Sept. 22nd

Wow. Is it really the 22nd already? I've been back in America for almost a month now? Weird. The last few weeks have been pretty crazy. Braden and I have been living out of our suitcases for about a month as we've traveled around Japan visiting friends and then traveled around Washington and Idaho visiting family, and now we're finally back in Ellensburg. I finished unpacking the suitcases yesterday (Its so nice to have a closet and a dresser again), but we still have a lot of things still packed up in boxes and tubs (Mostly decor at this point. All the useful stuff is unpacked now). Seeing our families again was great. I got to see my grandparents, some aunts, uncles, and cousins I haven't seen for a long time, and I got to see all my wonderful siblings, my awesome parents and in-laws, and the adorable dogs and cats back home :). Unfortunately I caught a bad cold as soon as we got to Idaho, and Braden suffered from some severe jaw pain (he needs a root canal soon 0_o), but I enjoyed being around my family and miss them again already. I miss my friends back in Japan too. We had lots of fun and lots of great experiences, and I'm sure that someday we'll go back :). The trip home went pretty well. There was a big selection of movies to watch on the plane, so the ten hour trip went by pretty quickly. We arrived in LA and had to go through some very long lines and then hurry to catch our next flight to Seattle. I lost some luggage at the LA airport (the second time I've lost luggage in that airport...) but it was delivered to Braden's parents' house the next day. We arrived in Seattle and Braden's parents were there to meet us and help us with our luggage (well, except for the suitcase that was missing). Boy was I glad to put those suitcases in the car. The worst part about our travels was dragging those heavy suitcases around, especially getting them on and off the trains in Japan. But now they are unpacked and I don't have to worry about them anymore for a while. Well, now I guess I'll write about a few of my first impressions about being back. As soon as we got to Seattle I had to unpack my sweaters because I was suddenly cold! (It was still very warm in Japan when we left.) Soon after getting back to Idaho I had to start putting lotion on my hands every day because they were getting so cracked and dry. My hands were really pampered in the humid air of Japan. The first day back I kept bowing and saying "gomen" (Japanese for sorry) when I bumped into people at the airport. The food in the stores all looks so big (I can buy gallons of milk instead of just liters again, yay!), but I miss being able to buy cheap natto for Braden and flavor packets for Hayashi Rice. I guess that means we need to take a trip to the asian market Uwajimaya in Seattle soon. Now we're back in Ellensburg getting back into the swing of things. I guess since this blog is supposed to be about our adventures in Japan, there's not much left for me to write about here. I want to print it all in a book and keep it as a scrapbook of sorts of all our time in Japan. Thank you all who've been reading, I hope you enjoyed it. And now I have a diary of our life in Japan to look back on.

I love Japan :).