Visitor!

It is getting cold around here and I'm starting to bring out sweaters and even my down jacket.  

The colors of autumn are gold and orange and red and we don't even have to go anyway to have beautiful scenery.

Thursday was a holiday here in Japan and we had a special guest come up for the day to be with us.  Erin is Leiya's friend from high school when she was living in Ohio and though the girls went away to different colleges, they have kept in touch.  I last saw Erin 5 years ago when she drove from Ohio to Detroit to come help Leiya look for a wedding dress and when I made the week trip from Japan.  I remember having such fun with the girls those few days!

Anyway, Erin has lived off and on in Japan for the past few years, she married a Japanese boy and though they live in Ohio, she was in Tokyo for a business trip.  She had visited with Leiya not long ago and had heard of my hesitancy to mail quilts to Leiya and offered to take some back with her when she returned to the midwest.  At first I was going to mail the quilts to her Japanese address (I trust domestic mail more than international mail) but then she offered to come to Nikko and pick them up herself!!  We made a day of it!

Erin arrived a bit before lunch time and Tetsu and I picked her up at the station with her pulling a large EMPTY suitcase alongside her.  "For quilts!"  We drove back to Nikko (40 minutes away) and had lunch at a chinese restaurant and caught up on our lives.  Tetsu was so happy that he and Erin could speak to each other in Japanese now!  

It would have been nice to take Erin sightseeing but with only a day trip and this being the peak of the tourist season and thousands of people heading to the mountains and shrines to see the fall colors, we opted to just come back home and sit in our garden and chat.  

And finally we got down to the business of filling Erin's suitcase.  On one side we packed in the two Songbird's Garden quilts that I had made for Leiya, and also the Labyrinth quilt that Julieta-san wanted.  Leiya promises to forward that to Julieta.  I had also made a Christmas stocking for Luka and Leiya had wanted one of my ancient quilts from her kindergarten days which we got packed aways also.  Throw in a couple children's books for Luka and onc side of the suitcase was filled.

The other side of the suitcase we reserved for Erin.  I had told her that she could pick out what quilts she wanted to take home herself and so we pulled out quilts from my closet, old ones and new ones, Christmas, applique etc.  Erin made a few choices and with more space we went back to the Christmas pile to choose some for her mother.  That was one quilt loaded suitcase when we got done!  I am so pleased that some of my quilt horde are going to be adopted into homes!

Erin will be headed back to Ohio at the middle of this month and then she and Leiya are going to have to figure out how to get the suitcase from Ohio to Indiana, but at least the quilts will be on the right contintent!  Thank you Erin!  That really helps us out so much!