The state of the union

This sunset looked better live, but still kind of neat looking clouds.

Wow time is moving fast! It has been such an incredibly busy time the last 4 weeks, that I barely had time to be social or get enough 'me' time. But I am not complaining- all the extra work was exactly what I needed! Thanks a lot to Time Life, they really came through with a lot of work, and because of that I feel a little more comfortable heading into the next year!

And what a next year it will be- we're looking at (hopefully) less than 2 months away from the little one arriving! Ritsy will finish work at the end of this month and go on maternity leave. We finally found out about Sankyu (Maternity Pay). It looks like for the first 3 months, we won't see a dime of the mat pay, but after the initial 90 day period from when the baby arrives she will get a pretty good cheque. But after that her monthly pay will be pretty minimal- just enough so that she can still help me with the mortgage and she can make the payments on her car. Taking on the monthly bills will be tight for me, but I can breathe a little safer with some money in the bank (thanks to all the extra work recently!),especially during the leaner months. We also will get back about 350,000 yen for having the baby, but that will also take 3 months to come. I think we are ready for it, and if we survive with most of our savings in tact, we can still take our planned trip to Canada next year in April.

What else is happening? We had the Sports Day events last weekend for ESL College and it was pretty successful. I fed off the kids a little too much though and worked up quite a sweat! It was a long exhausting day, but I didn't care I had a good time!

This week has actually been quite restful for me. Thanks to one of my students calling in sick a couple of times over the last week, I have been able to enjoy a surprise day off and get a lot of rest today (even update my blog...). This month most of my regular class' contracts come to an end so I have to endure the usual anxiety of hoping that they all renew. Usually it all works out, but there are no certainties in life!

We might get a visit from Makoto next week- I hope he comes out, that could be fun!

Time for me to head off to work now! Here is another picture from last week of Ritsy and the 2 cats sleeping, those crazy sleepy kids.

Gone and a wee party (or is that Wii party?)

Well, Suzuki's house is all but a memory now. They have left standing a single wall as you can see in this picture and there is a little single room 'house' still standing a bit to the left of this picture. I am still not too sure what the overall plan is with the property but it could mean a whole of new neighbors or something equally interesting...
Last night, Chris and Hisano threw a "yippee we have a week off in June" party for some of ESL College's students. I went down a little bit early armed with my blender, prepared to dazzle the masses with my fruit smoothie and awamori drinks (affectionately known as girly drinks).
As we awaited the students arrival we had a surprise visit from the man himself, Adam. He was filling us in on an exciting sounding meeting about some English teaching nonsense. I excused myself and headed upstairs to enjoy some of the delicious bbq'ed meat that OjiOji had cooked.
I had met Chris' student Yeni before but it was great to meet Simon (her boyfriend) and Sara (my new Facebook buddy) both very nice people.
Simon bore a bit of a resemblance to Harry Potter.
Our friends Taeko and Ayako came out and had a good laugh together between Cat Stevens songs.
Meanwhile Chris had brought his Wii which was quite a success at the party.
Thanks again to Chris for a good time at the party!