There are many advantages and disadvantages for moving a lot. One disadvantage is that I have been living here for 4 months with nothing more than what i could bring in mine and Leah's suitcases from Nigeria. The advantage though is that when your shipment does arrive it is like Christmas!
Friday our air shipment arrived. We get 500 lbs of air shipment and the rest comes by sea - it only left Nigeria on Sunday so it may be a while. It's probably better this way so you don't get overwhelmed by getting it all at once anyway.
It is so fun opening up our 3 huge boxes and seeing what was inside. Especially since Levin packed it without me. We had a little miscommunication about what should be included in this part, but all that mattered to me was that I got a lot more of my kitchen things, including my KitchenAid of course, some of Leah's toys, my real computer and towels so we can be better hosts in a few weeks for the big Flake reunion. It got a little tedious unwrapping since the packers wrap one hot chocolate mug in a million layers of paper. You should have seen the trash piles! I got it all put away before Levin arrived on Sunday. I was proud of myself for that.
When we went to Nigeria it was even more like Christmas. Levin and I had just gotten married and we had tons of things we'd bought with wedding gift money that we'd never even used yet. We'd both been living with roommates and didn't own some things so we went nuts at Wal-Mart and Target. Because of port issues, i.e bribery problems and just plain incompetence it took longer to collect it in Lagos. We received our air shipment then on December 23rd. We were leaving for South Africa on Christmas Eve so we opened our Christmas presents on the 23rd, cleaned up the wrapping paper just in time to receive our shipment. No shipment may exceed the Christmas feeling and excitement of that one, but this one felt pretty good. It feels pretty good to get your belongings!
We only had one casualty and it was our knife block and it's not really dead, just wounded.
Leah and her cousins have been having the time of their lives with one of the big boxes. Levin even cut windows in it. It all goes back to my theory that you shouldn't buy your kids presents, just give them the box it comes in.
On a side note, as you unpack you seem items and realize you've lived just fine without and you realize how much junk you own! Some of my shoes Levin threw in at the last minute when we had more weight available and a couple I pulled out and thought, do I really want to wear these shoes again that have walked the streets of Lagos??? But thank goodness for Lucy she had washed up and polished up most of my shoes. Have I ever mentioned that I miss Lucy?? We think we have her hooked up to work for Levin's replacement. I hope it works!
I begged her to smile, but anyone that has been around Leah lately knows Leah is her own person and no matter of begging, pleading, bribing, or threatening works.
Can you believe how big he's getting? He must be learning from Leah's bad example and refuses to smile for the camera too. He's a little more somber than Leah was as a baby so they're a little hard to get anyway, but when they come, they're gorgeous . . . or should I say amazingly handsome and masculine?
