Locked out!

We left Aunt Nobuko and Uncle Dennis' house at 4:30am on Wednesday morning. We had a great time with them--visiting, eating, and see "local" Singapore. It was fun and we learned to get around on trains, buses and taxis. It is easy visiting a country that speaks English and where the time difference is only 1 hour! Anyway, we arrived back in Japan at 2:15pm and were out of customs at 2:30pm! Nice not to have checked bags! We took a train home and arrived in our town a little before 5pm. It was raining and very cold! (We were dressed for warmer weather!) I wanted to take a taxi home but the line was long so we bought umbrellas instead! The kids went home before me while I picked up a few items of food for us. I got home around 5:30pm to find the kids standing outside the house with our luggage out in the rain. It seems that our guests had fastened the front door security latch before leaving through the back door. This would have been fine, but we did not have a back door key with us. Kei and Kie tried their best to come up with ideas to get us in. I went to the in-laws house to see if the key had arrived. (Our guests were to mail the key to their house.) Well, since the in-laws are on vacation they probably stopped the mail--no key. I returned home. We tried some other options. Nothing worked. Kie was praying we could get in--she was especially cold! All of a sudden a man appeared at our gate--it was the building contractor from the remodel. He was coming to set up a time to fix a couple of things on the house! Wow! He called the door people who told us we would have to get a locksmith! Meanwhile Kei is studying the door and suggests a certain method which the contractor tries and we get a bit closer to getting in. He goes to his van to get some tools and Kei and I manage to get the latch off! So we were able to get in! Too cool! God is good!