Oh my, I am in such a fog. I had a horrible time sleeping on the plane (impossible) and was about to kill dh when he arrived in SF to pick me up in the compact car. What the heck was he thinking? It was actually 10 times more comfortable than the plan though, so not so bad.

But I took a short nap in the afternoon (had arrived 9am) and was able to sleep rather well all night. I think I will be okay. It was nice to have a day to recover. I just said "I am here, but not really. I'll be here tomorrow" to the fam, which was about how it was. I was awake but not really most of the day - hehe. It is so bizarre to travel across so many time zones and in the course of the day be in a totally different land.

Anyway, the trip was WONDERFUL. Had a blast. I can not even tell you how many miles I have traveled this last week. Many many many miles.

My dad said that he probably spent $2k/person on this trip. We kept encouraging his friend's family to visit the US sometime, but I see why they haven't. It can get rather pricey rather quickly.

It was very good to come home and see the kids.

& now they are gearing up for their Florida trip - how crazy!

Well if I have time later I will share a little of my trip - and pictures.

I took maybe 50 pictures - if that. But my dad probably took 2000-3000.

I told him on the flight home that I think he could make money off some of his pictures. He has fancy camera and he caught the most wonderful picture of this big crow in Tokyo - I asked for a blown up copy for my wall. It was just magnificent. He said if I Wanted to set it up he would check it out. I think he may give me a cut of the profits - I have heard of some of those websites where you make money from photos. So I will look into it.

But yes, it was quite an experience. Things with my sister went about 1000 times better than I would have imagined. & I have to say I usually don't travel very well, but this time not a prob. I felt 100% most of the time and the time change was not noticeable at all - we just all assimilated right away so it was a nice trip.

I have to admit it was kind of nice to have a vacation from the fam too. I didn't miss them near as much as I thought I would. LOL. It's just nice to escape once in a while I guess. It is really good to be home all the same. But now THAT is a vacation.

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On return home I found that many of expenses are going down.

LM is very picky with diapers so is probably more in disposables these days than clothe. He has never worn clothe at night. He would wake too frequently. But dh asked me to go down in diapers and I saw price had gone up so it would be more expensive to get 20 diapers a week than the 40 we have now. So we just left. But he is making much progress with potty training (no where near done - but wetting far less often) and dh said they have only been using 10/week. So I admit we should probably just drop the clothe. We went through this with BM. This is a horrible time to drop clothe since it helps in the training, but frankly, he barely uses them anyway. So will save $53/month on diaper service. The diaper covers I do have are pretty much in shreds so will probably throw them out. No point to replace since we were so close to the end. I may have a few decent ones to freecycle but probably not much of sellable quality.

So maybe + $20/month more disposables, but -$53/month on clothe. A wonderful savings. & soon enough no more diapers at all!!!!

Our cable company is also changing its rates and now is offering substantial discount to have both internet and cable (which we do). It appears they will add HBO to our current package as well. When we had HBO we paid over $100. Now we pay about $80 with no premium channels and it is going down to like $60 and giving us HBO. Strange. We'll see! OF course we ready to drop them because of major e-mail issues, which they finally seems to have resolved. We have been shopping around. But this may be an incentive to stick with it.

& I already mentioned our water will be going sown as we switch to metered water. That is taking FOREVER but should take effect by January.

Oh yes, and MIL gave me $60 cash for the trip to treat for a dinner, so it covered my little shortfall for the month.

I don't think I spent more than $200 on the trip myself, but we'll see. (including the $60 dinner). Paid for one lunch, one dinner, $80 on phone calls home (well worth it). A few souvenirs (very few) and some water/food. My dad insisted on covering most of it. I think I only took $20/$30 and though the far less places took credit than I expected he ended up covering all the food/water, etc. so I didn't spend much on that. Not bad for a week in Japan!!!

More later... Much to catch up on at home and work!