I went to Southern California and rode “It’s a Small World” all weekend.

But I wasn’t at Disneyland. Instead, another friend and I strapped ourselves in our dear friend Kathleen’s Honda Odyssey as she led a tour around the world — Little Tokyo, Little India, Little Saigon. We sampled sweet Japanese mochi from a shop in business since 1903; let an Indian woman “thread” our faces and sell us pointy-toed, mirrored shoes; and I caved and let a very sweet Vietnamese lady apply rhinestones and flowers to my big toes for the first (and, ok, last) time ever.

Three days later, I’m still sore from the Chinese massage, and I’m not entirely sure what I ate at lunch yesterday at a restaurant called Hanoi.

It was wonderful, but by the end I ached for home. I thought leaving your kids was supposed to get easier. For me it’s harder each time. On the return flight to Phoenix, my suitcase was literally exploding with bags of cute tchotchkes for the girls. I actually had to take items out, in order to cram it into the overhead compartment.

I took a lot of photos, but no image was nearly as good as the one I came home to, above.