They come, they eat, they leave (Christmas in the States)

The Cocoa Powder incident of 2013

I promise we didn't come to Utah for the food, but that's sure what it looked like. For those that are curious, the title comes from a fantastic movie, A Bug's Life. It's the ant's mantra when the grasshoppers come for their annual food collection, "They come, they eat, they leave..." I'd be lying if I said we didn't stuff ourselves silly with American food every day during our vacation. It was fantastic. But we also had a blast hanging out with friends and family. Before we left, we swore that 2 weeks would be plenty of time to get everything done on our agenda. We had a long list of friends to hang out with, and lots of wonderful family to catch up with. In addition, we had a 3-page shopping list (not kidding) and all our annual medical exams. Did we have enough time? Not even close.


We got all the priority things done, but we feel bad that there were still so many people we didn't have time to see, or spend more time with. Nevertheless, it was so great to spend time with family, we sure had missed them. Even though we had been gone for a couple of months, it felt like we had only been gone a couple of days. It was easy to get used to living in America again. I loved going to the grocery store and understanding every label! I relished ordering food at a restaurant because I could talk to the waiter. It was also nice that we could drink the water right out of the faucet. Wow, we are so blessed to call America our home.

 I did a really bad job taking pictures over the break. I'd bring my camera to each and every event, and then I'd forget to take it out. Oops. Here are some random pictures that I did remember to take.

Our one and only christmas decoration in China, courtesy of my favorite home-school children

It was our Anniversary on December 18th, and Eric was still in China.
He sent me these beautiful flowers, aren't they lovely.

The first snow storm! Little did I know that it was going to snow lots and lots more.

At Angie's in Logan with Allison and Keegan (Eric's sister and her husband)

Cleaning the sink, the largest sundae I have ever seen.

We cleaned it! It was delicious.

At temple square

I was enraptured with these snowflakes. It was so cold that they
maintained their crystalline shape. Apparently snowflakes are 6-sided.

And that 3 page word document? It was mostly food items on our shopping list. There's a lot of things we can get here in Shenzhen (the benefits of living in a city with a lot of expats), but you pay an absolute premium for them. Ex. chocolate chips $7, spices $5, cake mix $4, etc. My shopping list included a lot of spices, baking supplies, mixes, and other powdered stuff. We also packed a lot of stuff that we really like and can't get here: crackers (graham, triscuits) and american treats. We also brought some random things back from the storage unit like my candles and crock pot liners. We spent many long hours packing and weighing suitcases. It's a tedious process. 

Once home, we discovered that the costco-sized package of cocoa powder had exploded in a suitcase. Thankfully everything in the bag was washable, but nonetheless, we had a huge mess on our hands. About half the package had emptied out and filled every nook and cranny of the suitcase. I tried to vaccuum it out, but the fine powder clogged the filter in about a second. Then I resorted to pulling each item out and brushing them off into the garbage. Anything cardboard got thrown away because I couldn't wash it. Then each item got rinsed in the sink. I had brown powder EVERYWHERE. In the end, I took the suitcase and showered it off because I couldn't get it cleaned out. What a ridiculous mess. Start to finish, it probably took me 5 hours and 2 days to clean it all up. 

Once home with all our christmas presents (aka food), we had some serious organizing to do. I had boxes of books, food, and toiletries from the shipment that were still on the floor. The food from christmas was still in their original suitcases, also on the floor. Plus we still had our dvds and games in a box, on the floor. I needed to clear off the floor, STAT. I went to Ikea last week and bough a bookshelf and a storage shelf to put the food and books on. Eric, such a smarty pants, took the cardboard and build a perfect little shelf for our movies and games. He was very proud of his creation, as was I.

Eric and his shelf. 

My food storage, about half of which was hand-carried from the States.
This has to last me a whole year.

Our bookshelf.