Back to the Real World

Well, I've been back in Washington for a few days now.  The trip back was a lot more difficult than the trip to Japan.  The flight takes pretty much the same amount of time, but it seemed to take so much more out of me than the original trip.  Of course someone said to me it might have something to do with the excitement of the trip that I wasn't as tired.  They could have something there.

A positive aspect of the trip back to Washington was that I gained a day instead of losing a day.  My flight left Japan on Monday afternoon and after 9 hours in the air I arrived in Washington on Monday morning.  That's always how travelling should work.  Too bad it happened coming home instead of going on the vacation.

By the time I got home and ready to fall asleep around noon, it was about 4 am in the morning in Japan.  Because I can not sleep on airplanes I was pretty exhausted by this point.  I couldn't pick up Jake yet though because Josh and Jana weren't going to be home until around 6 pm.  So I set my alarm to wake me up 5 hours later.  Then I got up to make the drive to pick up my baby!  I was pretty excited.  Most people wouldn't get this.  For Tom and I though, Jake's our kid.  We both missed him a lot.  There were 2 different occasions that Tom and I gathered around the computer and watched the videos we had taken of Jake.

When I got to Josh and Jana's house Jake was pretty excited.  Of course sometimes it's hard to tell because he gets excited about any visitor.  But he did seem to remember me.  Jana's dog Lexi and Jake were getting along great!  She acted like a normal older sister putting up with the crazy younger brother.  The seemed quite fond of each other.  Jake even whined for a little bit when we were driving away.  I'm so glad he had such a great time.  Tom and I were both really happy that he was with people that would take such good care of him!  It really enabled us to enjoy ourselves knowing he was in such good hands.

He got a bath a couple of days later and shed more hair in that bath than I have ever seen before.  Then I washed his blankets and bedding and more hair everywhere.  It was crazy.  We usually give him a bath every other week.  Add the 4 weeks we were gone to the change is seasons and dog hair everywhere!  I've attached some pictures of his bath time.

I miss Tom, but I'm so happy to be with Jake again!  We look forward to Tom to come home and be with us again!