The Boxes Arrive!!

All of our boxes have arrived!!

On Friday morning, I was thinking "Maybe the boxes will come today" - but then made myself stop. I've thought that almost every day for the past 6 weeks only to have my hopes be dashed. It didn't help that I grew up way out of town so every time I heard the sound of a big truck driving up, it was a UPS delivery. Big trucks go through our apartment complex 4 times a day or more, and every time my subconscious thought "are those our boxes?" So yeah... No more wondering - they're here!!

 We were finishing up lunch on Friday when the door buzzer rang. I pressed the unlock button, hung up the phone and said, "Ryan, I think she said UPS!" Sure enough, we opened the door to find a UPS delivery woman with 2 of our boxes! Our phone number hadn't worked (since when the boxes were sent we had a different number that was put on them) so she hadn't brought them all, but promised to be back at 2 PM with the rest.

We thought it somewhat ironic that the delivery person spoke really good English, yet those in the office didn't speak English and required Ryan to do a lot of translation work using Google translate, but that's a side point...

 Right at 2 PM, the other 15 boxes arrived!

 The infamous Parmesan cheese...

Because someone had said cheese here is more expensive (which it is) I picked up two large containers of Parmesan that didn't need to be refrigerated...

Weeks later, I was berating my desire to save a few dollars, when having them in our boxes turned into a huge fiasco. When Ryan had to give detailed descriptions of things in Chinese, there was no Chinese for "Parmesan" so he just listed it as cheese. Thus ensued a slew of emails where they said cheese couldn't be imported, so just to submit a document saying "Oops - I made a mistake it's actually rice powder" so that our boxes could go through without problem. Otherwise, they'd take 3-4 more weeks to be inspected, with the possibility of being sent back or having items taken out and destroyed. Ryan stood his ground and would not lie, and eventually they were satisfied when he submitted a document saying "it should have said cheese powder, which is used for seasoning." Despite half of the boxes bearing tape saying they'd been inspected, nothing was missing, praise the Lord!

After surviving with one spatula, a few baby spoons, and 2 serving spoons, now having a drawer full of utensils seems like an immense luxury...

And if it's been months since you've eaten yogurt with a real spoon, you don't know how amazing it is to experience that cool metal against your tongue once again...

 Yes, we made a mess in our house for two days while we were unpacking. I don't like messes. But this mess made me happy :)

 It feels like we're back to newlywed life, with a game of Carcassone during supper sometimes. :) And yes, I discovered that it IS possible to play, eat my food, feed baby her food, and warm up a little more leftovers at the same time!

After having no baking spices I was really missing my cinnamon. My first batch of apple muffins (yay for a muffin pan too!) turned out amazing, as I had the thought to add cardamom to the cinnamon and cloves already in the batter. Took them from "yummy" to "I-want-more-amazing!" just like that. :)

Hadassah is enjoying her dolls and stuffed animals that she had months ago too - nice when old toys become "new." We have pictures out now, and books on the shelves, and still quite a bit left to unpack (though I made sure I opened every box the day they came - I was too excited now to!!).

It was a good week, too, even before the boxes come. There are still ups and downs, but it is feeling more like home. I didn't have any days that I cried. We're settling in, and finding joy in this new life. And having our things from home now definitely helps even more. God is good.