It's my Birthday

I've been avoiding doing this blog for some reason. I'm sure a psychiatrist would be able to tell me why.  Instead of doing it daily like I use to I've been putting it off. So instead of going back and reviewing everything so far I'm just going to start off with today.  Today is my 33rd birthday and I feel like this year is going to be great. I'm excited for a lot of new activities.  For example, in less than a month Gabriella will start preschool again. I'm looking forward to taking a Japanese language class while she's in school. This week she started a new gymnastics class, which she will continue once school actually starts.  She did pretty well, although the kids in the class have clearly already been doing gymnastics for a while so she will need a little private tutoring on all the moves. She did really well for not having a forward roll explained to her. 

This week also had our very first typhoon, typhoon Morakot. It actually passed to the south of us and we never made it past TCCOR 3. The winds were intense, definitely the strongest winds I've ever seen. The high winds made us realize that our bedroom window is not properly sealed and the wind howled all night long.  It was really hard to sleep and I got up many times just to make sure nothing outside had blown away.   As the typhoon blew south of us we got a lot of wind and a fair bit of rain but we were still able to have swim lessons and drive around to our other classes and the grocery stores. There is a saying here on Okinawa, you can judge the severity of the weather by the busses. If the busses are still running it's still safe, but once they stop it's time to take cover.  Needless to say the busses continued to run all week. 

This typhoon did ruin our original weekend plans. We rented a camper up at the white beach resort to stay in this weekend. However with the severe weather they were not checking anyone in so we cancelled.  So now we are facing a weekend full of possibilities and really no idea what to do.