Way Down South In Mississippi

Y'all, I can't even begin to tell you how much fun we've been having with our families. We've eaten our way across the good state of Mississippi, shopped until wallets were empty, and laughed and talked with our family and friends until our hearts were full. I didn't get near as many pictures as I thought I would have. And would you believe that we were graced with a white Christmas?



It was a very special gift for our homecoming.

To say that the past two weeks went by fast would be an understatement.

It seems like only yesterday we were preparing to board the Narita Express,



then our plane to America.



I'm being thoroughly entertained by Husband as he tries to explain a game on his iPad to our nephews, so I'm going to leave you with the colorful, delicious, and beautiful sights from the first half of our return home in Oxford, Mississippi.

Enjoy and a belated Merry Christmas to you all!

What We Have Not Been Doing

We have not been resting on our laurels,



or hiding from our multitude of tasks to complete before we leave for the US on Saturday.



We have been enjoying the warm glow from the lights on our petite tree,



and doing simple holiday projects.



Or playing the drums with our markers while others do simple holiday projects.





Sweet bebe does love his noise makers!



They are much more fun than sitting down to color boring old plates, right?





And they're certainly more fun than organizing and packing suitcases for a 14 hour flight.



But they're not as cute as the darling frog slippers I found. So, so, so precious on little scallywag feet!



Well friends, it's official: our packed bags have been taken to Narita Airport where they'll stay until we check them on Saturday. As we live in a city where the airport is an hour away, this is the best way to go. It makes travelling there less chaotic~and with two children along for the ride, chaos-free is ideal.

And to think, we did it all without the help of our maid's mad folding skills! We kept our baggage down to the bare minimum as we plan to bring oodles of things back (numerous toiletries and other things we cannot get here), so you have to understand what an accomplishment this was.

We only packed two suitcases.

You can clap, believe me, I think my husband was tempted.

We're also bringing an empty one so we can carry all of our Stateside purchases back to Tokyo. Our delivery service will handle it once we return, which I'll confess, is really nice. Round trip service for our luggage rocks! We'll be exhausted with even more exhausted children. Not having to deal with baggage is a treat!

With that in mind, I'm about to give myself a sweet one as well. We've had a very busy past two weeks and now we can relax and wait for the day of our flight home.

To everyone who may be travelling to visit family or friends, be safe and enjoy your time with your loved ones.

Merry, merry all!