Bad mommy

I had the case of bad mommyitis last Thursday. After Cora went to school, I discovered that she was supposed to have a field trip on that day and that I was supposed to have sent her to school with a lunch, water, sunscreen, and a change of clothes in her backpack so she could go to the Asa Zoo up near Hiroshima. Instead, unaware of this field trip, I sent her to school with a backpack full of library books and a blanket for nap time. The paperwork specifically said to make sure there was nothing extra in her backpack as she was going to have to carry it around all day at the zoo. I felt horrible.

So, I called my friend and she got ready to go with me, I made a lunch for Cora, grabbed a smaller backpack and filled it with the lunch, the water, and sunscreen and stopped at the ATM for yen and off we went to meet up with the bus at the zoo. We drove up to the zoo and when we got there discovered the zoo is closed on every Thursday of the year. Not only were all the gates to the zoo closed, the parking lot was all roped off so we couldn't even get in there. I thought I read the paperwork wrong. So, I called Ryan, had him borrow a car from a friend since we only have one van at the moment, and asked him to go to the house to look at the paperwork. He got there and told me I wasn't going crazy and that the paperwork said the 28th so he called the school. They informed us that the field trip had been canceled for that day and moved to June 2nd. They said paperwork was sent home about it but unfortunately we hadn't seen any. When Cora got home from school that night, she produced that paperwork and then we realized why we had no idea. Even though I had the bad mommyitis and forgot about the lunch...at least it all worked out in the long run.

On the plus side, my friend Devon has been visiting Japan for over a month now and has seen very little of the country so we were able to stop at Miyajima and tour the island with no children. So, here are some pictures from our trip there.

New way to keep in touch

Hello family and friends! I've decided there needs to be a way to allow everyone to see what we've been up to over here in Japan. Most of you probably thought we've fallen off the face of the earth, but hopefully, with this new blog site we can keep you up to date on the happenings in our lives! Ryan plans on working on a website for the whole family to use to keep in touch but until that happens, this will have to do. I'm going to start out this blog by posting the most current pictures we have of the kids and ourselves. And, then hopefully we'll be able to post new pictures as events happen throughout our lives. Cora thought she needed pretty pictures with daddy after getting her hair brushed last night. It took many times of taking it to get them to stop goofing around enough to get a decent picture. The picture of me with Dominick and Hayden was taken at the triangle park on base in Iwakuni. Dominick's class had a class picnic under the cherry blossoms to enjoy them for the few days they're out. Everybody had lots of fun and we're looking forward to being able to do it again next year! Everyone is doing well here. The kids are getting ready to finish up school. They are super excited for the summer to start. Only 8 1/2 more days! Hayden however has year round school and only gets August off but I think he's okay with that because he likes having stuff to do. When he gets home from school, we can take him to the pool, tire him out and he'll sleep like a baby every night through the summer. Hopefully, that means the kids will learn to sleep in a little. Then, maybe I can too. But, that's probably just wishful thinking. Ryan will continue working throughout the summer but we're hoping in August to take time to head back to South Dakota and Minnesota and visit family and friends. We are in dire need of a vacatiion in an English speaking area. I hope this finds everyone well and there will be more to come soon. Love to all!