a taste of home

A few days after my friends S.R. and S.P. headed back to California, I had another visitor! C.E., the father of one of my best and oldest friends, was in town for business, so we met up for dinner at Tin Jo one night while he was in the area. Tin Jo serves amazing Asian food and is one of my favorite restaurants in San Jose--I take everyone who visits me there for a meal. It was so fun to get together and catch up, and bonus: he brought me some things I had ordered from Amazon, so I didn't have to pay the outrageous overseas shipping costs!

Love my exercise dvds! My mom sent the sunscreen to help me prepare for a trek I took in Peru shortly after C.E.'s visit (more on that later.)

Before passing off my package to my friend's dad, my mom had tucked some surprises in with the dvds and sunscreen:
Peeps! My favorite seasonal candy in honor of my favorite holiday :). She also snuck in a Cadbury egg and some mini chocolate eggs. Isn't she the best?!

I must say, all the visitors I've had this year have been so great about bringing me some of the things I miss most from the United States, especially these:

and these:

Seriously, when S.R. and S.P. came to visit, they brought me a jumbo bag of Craisins and FIVE ginormous bags of Tropical Starburst! (If you haven't tried them, you really should...) I guess that they each bought several bags, because they didn't know that the other one was getting them. Of course, I gave two bags to my fellow Tropical Starburst enthusiast, E.A., because in these limited candy times, you gotta share the rations. And let's be honest, if I had eaten all five bags on my own, I probably would have ended up with five cavities. And five...or ten...extra pounds, ha!

It might seem funny that I'm so excited about Peeps, Craisins and Starburst, but sometimes, when you're far from home, it's nice to have those little things that you love. I'm so glad to have had so many wonderful visitors this year, and thankful that they were all so thoughtful to bring me some of the things I miss!

Images found here, here, and here.