Welcome home Oma & Opa!

Oma and Opa's return means gifts! My beautiful antique recycled kimono from Japan courtesy of my aunt.

The day started early with an orthodontist appointment for Elliot at 8am, followed by one at the KNOX uniform ship. Elliot would be getting outfitted for next year. We left $536 poorer with a return date to pick up his boater and house T-shirt.

Please don't lose any of that cargo...bags full of...uniform

We were scheduled to rush to the airport but was pleasantly surprised that my cousin had volunteered to make the journey instead. The full complement of babysitters are home! Hurray! Oma and Opa returned from their travels to Hong Kong, China and Japan this morning bearing gifts as per usual. My parents stories were fascinating. The Chinese country towns that they visited sounded much like how Beijing was 20 years ago. Their story of buying oxygen tanks when they were in a high altitude town cracked me up. My parents then said the unspokable...they were sick of Chinese food! Apparently, the food was so bad in mainland China that they lost weight. They managed to put it all back on once they hit Hong Kong and Japan. Poor Elliot was torn between staying with Opa and Oma or heading over to Nanna and Grandpa's where Lara and Jonah were. The latter prevailed. A scurry across to Cabarita, and I was free! Time to re-acquaint myself with American states...

Embroidered linen pants from China.

One of those "tie in many ways" bags Japanese style