Contrary to what some may believe, we are all still alive and well. Appologies for a lack of communication both on the blog and by email... I hurt my back quite badly last week and wound up flat out and drugged up for whatever time I was at home. I guess I just wanted a hospital visit and a bit of attention too! I'm pretty bummed about it because while the kids have been warming up for the ski marathon this weekend I haven't yet put on a pair of skis :( I'm still hoping that I'll be able to stretch out and do enough practice this weekend that I can participate on Sunday.
We're all back into the regular routines - school, conversation classes, ballet, regular trips to the hospital. Poor Ian, he's still got 6 or 8 weeks in his contraption that they built for him. I will take some pictures and get them posted - I promise!
We had a meeting yesterday with a representative of the school board from Date and a bunch of people from the Otaki office. We had been told that the meeting was about my salary changing but it turned out to be all about brainstorming ways to make it work for us to stay. They wanted to hear directly from us that we want to stay and then what we needed in order to make it happen. We have been told that Ian can work up to 28 hours a week so we're keeping our feelers out for something he can do that would earn him enough so we can stay.
Today I went to the kindergarten for a special event. Setsubun is a festival held every February 3rd or 4th (one day before the start of spring according to the Japanese lunar calendar) The short explanation is that children throw soybeans at the 'evil spirits' to drive them away. At the kindergarten/daycare centre today we (all the children and I ) threw soybeans at two people who were dressed up as evil spirits and then one of the staff and I tossed peanuts and candy into the air for the children to gather - all the while calling "Oni wa soto! Fuku wa uchi!" ("Devils out, happiness in!") It was totally fun and I've got some great photos which I will post (promise!) Taran was the devil for his class and had peanuts thrown at him!
On Monday at ballet Joisan hurt her foot again so she didn't ski with her class yesterday. She was fairly bummed but luckily it was feeling a bit better this morning so she's going to try going to ballet again today. Hopefully it will be okay.
Taran has decided that he's in need of a haircut so he's invited Hiro to come over an give him a buzz cut tonight. Photos to come! Ian is taking Joisan to ballet tonight while I do the adult conversation class so I'm off to do some planning. Thanks for the emails and comments everyone - it's great to hear from you!
Sooo, what's this about you staying longer?! Whoa, hope that works for everybody!!! We sure miss you. It was Ms. Chantelle's birthday today at dance, and they had a cake plus what Amy says was the "easiest" class ever! :) Remember though it is Grade 4 ballet. Amy passed her Grade 4 exam so she is VERY excited about moving up next year and being on her way to pointe. Almost time to start working on the Show stuff too... Act I is "The Ugly Duckling" and Modern is doing "All Around the World". Hmmm, that'll be a fun graphics assigment to coordinate those two themes! Looking forward to it. SLS is leaving for Ski Week tomorrow, plus we have an extra week off after that. Nice! I'm in the process of upgrading my Adobe software so I'm looking forward to diving into, what is it now, CS5?! We are experiencing very mild, almost Spring-like conditions and it looks like we'll have blooms soon. That *can't* be all we got for winter, so we are all holding our breath because it seems too good to be true :) Thinking of you there in snowy Hokkaido and it's starting to feel like your home away from home. So glad to hear you're having fun and enjoying the friendships you've built!!! Happy Almost Valentine's Day too!!! Love from the Barnards
ReplyDelete