My wife and daughter are in Japan for 2 months and I'm alone back here in the US. They go to Japan once a year, so this isn't the first time. To keep in touch, we've used the Webcam feature of MSN Messenger.
Released just in time for this trip, was MSN Messenger 7.0. The video conversation feature rocks in 7.0. The video quality is slightly better and I can expand the video window to full screen so it really makes it feel like we're connected. I can play games with my daughter like peekabo and other funny expressions we make at each other. The new winks feature is a lot of fun too.
You gotta get MSN Messenger 7.0.