Visitors

In a really odd way, living the expat life can be like living on the frontier. Certainly it's much easier now that technology and globalization has shrunk the world and made almost every product available. Regardless, living in a place so removed from US-life, like Tokyo, can lead to a frontier mentality. Case in point, we've had family come and visit us twice in the last two months. And in a way we've used our visiting family members as our own Pony Express, carrying to us needed provisions, such as sourdough bread, Chex mix and other frivolous creature comforts of home that we absolutely can't get ourselves to live without.

And gosh, since our family has come all this way to deliver us this food, why not stick around for a while. Shelley's sister Pam, and her youngest son Gary Jr. visited us in March. This last week we hosted Shelley's parents and her newly minted MD younger sister Katie.

As is often the case, our visitors seem to stay only long enough to acclimated to the time change before heading home to suffer yet another week of jetlag reacclimating to the home time. Then there's the sadness of having to say goodbye. It was appropriate that the day Shelley's family left it rained from morning till night. We were reminded that while living in Tokyo does have its advantages, one of them certainly isn't "easy access to family." Summer time seems to be when we get to gorge ourselves with family time.

Anyway, here are some pictures of the Daetwylers trip through Tokyo. Most of these photos were taken by Ed...I can't take credit for any of them. Lots of good pictures of our kids, too.