Tuesday, 20 April 2010

Forgot to add these photos - Keita warming up for the 2nd match that didn't happen.



We've had a busy couple of months with Kana's (can't find the photos) and Lisa's graduation and then Kana's entrance ceremony

Lisa and her friend Nami

Lisa at the entrance to her University

Kana and Lisa in the University grounds


On both days it was really cold and raining slightly for Lisa but pouring down for Kana. Although the ceremonies were held at the main campus in Nishinomiya, their campus is in Sanda which is actually much prettier although smaller and even colder!

Kana seems to be enjoying herself so far and already has a group of friends that she mainly hangs out with (1 other girl and 3 boys). I thinks she was getting fed up at the beginning with everyone asking if she was Lisa's sister but seems to have got over that now.

Lisa came back home at the end of February after living alone for 3 years and to be quite honest I wasn't really looking forward to it, thinking it would be stressful for everyone but surprisingly, it's been really good to have her back home and she's fitted back like she's never been away. She's still living a life of leisure with a couple of days here and there where she has to go for exams for her company but she starts working properly from the 2nd week of May although the first week they have an 'orientation' program staying at a hotel. I think she's quite looking forward to it.

Keita is now in his 3rd and final year of junior high school and has the school baseball coach for his homeroom teacher. (I was just relieved that he stayed in class '3' which means I didn't have to sew on new labels for his sports clothes!) Baseball wise things are going okay although they haven't done that great in any of the tournaments so far this year. For players like Keita or his friend Riku, it doesn't really matter that much because they have already been 'spotted' but for the other boys, they really need to get good results in the tournaments. The last tournament looked promising - Keita pitched really well for the first two stages (and got another write up and his photo in the paper again) which got them into the main part but the following week they got beaten in the first of two matches. The coach had wanted to play Keita in the 2nd match since it looked like the first team would be an easy win but because of errors, we lost! There are still a few more tournaments though so hopefully they'll do better.

We've also had the first 'meeting' to talk about what senior high school they kids want to go to but we've been told not to make any decisions before the summer. Although I haven't been formally told, I know there are a few schools who have asked for him and there is one or two schools I'D like him to go to but we'll just have to wait and see.

Aya and Daisuke now have 2 dogs - one they bought themselves and one I bought as a surprise for Aya's birthday.

The female, Mocha

The male, Rex


We'd bought Rex planning to give him to Aya 4 days later but because Mocha (who was really small) caught bronchitis, the vet said we should keep them apart for about 3 weeks so I ended up keeping him in my office for that time since we couldn't let him come upstairs without having all his injections plus I didn't fancy his chances with Spike and Daisy! They are now 4 months old and have grown a lot, especially Rex. It was nice having a pup again but also nice to be able to hand him over. Aya was just about demented with them at one point and I'm sure regretted getting them more than once but they've settled down a bit now.

And that's basically it! English lessons are a headache at the moment trying to reschedule classes and make room for another new one but hopefully that's going to get resolved this week. Until it does, I have combined two classes so now have 14 x 8/9 year olds in one class. Last week Lisa helped and hopefully she will again this week too - if not, it'll be pretty stressful as they aren't the most well behaved class to start with!