Life

Life for us has been punishingly busy lately. Between my involvement with the PTA at the girls school, a women's charity group here, church, and life managing three kiddos it has been crazy. With beutiful weather it has been hard to want to spend much time indoors at the computer.

We have spent the last month baking, crafting, beaching, park-going, ocean splashing, and everything in between. I have baked until I no longer can stand the smell of cookies (for the school teacher appreciate lunch, a baby shower, and a huge cultural fair). I have spent time at the kids school taking pictures, volunteering, and watching a sport field trip. Tyler and I have attended a Spring Charity Ball, the BYU Wind Symphony, a Cinco de Mayo party, and I'm sure a few other things in between. The girls have had ballet, play dates, field trips, homework and life. Emily has lost a tooth and learned to read. Hannah is student of the month. And Madeline has taken her first steps. All of this has been well documented in photograph (trust me, I live for this stuff!). Now it just needs to make it's way up here. . . because really this blog is mostly for me and my girls. It is how I record our lives, what we are doing, and what we love. So for the next while I am trying to back date posts to get caught up. My goal is one entry a day until I am caught up on all the good stuff. And given the last month of activity it could take awhile. . . . . bear with me!

The next month for us promises to be just as, if not more, busy. We have end of the year parties, Emily's graduation from Kindergarten, Tyler giving the keynote address at the school graduation ceremony, an elementary field day, a picnic field trip, Hannah's nursery graduation and end of the year party. I'm sure somewhere in here Emily will loose another tooth, Madeline will finally master walking and Hannah will crack us up with one of her funny commentaries. Somewhere in all of this I need to finish projects for the girls' teachers, bake cupcakes for Emily's class to celebrate her summer birthday, catch up on blogging, work on photo processing, and spend as much time with my kiddos enjoying life. And then summer starts, and with it comes the 4th of July party Tyler is killing himself planning and a much anticipated trip to the US that MUST include (by decree of two very excited children) camping and copious amounts of swimming and ice cream.

Life is busy, but we love it. Elder Wirthlin, in a General Conference, said "Come what may, and love it." It's been my motto in life lately, and I dare say it's a keeper. We are going with the breakneck speed of life and loving every minute of it. So forgive my absence, look forward to back posting (or ignore if your not family and really don't care all that much), and look forward to much more adventure to come. Happy spring everyone!

I'll leave you with a recent picture of my three little monkeys. . . . the primary reason life is so, so busy, but so, so wonderful.

Nursery Student of the Month!

Congratulations Hannah!!

We are so proud of Hannah, who was chosen as the student of the month for her Nursery class for the month of May! Hannah has come a long, long way since the beginning of the school year, both at home and in the classroom. Her rocky start to school included some killer temper tantrums that threatened to derail her school career at an early age. She is a stubborn, stubborn girl and would just dig her feet in about anything. We worked with her at home, and her amazing teacher Ms. LeMaitre (who incidentally might have earned a spot in Heaven just for her work with Hannah) worked tirelessly with her at school. And you know what? All that hard effort paid off.

By about Christmas break things started to click, Hannah really started to mature, and her interest in school peaked. She now goes to school full day, three days a week and loves it. She is a great friend, super helpful, and a great learner. She participates in class, helps her teacher, plays with her friends, and seems to love every minute of it (even nap time when she has to be quiet). I have noticed so, so much growth in Hannah over the last year, and obviously so has her teacher. Gone is that fussy little girl from the beginning of the school year, and here to stay is a smiley, loving, energetic fire ball. Congratulations Hannah, we knew you could do it. . .  and are so glad you did!!

Hannah really likes this picture for a number of reasons: 1. She is standing with her good friend Susie from the Pre-Kindergarten class. She loves Susie. 2. It is on the playground. Enough said. 3. Pandy is in the picture with her. 4. She is wearing a hood (?)

To celebrate, and really praise her, we took the girls out to dinner at Outback, a real treat for them. Hannah kept shouting out "We are celebrating ME!" It was pretty cute. She loved the positive attention.

Emily is looking quite big in this picture to me. 

She even got to order desert of her choosing. She really wanted this one for the "Nilla" ice cream. We all dug in and helped her with the chocolate bits.

And look who is really starting to get the hang of this walking thing!

We used the video function on the camera for some entertainment while we waited for our dinner. Hannah performed her rendition of the ABCs.

Emily performed Ba Ba Black Sheep, with a twist of her own at the end. 

Someone's taking a few steps. . . .

A bit later than her older sisters. . . . but look who is finally starting to get the hang of this whole walking thing! She's not quite there yet. . . but she's so close. I imagine within the next few weeks she will be taking off. And she's proud. So, so proud.

What to do on a rainy Saturday?

You head to one of the fantastic, abundant, colorful, indoor playgrounds! One of my favorite things about being back in Korea is how much there is to do with kiddos in this country. Even in bad weather! Within 1o minutes of our apartment there are three of these fantastic indoor children's dreamworlds. They all have ball pits, slides, trampolines. Some have libraries, some dress up nooks, some playhouses, riding toys, and baby toys. Two of the three even have indoor trains/ cars on tracks for the kids to ride. They are fantastic, you pay for two hour blocks (less than $5) and the number of attendants who play and watch the children is amazing. The kids love it, and so do I. 

So on this rainy Saturday we met up with our friends, and headed over to Ponggi- Ponggi Land. And much fun was had by all. 

I'm not really sure when this little one stopped looking like a baby. But more often than not my pictures of her lately are all little girl!

Coolest climbing wall ever.

Hannah's got a thing for trying to climb palm trees. Must be the time we spent in the Caribbean.

Aforementioned indoor car/track the kids get to ride on. And random Christmas decorations in the middle of the track. Emily found that particularly humorous. 

Macyn and McKenna.

Madeline waving to the girls. She's so ready to be a big girl and do all things pertaining to being a big girl.

BIWA Spring Charity Event

One of the things I am vary involved with here in Busan (in addition to PTA, child-rearing, etc) is the Busan International Women's Association. It is a fantastic group of women from countries all over the world that meet together for friendship and service. BIWA offers book groups, chances to practice English, learn German, spruce up your Japanese. There is a mahjong group, visits to local temples, shopping trips, and monthly lunches and coffees. To me, the most important aim of BIWA is the service rendered in the community. BIWA regularly works with a local orphanage, with groups of women volunteering to play with children on a weekly basis. BIWA also supports several charities and individuals in the Busan community. We support a local Village of Peace, a center caring for handicapped and homeless persons, we support a soup kitchen, and a few different shelters. BIWA also supports financially three different students making their way out of poverty and through school. This group has honestly been such a great example to me of how involved you can be, and the good that can come from it. The amount of money BIWA is able to contribute back into this community is impressive.

This year the spring charity event was an evening of wine and jazz at a local hotel. It was a fancy dinner, drinks on a balcony with breathtaking views, a silent auction, and a fun evening to celebrate all the good BIWA has done with all the friends we have made. So we booked ourselves a babysitter and enjoyed a very fun grown-up evening out!

Our friends Chris and Carol Cruz. He's the US Navy Commander here in Busan. Their kids are also at BFS. Their youngest Jake has made frequent appearances on this blog. He and Hannah are best little buddies. We like the Cruzs a lot. They are one of the highlights of Busan for us!

Part of the reason we enjoy their company. Chris is hilarious. They are a lot of fun.

Goseong-gun "The Land of Dinosaur"

With the Larsens still in town, we opted to visit Goseong-gun (or as the website calls it "The Land of Dinosaur.") Yes that would be in the singular. Though in another part of the website it is called "The Land of Dinosaurs."

Goseong is about two hours from Busan, on the southern coast. It is an area that claims to be the site of many fossilized dinosaur footprints. It was also the host this year of the World Dinosaur Expo, which I think is the part we actually attended. I say I think because as we drove through Goseong there appeared to be 3-4 sites we could visit. Following the most colorful, obvious signs landed us outside the gate for this portion of the expo. The plethora of tour buses parked out front made us think we were in the right place.

Owing much to our very, very late start, we arrived just in time to watch streams of field trip children exiting the park. Fabulous timing, in my opinion. We also arrived just in time for the tail end of the dinosaur parade, which I am so sad to say I did not get a single picture of. Parades like these are a must here at any large amusement type event. They are a low budget version of any Disneyland parade, with the addition here of large stuffed dinosaurs and Eastern European dancers in scantily clad clothing. The music was incredibly loud and the kids thought they were in heaven dancing along. 

From there we moved onto the most inedible food court I have ever eaten at. We hit the International tent hoping for a serving of chicken strips for our hungry brood. International appeared to mean Korean sold under the flag of a neighboring country (Japan, Korea, India). The food itself was pretty dreadful, we didn't even try to enforce trying a bite (for the kids or myself). The kids proved subsistence on "dino bread" was entirely possible and enjoyable. 

We finally started wandering around the Expo. We enjoyed a large display of to-scale dinosaur skeletons. Emily was in heaven seeing the size of the long-neck (her personal favorite). The grounds were littered with large life-like dinosaurs the kids loved climbing all over.

The exhibit was also filled with many florescent, friendly, bow-wearing, cartoon-esque dinosaurs. My girls tended to gravitate towards said dinosaurs. 

Just in case you ever wondered how they keep these fields of flowers watered.

So ferocious!

Emily was in heaven. A longneck. A PINK longneck.

It was considerably hotter than it had been in Busan. . . hence Hannah's style.

After winding our way through info tents, dinosaur bone tents, and the aforementioned life size dinosaurs we made our way up the hill to a large hall with the 4-D dinosaur movie and the animatronic displays. Opting to skip what looked to be a nightmare inducing movie of a young boy being chased by 4-D dinosaurs, we stumbled into the animatronic hall. The t-rex immediately swung around in full roar mode. I'm pretty sure Hannah was a stone throw away from wetting her pants. After a recovery period she stayed glued to my side through the remainder of the life like dinosaurs. 

Upon exiting the hall we were lucky to discover a long roller slide leading down a hillside. The sign professed the slide to be the longest in Korea. With the girls excited to check it out, we all piled on for what would prove to be a bit of an uncomfortable ride. Has anyone actually been on one of these roller slides in their adult lifetime? With only one quarter of the slide behind me I quickly realized my entire backside was beginning to itch. And burn. Bad. Thank you friction. I had never been so excited to exit a slide in my entire life. .  .

The Larsens, burning backsides and all.

The slide dropped us on an empty sandy beach which we decided to check out. We were quite surprised to find, docked right off shore, a large decommissioned Korean air US Navy ship. It was completely open for people to tour and explore. We wound our way through the underbelly of the boat, feeling so happy to have a home on land and a kitchen that did not resemble a nasty cafeteria kitchen.

Family shot on the deck.

Captain Emily

Navigator Penelope

Hannah "driving" the boat.

Emily and Eli checking out said random boat from the shore.

One of the few, few couple pictures since kids entered our lives. Thanks Will!

Someday babies will rule the world.

The Allen-Larsen crew. In age order (not seated order, but you should be able to figure out who is who) you have Emily (5), Eli (4), Hannah (3), Penelope (2), Madeline (1) and Lucia (11.99 months). Quite an impressive span there! One child for each year both couples have been married! 

Apparently my children were hatched from eggs.

All in all it was a fun day, albeit a bit random. The exhibit was well done, the kids had fun and really that was all the mattered. I later told Tyler it was like they set up the exhibit, saw the empty hillside and decided to build a slide. Slide built they realized it dropped you near the beach. What an empty beach someone thought. How cool to put a navy ship here. Bam. Done. It was like several different experiences all rolled into one! The best of the day was the drive home with a van full of sleeping kids, sipping on a Korean vanilla milkshake in a bag.

Happy Children's Day!

May 5th of every year is a huge deal in Korea- it is the annual celebration of children, called "orininal" which is quite literally Children's Day. It is a national holiday and both children and parent alike have the day off school and work. Parents present children with gifts and then spend the day out and about doing things as a family. In Busan the two popular destinations (at least via world of mouth) were the aquarium and the Children's Park. For us, this mean to the two areas of the city to be avoided at all costs. The Korean group mentality can be a bit daunting.

We decided to forgo the gift giving (I mean really, my kids need nothing more. Christmas and birthdays is plenty!) and instead asked the girls how they would like to celebrate. They had each had a celebration at at school the day before which roughly amounted to copious amounts of sweet and a pirates booty of gifts from other children. As an aside the common gift amongst children here is stationary supplies. Markers, crayons, pencils, pencil boxes. You would not believe the pile of this paraphernalia we have amassed. Suffice it to say we have more than enough school supplies to last all my current and future children through high school at least. Possibly even college. Possibly. The children decided that the best way to spend Children's Day would be a party at our house with their friends. This would include: cupcakes, playing, and going to the beach. Sounds easy enough to me!

So to celebrate Children's Day we invited over three families we are friends with. The end result was a magnificent Children's Day. One that cost far less than the average Children's Day, and one that was much enjoyed by both children and parents. Incidentally I tend to think that every day is a bit of a children's day for us around here!

The much requested cupcakes. 

Liberal amounts of dress up were played. Even the little one now knows how to get in on the fun. 

After a nice lunch (simple, sandwiches, fruit, chips) we headed down to the beach for our first real beach trip of the season. Maddie wasn't so sure about the sand. . . . I'm sure she will come around and be eating fistfuls before we know it.

Macyn and McKenna

Nobody came with intentions of swimming, yet in no time at all many little girls were stripped down to next to nothing at all splashing in the cold waves.

Enjoying a cookie from a stranger. Yeah, so wouldn't let her eat that in the US! She gets generous amounts of free food here, though. Good thing, too, she's quite an eater!

Hannah and her best buddy Jake. 

Cute Susie. And half naked Macyn.

Not really sure what the game here was.

Maddie and her best friend Sonia. Sonia is Susie's mom and is a total baby whisperer. Seriously kids just love her. They are from Boston. Maddie's other best friends are prominently pictured as well: blankie and thumb. It's a great combo for her!

Soju the water dog. I had no idea how much I missed being a dog owner until we hung out with Soju. Our cat is cool, but this dog could spend all day chasing balls into the ocean. Seriously cool.

Emily also realized how much she misses having a dog. She keeps asking for a Soju. I used to say big dogs don't like apartments. Soju belongs to her teacher who lives in a much smaller apartment than ours. So there went that argument, and Emily is sharp enough to quickly point out my flawed logic.

CJ. This kid is a riot. He always has us cracking up. And I don't think I have a single picture of this guy not doing some crazy pose.

Finally our fantastic friends the Larsens (in town from Colorado visiting her mom). They braved Children's Day traffic to join us for some beach time. I'm not sure they found it worth the adventure, but we had fun seeing them, and the kids seemed to enjoy the underwear sand play as well. We knew Will and Kelley in San Diego when we were all single. They were married 1 week before us. Tyler went to their ceremony at the temple (I went to the reception later with him) and came home to tell me about the man who sealed them (AKA married them). He told me how longwinded this guy was and how he hoped he wasn't the one who would seal us a week later. Lo and behold we show up at the temple and meet our sealer and who should it be? Yup, the same kind (but a bit longwinded) gentleman. The moral of the story? God, too, has a sense of humor. And isn't afraid to use it! Almost seven years later we still snicker at this story.

We took our three sandy, tired kids home at the end of a very busy, fun day. All in all I dare say it was the perfect Children's Day! I would venture to say next year will be a repeat of this year. Why mess with a great thing?!