Millie slept a record-breaking 16 hours straight last night. When she was finally up she was completely back to normal. If I was a crazy billionaire who wanted to live forever I’d be harvesting her stem cells.

We spent the morning doing almost nothing. Nick built a fire. I made egg sandwiches. Millie got lots of attention and had double the playmates for games of “baby” and readers for chapters of Babysitters Club. We all sat around reading and doing crosswords and not much else. My parents went out for a walk. Millie and I hung out in the hammock until she got too cold.

Our Airbnb hosts left us tickets to the local onsen, which is only 15 minutes away. Everyone was excited about it until we all slowly started to realize that you had to be naked to get in the public baths. For some reason Nick didn’t think of “get naked with your father-in-law” as a relaxing Thursday afternoon activity. Millie was fine being naked but “didn’t want to see thousands of other people’s private parts”. In the end, my mom and I were the only ones brave enough for the true Japanese cultural experience. The prudes dropped us off and in we went.

After the very brief awkwardness of being naked together for the first time in many years, we had the best time. They didn’t allow photos for obvious reasons so I will do my best to describe it to you.

We stripped down in the locker room and then walked to the showering area. We used our tiny hand towels hanging in front to feign modesty. There were about 20 stools and shower stations lined up. We did as the other ladies did and sat on the little stools and lathered up our whole bodies. After we rinsed off we got in the first indoor pool. It was the temperature of a hot bath, just cool enough to be able to get in without going slowly. After a few minutes in this one we went outside to the large outdoor pool. It was surrounded by fall foliage and there was steam coming off the water. It was so silent that we questioned if we were allowed to talk to each other. It was full of women of all ages in their own little zen worlds.

Here’s a photo from the internet of where we were. Just heaven.

It was so warm that we both got pretty lightheaded when we got out. We recovered, took another stool shower, and then put on our clothes. We felt so relaxed, like we had just had massages.

The onsen had a cafe and served homemade ice cream with local dairy. We couldn’t not get one. I called it “secret ice cream” because I knew Millie could never know about it. She’d get too jealous. Future Millie – when you read this – I owe you an ice cream cone.

While we were relaxing, the nevernudes went grocery shopping. They came and picked us up and we all drove back to the house. We made another simple but very good dinner of salad and spaghetti. There is nothing like home cooking.

Nick lit another roaring fire. Millie got her hot cocoa she couldn’t finish yesterday, and then did some drawing with my dad.

It was a very cozy day.