Rigdon Review: Our Adventures Abroad

 Here we are, 1/4 of the way through 2022 and keep finding myself thinking, "by golly WHERE IS THE TIME GOING!?" (A sure sign you are entering the latter part of your 30's) The kids have finished their school year, we've all contracted and recovered from COVID (0/10 do not recommend), had a lengthy spring break, and are now ready for the new school year! (Japanese school years run on a "year round" type school system, and begins mid-April, and end mid-end March) and I keep wondering if they know enough to move on to the next grade because this past year went by so dang fast!  (No worries, their report cards show they are prepped to move on up). So now Cache is in his 2nd year of Yochien, Holland is in 2nd grade and Keane is in 4th grade (In American school they would be going into Kindergarten, 3rd and 5th grade in the fall). The growth we've seen in the kids this year has been immense.  Everything from language ability, to managing stress and anxiety, t...

 The following does not follow the usual theme of "WOW! New life in Japan!" that is usually woven through the blog and was the purpose for STARTING the blog in the first place.  But...it's my blog! So I'll do what I want! (I'm a middle child, can you tell?) We are in full Christmas Season swing, amiright? The shopping, the decorations, the baking, the wrapping, the music on the radio, it's everywhere, and I, like many others, LOOOVVVEEE it.  But wheeeewwwww buddy, if there is one song that has polarized the entire nation (or so it seems), I'd have to say it's "Mary Did You Know." For reference, the following is one of a gazillion versions of the song on YouTube: Now, What I am typically seeing as far as people speaking out on this song, are the folks who HATE THIS SONG with every fiber of their being.  So I kind of assumed everyone hated it.  But then, ya know, I looked, and this particular YouTube video has been viewed more than 2.7 MILLION ...

 I know, I'm no different from anyone else when I say, "HOLY &^%$ IT'S ALREADY DECEMBER!?!" But good heavens this year has absolutely flown by.   We've finally hit somewhat of a stride here (which I'm sure will have a wrench thrown in it sometime soon because that's how it works, right?).  3/4 kids are in school full time, Japanese is being learned at rapid rates by everyone under the age of 10 (don't even get me started). We've been SO busy the past couple months but nothing really seemed "BLOG-WORTHY". But then I realized, sometimes the small things are totally worth sharing! Andrew had to go to Utah for a couple of days for some appointments he really couldn't get out of.  Before he left we decided to take the kids to karaoke, and they had a little too much fun. As you can see, we OBVIOUSLY have the next round of  "So you think you can dance" contestants.  Keane and Holland both participated in a speech contest where ...