Friday, June 5, 2009

Number 25

Japan 25

Somehow, I think I have been at this point before. We are leaving for Guam on Thursday and Dana is bugging me to write another chronicle. Oh well, I know it has been a couple of weeks since I wrote, and it often seems like there is nothing to write about, but these last couple of weeks have been very busy. Let me see if I can sort it all out.

First, we have a homecoming date. We will be leaving Japan on April 10th and arrive in Los Angeles, before we leave Japan. (Time zones) We will spend a busy week in the Los Angles area, not the least of which will include Catherine making her First Communion and then return to Denver on the 17th. We are all anxious to get home. It is not that we have not enjoyed our time here; I think we just need to settle down for a while.

As I mentioned above, we leave for Guam on Thursday. We will be there for 5 days. We are all looking forward to warm weather. Our friends the Lennon’s are already there, and we will get to spend a few days having fun with them before they come home too!

A couple of weeks ago, we drove to Atsugi base again, so Dana could get a personal tour of Vic’s squadron. The drive turned out to be much longer than we thought it would because the traffic in Tokyo was horrible, but we had a great time. Dana really enjoyed getting to see the squadron operations up close.

In addition to making plans for our going home, I have also been working plans our last 10 days here. Dana’s parents arrive on the 30th, his last day of work is the 31st and then we are going to tour Japan with them. I am really looking forward to it. We have plans to go to Nikko, Mt. Fuji, Nagoya and then to spend a few days in Kyoto before flying out of Osaka. It turns out, we will all be on the same flight going home. I think that will be great for us, but I’m not too sure how they will feel after having spent all that time with us to them be cooped up on an airplane with the girls for 12 hours, but I guess we will find out! Oh well, they had 4 children of their own.

Our schoolwork is coming along great. My bad back has turned out to be a mixed blessing of sorts because I simply cannot do too much. When I am tired, we sit down and do schoolwork. We have been doing lots of schoolwork. Christina has started to break the 5-minute barrier for 100 problems on some of her math facts. Daily drill seems to be working well for her. Catherine has even decided that she wants to do it too. We’ve set her goal a little lower, but she is doing well. It does amaze me how she can do 25 addition problems in 5 minutes for drill and then take an hour to do 5 of the same problems on her regular math, but I’m just the teacher. :+D We finished reading all the books of the Little Britches series by Ralph Moody that I have here. I think we all enjoyed the series, particularly since it begins on our home turf in Colorado. Now we are moving on to reading a biography of Mother Teresa.

Now, regarding Catherine’s First Communion. This is not exactly my idea of an appropriate invitation, I will try to get those out, but from here, I make no promises. We would like to invite any of you who can attend to Catherine’s First Communion on Saturday April 15th at 8:00am at Our Lady of Grace Church. A brunch/reception will follow at the home of Henry, Tere, Anthony and Marcus Castaneda. Please RSVP to me via email and I can give you directions, so we can get a count of how many are coming. One special request, please try to be there on time. This is happening at the regular daily mass and I don’t want to create a distraction for those that usually attend this mass. Thank you for understanding. I think this will be a great opportunity to celebrate and we are all looking forward to it.

I’m sure there is more I should mention, but I can’t think of what right now. It seems my efforts are going to packing boxes, filling out paperwork and cleaning; in other words, life as usual. I am taking my computer with us when we go to Guam, so if you need to reach us, email is still probably the best way. Looking forward to seeing many of you soon.

Blessings and prayers,
Marion

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