We're BAAAAACK!!

They let us board the airplane first from Tokyo, Japan to Dallas, Texas. And as soon as we step foot on the plane a sweet southern stewardess looked at Eden and with a thick southern drawl said, "Well, hello Darlin'!" And that's when it became real...we were headed home.


So the flights went smoothly. In fact, so smoothly that we ended up catching an earlier flight on our last leg home and got in about 4 hours earlier than expected. Which only made our total time in travel 42 hours instead of 46! phew!! Eden played her little heart out in the Tokyo airport's baby lounge so she did GREAT on the long 12 hour flight, sleeping for most of it. I mean, would you expect any less from her for her 10th flight?
We're handling our "American transition" pretty well too. We're almost all over jet lag I think. It's taken Eden a little longer than we'd hoped (just a week) but she's finally back to sleeping through the night...as opposed to waking for 5 hours at a time in the middle of the night our first 2 nights back.
We've indulged a lot. Shopping indulgences. Food indulgences. Napping indulgences. and it's been wonderful being surrounded by family again.
We've had our American culture shock moments too. I was so overwhelmed with Hobby Lobby that I ended up not buying anything because it was just too much STUFF to handle. And we came away from Target with only one purchase too...a bottle brush. And we still can't get used to brushing our teeth with sink water. We forgot how convenient that is!!

In other news...Brandon turns 24 today! Happy birthday Brandon!! He has two requests for his birthday. A nice juicy steak for dinner. And a big piece of cake from the bakery that made our wedding cake. :) He's pretty easy to please. This is his first birthday in 5 years to spend in America!

And Eden is officially 8 months old tomorrow. She had a check-up on Monday and the doc said she's developmentally on track as an eleven month old. :) That's my girl. And on our big trip overseas she had yet another language spoken to her: Japanese.
That makes 6...
(in order that they were spoken to her)
1. Thai (birth country)
2. English (duh)
3. Cantonese (hong kong)
4. Chinese (first home)
5. Pakistani (university classmates)
6. Japanese (mamas in Tokyo's airport lounge)
and any day now she's bound to meet a native spanish speaker. :)

So we've had an eventful week!

Looking Back Pt. 2

We had a little going away party the other day with a few friends.
Adding to the list of things we're going to miss, three close friends:


And here's just a cute picture of Eden helping us pack...

Looking Forward Pt. 1

What I had promised would be a series of "going home" posts might be a little disappointing! After lots of packing, 10 bags later, our time here is quickly drawing to a close...leaving little time for blogger land. But alas, I promised...so here's a look forward in to all things American that we're about to dive into head first.
Things we're looking forward to: (in no particular order :)

- family. well ok, this one is obviously first and foremost. can't wait to see everyone!!

- a dishwasher! I mean, we've had a many great life-altering decisions as we're washing and drying dishes, but seriously...good ole whirlpool never looked so good.

- food. food. and more food. I could write an entire blog of just restaurants or homemade dishes that our bellies are craving, but that would take entirely too much time. This is one of the many things we discuss when we're washing dishes..."Which restaurant will we go to first?" we like that game. At the top of the list: Arby's. Abuelo's. Cattle Exchange. can you hear my stomach growling?!

- shopping malls that carry bigger than stick figured sized clothing. We're not huge people, but I never would have thought that buying a shirt could be so complicated...and shoes for that matter. I've not had a new pair of shoes in 2 years because there are none here in my size. NONE. granted even in America it's a little difficult to find shoes that fit my gargantuan feet...much less in Asia-land....which brings us to another point (maybe a little this-post-unrelated) We're going to totally be out of style. We've been wearing the same clothes for 2 years. Which is normal for Asia-land...but not america. There's some sort of un-written American rule about having to shop for new clothes every so often. May I just interject at this point that we're not looking forward to that little piece of America that makes you feel like you have to keep up with the Jones'sss. So if you see us wearing the same shirt 4 days in a row, just know that that is Chiner rubbing off on us. :)

- Bek & Kev's wedding. We're sooooo excited for them!! But honestly, we feel like we're getting a pretty good deal out of it too!! My sister is marrying Brandon's best friend. Really, it's soooo convenient for us!! :) But...we know it's not about us.

-sandwich meats. no need to say more.

- our own car. absolutely. can't. wait. The freedom that you get from having your own car to take you places...nothing can replace that. We're sick of having to depend on someone else to take us places. We're ready to get behind the wheel and just drive ourselves. We're ready to have a big truck bed to put stuff in. Neither one of us has driven a car in 2 years, with the exception of Brandon's occasional go-cart race. That being said...Eden is soooooo probably not ready for a car seat. I'm afraid she may scream when she discovers she can't sit in my lap during a sunday drive.

- Labor. and not the labor and delivery kind. but the kind of manual, physical, outdoor, manly, grunt labor. (can you tell this one is for Brandon.) There's some sort of male energy drawn from laying fence posts. mowing. moving something big. building a large something. shoot...Brandon might just dig a hole in the backyard just because he can. It's so therapeutic.

- yards. backyards. There's not much grass in Chiner...especially around homes. One of our friends here was looking at our pictures and she said, "oh! !hat is your own lawn?!?!" So yes. We've been without a good patch of grass for quite some time now.

- we're a little torn on this last one. Occasionally we miss our clothes dryer. The fluffiness that is our clothes when we take them out. We miss that. However, we don't miss the extra electricity it costs us to run it. Our clothes dryer here is free. but the drawback is, it makes our jeans all crunchy. We shouldn't have to hear ourselves putting on jeans. So...maybe some days we're looking forward to it. Maybe some days we aren't.

ok...I guess that's about all we can come up with for now. we could go on and on if we thought about it longer. But our 10th bag still needs some attention. maybe in the next post it won't be "what we're looking forward to..." but "what we're enjoying!!"

Looking Back Pt. 1

Inbetween packing, chasing Eden around the apartment, and final visits to friends homes, parks, & restaurants, we're going to attempt to do a series of blog posts on "Things we're going to miss....Things we're looking forward to..."
So here's the first of things we're going to miss...

- sharing with people that have never heard His name. Investing our entire life, time, job, & language for one purpose...telling those that have never heard of His glory. Having a job that is specifically for that purpose has been incredible.

- the people. and that's a collective "people." The people of our city (the overwhelming majority anways) are so friendly, helpful, and eager to go above and beyond to befriend us and make us feel welcome here. These last few days as we've walked to the grocery store or ventured out to parks and such, we're just so amazed at the sweet smiles they give us, the eagerness they have to speak with us, and the generosity of offering their phone numbers just in case we ever need help. I mean, this has always happened. But now that we're "reflecting" back on our time, the sweet spirit of Chinese people in our city seems more apparent now than ever before.

- friends. People who have struggled with us over the last few years as we've adjusted to their culture and their language. People who have been Eden's first in-real-life aunts and uncles. People who we owe a huge debt of gratitude to.

- the food. okay sure there's fried scorpions on sticks and boiled chicken feet and such...but that's rare. There are actually some really great dishes here that we've gotten addicted to...and I might even go so far as to say...crave. mmmmm carmelized sweet potatoes. yum!! And as hard as we'll try to find some in America, I can guarantee the local China Dragon won't have anything comparable to real Chinese food.

- the crazy forms of transportation! bikes, trucks, donkeys, motorcycles, tricycles, taxis, things I don't even know the name of... they're all on one road!! It makes for mass chaos. But sometimes it can be soooo entertaining! (sometimes annoying too!) But seriously, there are so many things to look at on the road that it never gets old. American streets are boring...cars and trucks. No bikes? No two wheeled cars that six people ride in?

- our curtainless shower! I never thought in a million years that I'd miss that stupid thing...but alas, I think we're going to! It's just all too convenient to be able to dance a jig in the shower without worrying that you'll run out of room...if the desire ever arises. Sure, it's a pain to have to mop up the whole bathroom after a shower, but still...having a 10x12 ft shower is really cool.

- and last but not least...our time together. In the last two years, on average, we estimate that we've spent 23 3/4 hours out of each day together. Rarely were there times that we did anything apart from one another. We attended class together. We worked together. We traveled together. We took entire wednesdays to do nothing together. It was wonderful. In the States, people our ages have to go to separate jobs all day and might get to spend a few hours in the evening together. Not us! We've spent almost every day in the last two years with one another. And when Eden came along it was that much better. Brandon has been able to spend the first seven months of his daughter's life at home with her (a lot of the time)...whereas in the States he'd have to (and will have to) have a full-time job. We have truly treasured this time together and will miss being able to spend so much time as just the three of us.

- and I'd be remiss if I didn't say...blogworthy stories! I fear the fact that in America I won't have as many fun stories to write about. Like restaurants serving dog. Eating stinky Tofu. cool Chinese things. Exotic vacations. among many other things.... I don't know if it's possible to keep a creative blog after leaving here! :)

ok...more to come in later posts!

7 1/2 Months!

Eden's 7 month mark totally passed me by. We've gotten a little carried away with packing, enjoying the warm weather, & a new found love for a local restaurant and have been pretty slack in the blogging department! Sorry! So, here's a 7 and a half month post for Eden.
She spends most of her time in knee pads or baby legs...because well, she's an unstoppable crawler!

And just this week she's started pulling up on all of our furniture, which makes our job a little harder. She's had her first of many bumps in the head...which is a little aggravating for me, coming from carpeted homes in America and now living in a ceramic tiled apartment.


And of course she still loves getting out and meeting new people. I'm wondering if she'll be confused by the lack of Chinese people when we go back to America. Or if she'll wonder why people don't stop and stare at her in grocery stores or take pictures of her with their cell phones. She might go through a little culture shock of her own! :)


I'm super thrilled she's crawling already, though. It occupies her really well. And she thinks it's exciting having lots of suitcases sitting around everywhere as her own personal obstacle course. But I'm going biserk just thinking about trying to keep her occupied on an eleven hour plane ride in just over a week!