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Memories of Las Vegas

When we met grandma yesterday I was so busy with managing suitcases and bathroom breaks and dealing with the throngs of people around us at the Las Vegas Airport that I didn't have a chance to process the moment.

However, our first stop was grandma's house, and that's when it hit me. In the calmness of my mom's suburban Vegas condo.


Kenzo and Osamu know grandma from our FaceTime chats, but they haven't seen her in person in nearly five years. Kenzo claims he remembers, but Osamu was just a few months old and definitely doesn't.


Today we slept late again. My excuse is jet lag. I'm generally bad at waking up at any hour regardless of the time zone. Luckily Eri and the boys were right with me. I've never seen them sleep like that. It must've been 10 a.m. before we were really up and at 'em.


Grandma had a previous, particularly awesome, engagement tonight, so that allowed us a little more time to adjust to the time and recuperate from the journey we undertook. We went to the pool in the morning, met grandma for lunch, then napped.

Actually I napped and Eri and the boys made a second visit to the pool, and when they returned to the room I was just sort of waking up and I could hear Kenzo saying, "Papa's still sleeping!"


Eri decided we should all go across the street and do some shopping, but even before we got to the crosswalk the boys were pretty upset by the 43 degree heat. So we sent mama off to do some quiet, relaxing shopping and the boys and I headed back to the room, changed into our swimsuits, and hit the pool again. All the way until they closed at 7 p.m.


As a little kid I can remember visiting this place with my family. Some memories are from over 40 years ago. One time we were on a cross-country car trip and stayed here.


I trust Kenzo and Osamu will come away with some similar, but of course different, memories of Las Vegas.

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