Packing up in Karuizawa

We packed up our home in Karuizawa in just about a week - sped up by the threat of a big snowstorm - and left 2 days early on Jan 1st! We left all our boxes in the house, just taking our essentials to make it to Chiba before the storm for some meetings later that week.
We packed all our closets and "backroom" things before Christmas, but kept our main room looking as normal as possible for the kids. After Christmas we lived among boxes!
Here are the girls sitting in their empty bedroom, with nothing to do but watch the portable DVD player!
An exciting thing for Olivia on our last day in Karuizawa was to finally get to climb the ladder with Daddy and see the loft upstairs. For 2 years the kids knew "with no exception - kids don't climb the ladder". So, Olivia was so excited, and we're sure she must have imagined all the wonderful things that might be up there. Actually, there was nothing to see, since we had already packed everything - but she still loved it!

We said goodbye to our home (though Jon would come back soon to get all the boxes!)