General thoughts on our return...

So we've been back in the "real world" for just over three weeks now, and feel that it's time to try and get a quick update as to how we've adapted. It's been tough to get our thoughts together, and we have actually been quite busy since we've been back.

In the 25 days that we've been back Tina has spent 5 days in Canada and 1 day in Philadelphia, and I while I joined her for 2 days in Canada I also spent 4 days out in southern California. Tina has been lucky in that she's found work in what we were told is an environment where many are hard pressed to find employment, so we really haven't had any relaxing downtime yet.

The first weekend back we were both up in Canada to spend time with Tina's family, she was feeling guilty since this was her first ever Christmas away from her family, and surprisingly everyone was glad to see us and put on their second holiday in a short time. If Tina gets time before it fades too far into the past she may write up a quick post talking about our time up there.

From Canada we were only back for a day before we both traveled to opposite sides of the country, when we were back together on Friday we were far from having a relaxing weekend. At that time my folks were in town, and we booked time with them to make up for the fact that this year we didn't make a stop back home. It was nice to catch up, and since it was also my mom's birthday we treated them to a nice dinner at a nice steak restaurant.

A full week of work for both of us, especially tiring for Tina who had enjoyed a 2.5 year hiatus, left us coming into last weekend just a little tired. A relaxing Friday night got us ready for a welcome back party that we through for some of our friends at our temporary residence. Saturday we entertained about 16 people which was a really great time for us to catch up, but we probably went a little overboard since our last guests didn't leave until after 02:00... and then had we not just opened a new bottle of wine we would have been able to head off to bed. But, a bottle of wine later and the place was cleaned and we didn't have to worry about waking up to a messy place.

Next weekend we will finally have a weekend to relax, but that doesn't mean that that we don't have a full weekend planned. It's amazing how many little things need to be done when one tries to get settled into a somewhat normal routine back in city the that we lived in only 2-1/2 years ago.


There you go - a fairly full post just explaining why we haven't been posting those final posts we promised. Tina's got a few things that she can post about her first observations in the difference between live in China and life in Chicago, she's hoping to get that entered in soon. I've also got a few items that we've discussed that need to be posted, so those are still coming...