Unpack Fest 2008

We finally received all our things from Cambodia about 10 days ago. Who would have guessed that our possessions could have filled 164 boxes? Opening the boxes, my moving theory was confirmed: there is an inverse relationship between the level of development in the country you are packing out of and the care and amount of packing materials used for your stuff. Those Cambodian movers did a great job of protecting every $3 Crate and Barrel glass as if it were Haverford Crystal!

The big challenge for us has been trying to unpack while also entertaining the kids. Last weekend we hired some sitters. This weekend, as it is a long holiday weekend in Chile, everyone seemed to be away so we were more on our own. I decided to enlist the kids' help in unpacking, which went pretty much as you would expect...

At first the kids were very happy to use plastic cups to move the styrofoam peanuts to a garbage bag so we could reuse them as packing material later...

Then Ben decided it was really more fun to dump the peanuts on the table...

Then came the big discovery...it is so much more fun in the boxes than outside of them! Here Ben is pretending to be a "water monkey" in a tank of water at a zoo, "peeling" the water. I played a variety of zoo visitors who were amazed to discover that the water monkey could speak to them! That provided at least 30 minutes of entertainment...

By which point Ellie had discovered that packing paper was fun, too...

And Ben moved on to burying himself in peanuts and emerging happily from the deep...

Not the most efficient unpacking effort, but at least it kept the kids entertained while Mom and Dad worked!