When we hit Japan...

Tracking our long flight.

The kids and I made it safely back to Okinawa...the house in Okinawa is still in good shape, no bugs have taken up residence that I can see and things aren't too musty.
We flew from Boston to Okinawa (three legs) and it actually went better than expected. The high point was flying Air Canada from Boston to Toronto and then Toronto to Tokyo, a 13 hour flight. Air Canada had nice clean airplanes with lots of leg room, pretty good food and an individual movie player at each seat. Matthew watched cartoons for a lot of the flight. He was a model child for most of the trip. Anna was more of a handful, but still did very good.

The kids climb on the big cats at a play area in Toronto

We flew so far north on the flight to Tokyo that we were way above Alaska. There was some mention of flying near the arctic circle and we did see lots of ice below us, but I'm not sure how close we really were. It felt like we were flying right over the north pole. And we flew over Siberia, which I don't think I've ever done.

Anna sleeps in her car seat on the long flight. I tried to block all light from coming in and waking her.

The low point was at the Narita (Tokyo) airport when I accidentally took all my checked luggage OUT of security after going through customs. I was so mad 'cause I had to stand in the ticketing line again (since I didn't have my boarding pass yet) and go through security again, which I wouldn't have normally had to do, not to mention lug the giant cart of luggage and car seats while pushing the big stroller with the kids and more luggage hanging from it. I was quite a pathetic sight, I'm sure. It was my own fault though. Sadly they wouldn't let me take the double stroller back through security at Narita which only added to my transporting problems, but they loaned us a single stroller, Matthew walked and we eventually made it back through security at Narita and to our gate.
**update** Scott tells me that you have to go back through security at Narita...so maybe I did it right after all. That makes me feel somewhat better about it, but it was still a pain. :)

This is a terrible picture, but it was the best I got. Matthew and Anna made friends with a little girl on our flight to Okinawa. She was very cute and they all liked playing together.

The last leg was the worst since the kids were so tired. The Japanese flight attendants decided that Matthew was too little to sit by himself for take off and landing, so they made me put Anna in the car seat (she screamed and screamed) and hold the very long legged, 2 1/2 year old Matthew for take off. They also kept referring to him as "your baby" so it seemed a little funny to me, but it all worked out in the end. Also a very grumpy American traveling on our flight made me switch Anna and Matthew's seats (moving the car seat was a pain) so she wouldn't have to sit in front of Anna and then immediately decided to move to a different row. I was a little irked, but I guess we had all been having a rough travel day. She was traveling with what looked like 10 and 12 year old kids and her husband, so I didn't feel that bad for her or sympathetic for her grumpiness. But I did politely move the car seat and Matthew to try and accommodate her.
Anyway, grumpy passengers aside (I'm sure I was one as well) we made it. Our friends picked us up at the airport in Okinawa and got us all situated in our house. They had even bought groceries for us so we would have some food waiting for us. So nice.
The kids were really excited about the house and all the toys they hadn't seen in nearly 10 months, so it was hard for them to go to sleep, but eventually we all got some rest, and hopefully in a few days we'll be adjusted to Okinawa time again. It's a little strange to be back. In some ways it feels like we never left, and yet so much time has passed. I'm just glad the flights are over and we made it back. Now we're just waiting for Scott to get here. :)

Our Christmas decor is still up from last year - we left in December. I guess it will make decorating easier this year. :)