We survived!

We all survived Sunday! I was up at 4:45am to make the lunch and breakfast for the guests who had stayed on Saturday night. By 7:40 I was out of the house to take my daughter to school then back the other direction to take my son to kindergarten (he was doing marching at a different sports day) then back to school again in time for the opening speeches etc. at the school sports day at 8:30am. By then I thought I had done enough for the whole day, but no... I still had to participate in the "catch the ball in the basket" game, the "eat the marshmallow from a tray of flour game" as well as hold the goal tape, feed the kids (and grandmother) lunch and get back home in time to teach some English.... In the middle of it my husband arrived back after successfully completing his 100km walk (they left at 2pm and he finished at about 6:15am so you can do the maths...). He did a great job, but spent the rest of the day shaking and sleeping. I think he is still a bit sore today, but definitely on the mend!
My son got to meet all his new classmates for next year - a total of 7 boys and 3 girls will be in his class. He is the big one at the back that is not wearing the bright orange shorts....
For anyone who doesn't know what a Japanese sports day is like please check last year's blog entry: Sports Day 2007
Trev & Gill - the number of people who asked me if you were here again this year was too difficult to keep track of! You definitely made an impression..... and were missed by us this year.

After the sports day the preparations for my daughter's birthday party began - fortunately I am not very good at throwing things away so I had plenty of Halloween decorations that I made about 10 years ago to stick around the place and a few really big pumpkins in the garden to use for decorations. My daughter wanted a number 8 cake, which made life simple. Apart from number 1 I think number 8 has to be the easiest cake possible. She had a really good day, but was pretty zonked by the end of it. I must admit I was also in bed by 8:30pm, which meant I had to get up early this morning to prepare for today's classes. Roll on November!