant rubbermaids,
they had absolutely no dead space in them.

Moving truck