Monday, April 19, 2010

Care Packages

My sister and her family recently took a tour of China.

It was a once-in-a-lifetime adventure which we followed with great interest. It's not everyday that you get an email "From the Yangtzee River in China". They took thousands of photographs (on digital cards), and hours of video footage.

Along with their having seen amazing sights and touring silk and cloissone factories, as well as seeing the Great Wall of China...they got to take an all-night sleeper train across the country! Amazing memories, for sure.

When they returned home, my sister sent out care packages.

Inside mine was this gorgeous serving bowl.

One time since moving into this house did I ever remember mentioning to her the color of our kitchen tile, and somehow she managed to find a serving bowl that matched it perfectly.

Jami has our grandma's infamous knack for finding the absolute perfect gift for someone.

The picture doesn't do it justice, but the match is dead on.



See how sparkly and pretty the glaze is on this bowl? I plan to just admire it for a few days before actually using it.



Meanwhile, they also picked out a bunch of cool loot for the boys, too, including money from that country which is always interesting to see. And this was after the goods had been pawed through by the boys.

The blue and white rectangles on the bottom left were nougat candies that taste a lot like a Big Hunk candy bar, except that they're wrapped with rice paper in addition to the outer wrapper. Just above the brightly colored candies in the bottom right are two packs of Extra gum, which in China come with some kind of little collectible prize.



The metallic foil wrapped confections tasted a bit like a long, tubular cheerio, filled with some type of pasty filling. Couldn't quite figure it out, but it was fun to get a feel for the 'flavors' of China. Jericho has enjoyed sampling all the goodies.

By far, Judah's favorite part of the care package were these hats.



Judah proudly wore his all over town the other day. Jericho prefers to display his. He's rather touchy about messing up the 'do' these days.

In any case, we were thrilled to get the packages, and just wanted to send a Thank You shoutout to aunt Jami & Family.

7 comments:

frumpgram said...

Isn't Jami something? But my heart got a little bit of a thump when I first viewed the picture, because your thumb on the left side matches pretty well with the bowl, and it appeared to have a broken piece at first sight!

I loved the hats on the boys. You can't go wrong with costuming for Jericho and Judah...they LOVE to dress up in costumes and role play for hours. It's hilarious to hear them doing this. Some of the exclamations are quite amazing verbage. I remember you kids dressing up and role playing, but never with quite the verve and vernacular.

Yes, that China trip was followed by all of us with great enjoyment. Their photos with captions and video clips really told a lot about their trip.

Loved the kowtowing, boys!

Shari said...

I loved this post. :) China-impressive. (Oooh, jealous, too, I might add.)

And Judah is getting so big!!!!

The Daily Bee said...

How fun. I've got the itch to visit China after reading China adoption blogs recently. That bowl is beautiful and of course all the loot she brought back for your boys.

btw - I love the color of your kitchen walls!

Life is Good said...

Glad you liked the bowl and China goodies. I would've loved to have gotten a ninja suit for Judah, but they had only small and extra large.

Life is Good said...

Becky, that bowl was actually something MOM and I found--it was her expertise in matching it to your kitchen, as I hadn't seen any pictures that I could tell what the colors were. So, it didn't come from China, but that's OK!

Pam said...

I'm so excited for Jami and her family to take that trip of a lifetime! And, your family to reap some awesome benefits when they returned home! Those hats are too awesome! Glad they had a good time and made it home safely. Curious: How long were they in China to be able to have such cool adventures?

Jenster said...

Love the bowl and the hats! Especially the hats!! lol I love candy wrapped in rice paper. Reminds me of my childhood!