May 27, 2013
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May
May is always a busy time for us, and this May has been no exception. The month started out with Golden Week. As it happens Golden Week is a series of holidays that start at the end of April and runs through the first week of May. It also happened that this year was a visa renewal year. Since we arrived to Japan almost mid-May 9 years ago, we knew that applying means submitting visa paperwork before Golden Week. Essentially our month of May felt like it started towards the end of April.
In the midst of everything, we have been seeing specialists about some sleeping issues my son Tomo has been having which means trips to hospitals, tests, and a heap of waiting. Throw is a 14 year wedding anniversary and a 12th birthday into the mix of every May busyness. I discovered in the midst of applying for our visa extensions that, though, I knew that my oldest child’s passport expired this year, I was expecting that to be in July, not June (June 3, to be exact). Not only that, when we went to secure an appointment to take him to the Embassy to renew it, the only appointment available was last Friday (two weeks before the expiration date, but the only appointment available to us between mid-May through the month of June. We had hoped to be able to bridge the passport thing as an on the way to get my parents things, but that was not to be. Yes, May is ending with my mom and dad coming! One of the down sides to living on the Sea of Japan side of Honshu, is that getting to the International Airports is more of a time and financial commitment, so that is why we wanted to combine trips.
As I write this, Corey is headed through the mountains. He will stay at a friends house and play some boards games with his friend. Then he will make the run to the airport to scoop up my parents and will return with them tomorrow night. The kids are super excited and getting them to sleep last night was a bit of a challenge. Getting kids to sleep or to stay asleep last night left me making several trips up and down the steps last night. The last trip up resulted in getting some sort of splinter in the heal of my foot. Not my idea of fun at 1:00 in the morning. I think all is ok for now. I will keep an eye on my foot to make sure there are no further problems.
The Nagaoka Symphony is gearing up for another concert on June 16th. This concert we will be having a guest conductor and a guest concert master. Because of this, we have been having extra practices to accommodate the different people, plus the pieces are a bit challenging and we need to work even harder to play well. However, not having lots of extra time, these extra rehearsals have been a challenge to make it to all of them. I am looking forward to playing these pieces, because I am starting to feel like my brain is overfull of them. It will also feel like a sense of accomplishment to finally play them for the audience.
All this is addition to the usual flow of homeschool and ministry, so it has made for a busy month.
So as May ends, we still have no resolutions on the sleep issue with Tomo. We will have an overnight hospital stay at the end of July to give a sleep test that involves brain waves in addition to heart rate, respiration, and oxygen levels. We still do not have our visas, but the immigration office did call the other night to ask some clarifying questions. Hopefully, we will receive the notifications that our applications have been approved soon. Skyler’s passport is in the midst of processing, we should see it in 5 weeks (so we were told). I guess May ends in a bit of a holding pattern as the kids and I are also waiting on Corey and my parents to make it to our house.
On a more fun note, earlier in the month, we worked together to get a small box garden in our front yard. I permitted the kids to pick things they would like to try and grow. The box is divided into three parts. We will be experimenting to see how we are at gardening. If all goes well, we should be seeing broccoli, tomatoes, zucchini, strawberries, sweet bell peppers, pumpkin and watermelon. It has been fun to see things start to grow. Today I used one of my tulip planters and turned it into a small herb garden. I now have basil and parsley planted. I also bought some Morning Glory seeds, and together, Maya and I planted Morning Glories that will grow outside our living room windows.
Rest time is about over, so I had better get the kids outside for some playtime before supper. I need to wear them out so they will sleep well tonight because I would like to sleep well tonight.
