Thursday, October 9, 2008
WE'RE HOME

We are home safe and sound! We had a long journey back to Virginia starting at 7AM on Saturday morning, October 4, 2008, in Tokyo. We caught a cab at 11AM to the ANA Intercontinental Hotel and then took the Airport Limousine Bus to Narita Airport at 11:30AM. Arriving at Narita Airport around 1PM, Steve and I checked our bags and then had to wait about a half hour at the United same-day ticketing counter to purchase Nariko’s one-way ticket home. The ticket person had a tough time figuring out how much to charge up but after much scribbling, she came up with about $78.00. That worked for us! We then enjoyed a wonderful lunch of McDonald’s at the airport and boarded the plane right on time.

This time, we had two seats by ourselves near the back of the plane. Again the United flight attendants knew who we were and were very nice and helpful. Nariko was an absolute angel on the flight home. She did not sleep until the last few hours, but she never cried at all! I’m sure the people around us were relieved and some probably never even knew she was there.

After 12 long hours in flight, we arrived at Dulles International Airport in Virginia around 3PM (still on Saturday due to the time change). By this time, we had been up for almost 24 hours with the rest of the day still to go. Phew…. We spent about an hour taking Nariko through immigration. There were no hassles, it just took a long time with several different places to wait in line for various paper checking. Nariko slept through her grand entrance into the United States but at least it was peaceful. After immigration, we were greeted at the airport by my mom and dad who were so happy to finally meet their first granddaughter. After the hour drive home, we were incredibly relieved and happy to be home at last. Steve’s family came over to visit and meet Nariko (thanks everyone!) and Steve went to pick up the dogs at the kennel. The dogs did wonderful with Nariko and were very sweet to her. No problems there thank goodness!

The rest of our first week home has been spent catching up on everything with family, friends and work as well as working on getting Nariko acclimated to the time change. So far we have not had much luck. She is still mostly sleeping through the day and up at night but we will get there. October 7, 2008, was our 8th wedding anniversary. It was special to spend it at home with our new daughter and we are even more in love now than when we first met 10 years ago. We also took Nariko to the doctor’s for her first checkup on October 8, 2008. She is perfectly healthy and is now 12 pounds, 8 ounces.

Here in the United States we will be calling Nariko by her middle name, Summer. However, Nari-chan will still be our special and most favorite name for her. Thank you to everyone who supported us in our journey to become a family and thanks for all the guest book comments too. It was great to read them while we were in Tokyo.

Much love,
Rain, Steve and Nariko Summer