i am slowly getting back into the swing of things. the kids started school on the first, so it's just me and tommy during the day. today, however, the school had a meeting about the undokai which is coming up in october. it also rained during the night and it was pretty cloudy today, so even though i did a load of laundry, i had to take it to the laundromat to dry.

but i didn't mind going out to the school today, because the royal hotel in genkai is having a special on its onsen until the end of the month. 500 yen for adults (usually 1000) and kids free! so i prepared towels, clothes for hiro and sasha, got the wet laundry in a basket, gathered up all the AFWJ envelopes i had to mail and got it all into the car. tommy got himself in the car, he's getting so big! first we hit kuroneko, then the conbini for oden (i never thought i'd like oden, and it's rather a shock that i like 7-11 oden but there ya go!) and some snack bread for tommy and then we went to the laundromat. 39 minutes later (they are having an 'opening' campaign, they opened in april and it's still going on; i'm not complaining!) i scooped all the hot laundry into the basket and then we headed out for lunch. i went back to the indian restaurant we went to a few weeks ago and remembered to order the least spicy curry! it was great, and then we went to the school. after two very boring hours we were done.

however, we couldn't go to the onsen. poor hiro has a cold and was quite sick. he had a slight fever and was lying on the futon in the teacher's office. actually, he had a rough night (and so, i had a rough night) but he was so over it in the morning, quite genki and in high spirits, so i sent him to school. at lunch, though, he was feeling poorly and so after the meetings, i took him to the children's clinic. he no longer had a fever. after a few minutes with the nebulizer, we got some medicine and then were on our way. hiro really wanted to go to the onsen, and so did the rest of us, and so we went. even though i had to drive from genkai to munakata and back to genkai. there were quite a few people in the onsen, but the kids managed to NOT annoy anyone and were very cute. phew!

i hope to have something i've never done before on the blog: a review! it has been delayed nearly three weeks because of my hospital stay, but stay tuned tomorrow. there will also be a give-away!