We're Home!!! 
After a 6-month separation with Rick's deployment, we are all together again. It was odd coming "home" to Japan but it when all's said and done, it felt good to be here -- it felt like home.
Rick returned from deployment a week before we did. We were sad we couldn't be there for his return but he was able to fly home in one of the jets which was fun for him (others got the photos for us, below).
After a 6-month separation with Rick's deployment, we are all together again. It was odd coming "home" to Japan but it when all's said and done, it felt good to be here -- it felt like home.
Rick returned from deployment a week before we did. We were sad we couldn't be there for his return but he was able to fly home in one of the jets which was fun for him (others got the photos for us, below).
Hannah Jane and I flew home from Utah, with overnight stops in Atlanta and Tokyo, and Rick picked us up at the airport with flowers and balloons. That night we celebrated all our birthdays which we "missed" while Rick was gone with individual cakes Rick made for us all (Hannah Jane was especially tickled with her "2" candle, an extra I had from her real birthday celebration in March. Problem is, she now thinks birthdays come twice a year for everyone...)
I'm two, again!
(Yes, that's a mustache on Rick -- a little ritual the deployed guys had going which didn't last more than 24 hours after we returned home. "Mustache month" is second only in popularity to "No-hair November" around here. For Rick, however, that's really no big deal...)
We've settled into a nice routine again and are getting use to being here and all together. Our second weekend home was labor day weekend which we celebrated by going camping with two other couples (one with a child HJ's age) at a mountain lake area -- beautiful! (see photo up top) Funny thing about camping is that one enjoyable thing about it is that it's cheap -- even in Japan. However, GETTING THERE still is not. While we paid $30 for a little camper cabin for our family, we paid about $80 in tolls for the 2-hour car trip. Traveling anywhere in Japan, however you do it, is not cheap. It cost us $250 for a one-way train ticket to Tokyo to catch our flight out of Narita --and that was for just me. Driving I'm told would cost you about the same --maybe a bit more with gas. Which is one reason we're huffing it to Thailand for a family vacation -- we leave mid-October! We are looking forward to the adventure and some quality family time. In December Rick will go to Singapore for most of the month, but we're hoping Hannah Jane and I will get to join him for part of it. Stay tuned!
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