A Busy Busy Year

It's official, my life can't get any crazier.  Last November, my husband found out it was possible we'd be moving before the summer as we had originally thought.  Well, guess what, the official job announcement came out today and we are going to be moving back to America.  It's funny, a few years ago, after I'd first moved here, I was talking on the phone to one of my good friends from North Carolina and I was going through my schedule for the year with her, trying to decide when my life would not be so crazy- and she said "you're life is always going to be crazy!"   Boy was she right.

In February, the kids and I will broken heartedly move from Japan to America.  Can you believe you can actually hear someone say that they will miss taking that 24 hour door to door flight with their 4 (soon to be 5) kids, half the times alone?  It will be weird boarding the plane with a one way ticket, knowing that I may never return to this place that I have come to grow so fond of.  When I moved here, I always knew I'd be returning to America for summers and most Christmases.  Living here, I could have my Japan and America too.

In the end of February, I will hopefully join my husband on a trip to Illinois, where we will be relocating to eventually and try to find a house.  SCARY thought, having to buy a house and take care of it again.  In the past four years, we have had this amazing property management company, Shioya Tochi, that has pretty much done everything for us besides lift a fork to our mouths.  It's incredible the services and assistance they've provided.  To think, we are actually going to have to take care of a house and yard ourselves.

In the end of March, I will have my fifth c-section.  I am getting nervous about it, but I am excited too.  I found out the other day for sure, it is a girl, it only took the Japanese doctors four ultrasounds before they would 100% confirm it for me.  I plan on enjoying all five days in the hospital- it's going to be my vacation.

In the end of April, provided there were no complications for me or the baby, I may go back to Illinois to continue looking for houses if my first trip is unsuccessful.  Or it may be to help my husband try to unpack, paint, sort stuff out before the kids arrive.

In May/possibly June, I will drive 17+ hours across the US from Massachusetts to Illinois with my five kids, one of them a newborn who will need to eat every three hours.  This time, I will stop at a hotel.  It ought to be a special treat, this trip, since the longest trip my kids have had in the car was 3 hours going to Maine last summer.  We do most travel by plane or train here.  This drive may end up taking much longer than that 24 hour door to door from Japan, who wants to race me?

In July, who knows, I might be crazy enough to go back to Massachusetts for another visit before August rolls around and school starts.

In the meantime, I spent the past 8 days with one or the other of my family members vomiting, great timing since I'm supposed to be sorting through everything that we own.  I am fortunate enough now to have the task of getting rid of anything that might take up too much space in our shipment, yes, my life is about to get packed up into a many small containers, driven down a steep windy hill, put into a bigger container, put on a boat, sail across the Pacific, get on a truck, driven halfway across the US, and hopefully delivered all in one piece to my new doorstep.  Then, there's the whole issue of what is irreplaceable and too risky to send on a container that could fall into the ocean- which by the way, if it does and my life ends up on your beach, please return it.

I would like to thank all my family and friends for their support during this time and during the whole time we've been here.  Thank you for listening to my adventures, even if I told them to you more than once and please bear with me when I move.  I heard moving back can be harder than moving away.  And don't fear, the Life in Japan category will still have plenty more entries before I leave as I dote on all the things I will miss and remind myself of those that I won't!  And, with all my free time while I'm at my parent's (cackle), I plan on organizing all my photos, and there's some great things we've done since we've been here, that never made it on.

Stay tuned, this could be my busiest year yet!