Long time No Post

So, it's been a long time since I've posted anything on here. I keep starting all these new sites to try to keep in touch with people and allow family and friends to see pictures of the kids. However, I'm not very good with sticking with it due to everything else going on in our lives. This blog in particular shows that the most.

So, to catch everyone up; Dominick and Cora finished their school year. Dominick is officially a 4th grader and Cora officially is a 2nd grader. Dominick finished out his school year at the top of his class, had an awesome science fair project about electromagnets, and according to his teacher was a big help in his class. Cora successfully reached all her goals in her IEP for speech! She no longer needs the speech therapy as she is finally caught up. She does have an extra reading class now to help give her support during he normal classes. The extra help in reading has allowed her to progress form a reading level of 4 to 10 in a matter of a couple months. I'm so proud of her. Hopefully, with her new medication to help keep her focused, she will continue to progress. We're hoping to take her off the medication this fall and get her tested for a learning disability right away. I'd rather handle any problems with extra help and support in school and from us then to medicate her. Currently, she is in a summer program to reinforce everything she's learned throughout the past school year and add additional learning before the next year. Hayden is still finishing up his school year. He has another week or two before he's done for the summer. Right now he is swimming at his yochien, learning to speak Japanese better and is even starting to talk to people in the community which is really helping us out. He's such a good little translater. He's growing up so fast and soon I won't have any little kids in the house anymore. So scary, but also such a delight! I'm enjoying how much less my house gets destroyed by them as they grow up.

Today is a day with no children, but also a day where all our money will disappear into the Japanese economy. JCI = Japanese Compulsory Insurance. We have to go take our new car into to get an inspection and purchase secondary insurance on our car. The exchange rate is going to crap right now so we spent $571 on new tires so our car would pass the inspection and we wanted to take at least 70000 yen with us which normally with a good exchange rate that would be close to $700 but instead is over $800. Ouch! on our pocketbook. Well, time to take the kids to the sitters so we can head off for our inspection. Wish us luck!