And She's Off!

Our bikes finally arrived with our household goods, and the kids made me haul them downstairs so they could ride them today.  The neighbor boy who lives upstairs was down ringing the bell on his bike, yelling for Grace to come out, so out the kids went.  They were all riding around having a grand ol' time when I heard tools and metal hitting the ground.  I didn't think much of it, I was working on more boxes and David was down with the kids - nothing to worry about, right?

Then I was in Tristan's room and heard David say, "You did it, great job!"  So, I looked out of the window, only to find that he had removed Grace's training wheels!  Whoa!  She just told me that she wasn't ready to do that (quite frankly, I was okay with the training wheels because I don't want to be on a first name basis with any ER docs this time as I did when I lived here as a child...).

Well, David (her friend) had his dad take his training wheels off so I guess she began to consider the idea, and with her daddy down with her, I'm sure there was a little persuasion...

 

Getting a little help up the hill

I think she thought she was going to loose it here...

 

... but she managed to right herself and make it down the hill.

There's an "I did it all by myself" proud smile!

 

Ready to ride with Daddy.

She had a blast out there after she found out that with a little bit of effort and a little bit of courage, anything is possible!

Seoul Grand Park - Part 2 - Children's Zoo

When we left for Seoul last Saturday we were planning on going to the botanical garden at Seoul Grand Park since, as stated in my last post, we got off to a late start.  I knew that there was a children's zoo at SGP, but according to the website, it was inside the zoo so I didn't anticipate we'd be able to go since I didn't want to spend the money to get into the zoo for a couple of hours and have to pay more for the children's zoo.  Well, in trying to get to the botanical garden, our GPS took us around the park to the main entrance and an incredibly busy parking lot - we were in line for about 30 minutes before we got a glimpse around the curve only to find that it was a parking lot we were waiting to get into and they were only letting as many cars in as were coming out.  So, we managed to get turned around and headed back down the windy road and went the other direction to a different parking lot.  Turns out we had to walk a ways to go anywhere, but we love people watching and the whole point of that day's outing was to stretch our legs, so who cares if we had to walk?  Well, when we got to a map we discovered that the Children's Zoo was not inside the zoo - so, off we went.

 

Seems it was Spring at the zoo.  We saw babies everywhere!

 

They love their Guinea Pigs...

there were hutches everywhere with hundreds of them crawling around.

Monkeys are also a favorite.

But they're so dang cute, who doesn't love monkeys?

 

We watched this mom and babe for a long time.

 

These were still my favorite monkeys

 

Looking at the donkeys (Shrek has glorified these animals for my children)

Tristan turns around as Grace and I walked up and said, "Mommy, that's an ass."

Thanks, David.

 

Doin' a little mutton bustin'

After we were done horsing around, we took the sky lift back down the mountain.  I thought the views were absolutely beautiful!  David did too, he just doesn't like looking at them from that high in the air...

 

My two handsome boys.

 

We walked across this bridge on the way over to the rose garden and children's zoo.

 

More pictures with strangers...

 

My daughter will hate me for this later, but I had to capture the moment.

I was actually a bit surprised when we walked into this bathroom and didn't find regular toilets.  Everywhere we have gone thus far has had sit down toilets.  I can't say that I remember these kinds of toilets when I lived here as a child, but I do remember having to go in holes in the ground.  I offered to show Grace what she needed to do, but she didn't need my example.  She said, "No, I know what to do.  I've done it before, when we've been out hiking."  What a trooper!  I love that we can take our kids anywhere for all kinds of new experiences and they are willing to try anything without complaint.

Seoul Grand Park - Part 1 - The Rose Garden

Last Saturday we went to Seoul Grand Park just to check it out and to give the kids a chance to run wild for a bit.  We had thought about going to the zoo but we got off to a late start and it takes nearly 2 hours to get there (mind you it's only about 40 miles from where we live).  So, we just wandered around to see what they had to offer.  It is right in the middle of a city of over 10 million people - but you would never know you were surrounded by a huge city while you're in the park as it is lush and green everywhere you look.

We sent the kids on their merry way since the walkway was pretty quiet at the time and we were pretty confident we wouldn't loose our little toe-heads.

Loving the large areas of GREEN!

I don't remember Dorothy's house looking like this, but on either side of the house were the characters from the Wizard of Oz.

 

 

Oh, the beauty of God's creation!

More random people wanting to get pictures with our blondies.

The Korean people as a whole still think that blonde children are absolutely beautiful and are still kind of a unique sight here.  We have people of all ages come up to our children and talk to them and touch their hair, just oohing and aahing over them (really doesn't help in teaching them not to be vain!).

My kids have no idea who the Smurf's are, but they were one of my favorites growing up.

This is a view from the sky lift coming down over the rose garden.

We enjoyed our little excursion and plan on going back to visit the zoo and all the other different areas of this park.

It's here!!

Our household goods have arrived!!!  Hooray!

 

David is bound and determined to bring one of these Bongos home when we leave

 

I just think this contraption is cool - no breaking your back hauling boxes up two flights of stairs

 

And I thought I was going to make a nice meal for our anniversary today!  All I can say is moving must be similar to the amnesia after childbirth - I totally forgot how chaotic and time consuming unpacking is!

 

Do you think I have a little bit of work to do?

A new friend called last night and offered to take the kids off my hands for a while today so they wouldn't be underfoot while the movers were here - of course I accepted!  She called a couple times throughout the day and asked if she could keep them longer so I could get more done - was I supposed to say no??  She ended up keeping them until almost 3:00 that afternoon!  Gotta love this lady - she initially invited me to a Bible study she's involved with with a few other ladies, and now she wants to take my kids off my hands!  In all seriousness though, I feel so blessed to have met her.  She seems like a wonderful God fearing woman who shares many of the same values as I do and wants to instill those values into her children too.  Thanks Jami, for coming to my rescue in a couple different areas of my life when I needed it most.

 

The kids were thrilled when they got home to see that all of their stuff had arrived (and some of it was already unpacked - thanks to the fact that it wouldn't fit in boxes!)

Today David and I also celebrated our 7th wedding anniversary.  He did end up taking me out to dinner since I didn't manage to get anything cooked!  We headed over to a Chinese restaurant (in Korea, I know... but we're going out for Korean on Friday) and then out for Baskin Robins to top it off.  Though it wasn't any spectacular celebration (memorable, yes, as we made a wrong turn and ended up in the red light district... boy was that an experience), we were together and that is what is most important.

Summer School

I am trying my hand at "homeschooling".  No, I don't plan to pull my kids out of school (yet) and home school full time - I frankly don't think I have the patience for it!  I know several wonderful women who homeschool their broods and I really don't know how they do it!  It does seem like a very popular option here in Korea despite the good things I have heard about the Department of Defense school system here.

The one thing I am committed to is continuing to provide my children with knowledge of the Bible and the core values that God wishes for us to have and follow.  We have pretty much gone from all to nothing in the spiritual aspect of things, and I really don't want to loose the firm foundation we began with our children last year.  So, for this summer I have started doing a "bridge" book with Grace and started some Scripture memorization with both of them.  Tristan only "gets" some of it, but he's involved in all that we do.  The book we have also provides a summer Bible Camp with weekly lessons that we are working on.  I am planning on working with Tristan in a preschool curriculum in the fall because I think he could really benefit from it and I don't know if I will be able to get him into a preschool when school starts - and if I do, I don't know how much "learning" will take place. 

They do seem to enjoy it so far, and even ask about doing it most days.  I'm hoping this will keep all of us in a routine and things will just fall into place after school starts. 

Happy Birthday America!

Today we spent a great day together, mostly just hanging out at home.  Then in the evening we went to church, fellowshiped with some nice folks, and then headed out to Freedom Fest.

The kids explored a couple of M2 Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicles

and a fire truck before heading over to the baseball field to get settled in for the concert and fireworks.

While we were waiting for the fireworks, the kids played a little soccer to run off some of their pent up energy.

They also had some great entertainment.

My wonderful family listening to the evening's entertainment

These drummers were fabulous!

The fireworks started around eight-thirty - about an hour ahead of schedule.  Apparently there was supposed to be a storm roll through between nine-fifteen and nine-thirty (which never materialized), but that was okay by me because that meant we got home earlier!

We all really enjoyed the show, and this was the first year that Tristan didn't cry about wanting to go home.  In fact, he thinks that we should do this every day.

We hope you all had a wonderful and safe 4th of July!