Thursday, February 25, 2010

Long time no post!

This is getting to be a really bad habit... I have to get back into the blogging "groove" - sorry for the silence here - it's been a crazy, hectic month. So, here's a start on it... Thursday the 11th was a holiday so none of us had to go to school. We took Yuki (the dietician) with us and went to Sapporo to see the snow festival. Pictures to be posted... (eventually!) It takes about an hour and a half to get to Sapporo so we left fairly early and managed to find a parking spot fairly close to the main park. The sculptures were huge and very impressive. It was a fun day but very cold. Ian managed to crutch himself all around the park and was quite exhausted by the end. We decided to skip the other two sites and went looking for a place that sells vegetarian food. We eventually found it but they were closed. We were looking for stuff for Joisan to be able to take to school for those days when they are serving meat for lunch. Anyway, we’ve made arrangements to get some of their stuff sent. The next day (Friday) was Yuki’s birthday so Naoko and Yuki and I went out to Wasabi for dinner to celebrate. As soon as I walked in to the restaurant the owner/manager presented me with a souvenir of the restaurant. It’s gold paper that has been cut out in sections to look like a traditional Japanese fish. The work that clearly went into making it is remarkable! Saturday the 13th we watched the opening ceremonies of the Olympics. It was pretty cool to see so much familiar scenery! Joisan and I had to leave before it was over to get to ballet but we enjoyed what we saw. When we got home from ballet, Ian and I headed back to Date to go out to dinner. We went to Wasabi again - it's definatly my favourite restaurant - and we enjoyed a quiet time with just the two of us. Living in such close quarters with the kids so limited in their social life definately leaves us with very little "us" time. We thoroughly enjoyed the meal and the time together. I've been working on making scripts out of two Robert Munsch books for the grade 1 and 2 classes at the Chugakko to do for the Shogakko. We've worked through the textbook now and the plays will give something to focus on for the next three weeks. I'm pretty excited about it!
On Wednesday Feb. 17th Joisan slipped on her way into the car after ballet and Ian wound up taking her to the hospital to get her right wrist examined. It was late and they didn't have the proper bone guy on but the pediatrician put her in a splint and told her to come back the next day. Despite multiple x-rays they still weren't sure if it was fractured or not until yesterday at the check up. It is of course. So, she's again limited in her activites until she can heal properly.
She was quite devastated since we had been planning for her to go skiing with the community trip last Sunday. Taran still went (snowboarding) and had a marvellous time! Naoko stuck with him for the day and she said he did really well and went very fast! While they were at the mountain I went with Hiro to Costco (finally!) and invested in a whole bunch of stuff we haven't been able to get cost effectively anywhere else. I picked up oatmeal, refried beans, cheddar cheese, mushroom soup, brown rice and much much more! Somewhere along the way I picked up a bug though because on the way home I got quite ill. I wound up staying home sick on Monday and Tuesday and then working from home Wednesday and part of Thursday.
It warmed up a lot yesterday and the snow started to melt! There are puddles and lakes everywhere surrounded by slush! There is still lots of snow but I have hope now that spring will one day arrive! It even rained last night! I did a happy rain dance this morning when I got up and it was still raining!
We have an action packed weekend with the Sobetsu International Snowball Fight, ballet, and a Sunday hike to the ice caves near Ootaki. Joisan has seperate plans with two friends this week and Taran is considering inviting someone to go to a movie next weekend.
Sorry about the novel - if you've waded this far I salute you! I promise to write more often and therefore avoid the War and Peace length blogs in the future!
Love to all.

1 comment:

  1. WOO HOO for Co-su-to-co!!! But boohoo for poor Joisan... so sorry!!! Yikes. Maybe go all out practicing your kanji or vocab while you're resting and healing up :) and you can impress your friends!!!

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