Tree-Climbing and a Visit to the School Nurse

Jacob and his "girlfriend" Jaewon have been spending many an afternoon together. Yesterday while Lauren and Ilena were at the playground, the two J's went up to the field above the playground. After a few minutes, Ilena went to peek and caught them climbing trees. While Jacob is definitely a "monkey", we weren't sure about Jaewon. Ilena had to coax them down for fear of another child getting hurt under her watch. They weren't happy about it, but luckily hopscotch in the sand proved an almost equal substitute.

Speaking of climbing trees, upon return home from the gym, Ilena spotted maintenance people from the apartment building literally standing in the trees while pruning the branches and manicuring the trees. We just don't see that every day back home thanks to cherry pickers and extension ladders.

Today, Ilena got her first call from the school nurse. And it wasn't a call asking for nursing help. She was calling to report that Jacob wasn't "feeling well". When she went to school to pick him up, the nurse reported that Jacob apparently told her that he had a fever and received fever medicine this morning. What a tall tale that was. After a quick talking to and the realization that he wouldn't go to soccer if he came home from school, Jacob opted to head back to class. Sneaky boy. We think he was just trying to pull a fast one on us since he missed us.

With Mike away on business in Tokyo until Thursday night, it's been Ilena and the kids for the last couple of days. We've been spending quality time together, many an hour at the playground, and making our way through the hundreds of books we brought from home. Hopefully Mike is checking out the scene and taking notes for our upcoming trip to Tokyo during Golden Week, which falls at the beginning of May.

Lauren went on her first field trip today to a nearby Japanese preschool where the classes would play and eat lunch together before returning back to CA. Though she wasn't a huge fan of the curry rice that was served, she said that she had lots of fun. Jacob will be going on a class trip to an ice skating rink and Science Museum on Port Island next Tuesday. The kindergarten class will be joined by their fourth grade buddies for a fun-filled day of skating and science. Ilena will be accompanying the class as a chaperone - if only she could ice skate. She'll be making herself useful helping the kids put on and take off their ice skates and running them to the bathroom when needed.


Hope President's week back home is enjoyable for everyone! We're beginning to put our summer plans together and are looking forward to seeing everyone back home in June/July when we visit for a short time.