Nothing like recapping last weekend on a Thursday

We didn't do much last weekend. Except that one day we CLIMBED A MOUNTAIN WITH CHILDREN STRAPPED TO OUR BACKS.  

Pardon the awful iPhone photos, please and thank you.

This was all my idea. Everything was decorated for Buddha's birthday and the temperatures looked promising, so why not hike the most popular mountain in our area?

Lots of monks chanting and people praying.

And me, taking awkwardly loud (and crooked!) cell phone pictures of everything.

Must learn how to pose my own family. And I'm still smiling so you know this is pre-hike.

If you're like me, when you see all of these steps, you're like, "Oh how nice! Much better than just taking a trail!" Until you are on step 6,842 and there is no landing in sight and there are still 8 million steps left to climb. Somewhere around step 927, my thighs told me this was a bad idea.

So I mostly just brought up the rear, sucking wind, and letting Koreans take pictures of me and Molly.

And then there weren't always steps.

Efffffffffff.... How in the hell am I going to get back down?

It was about this time that Sam complained to us that his arms hurt. Oh my. Let me express all of my deepest sympathies to you. I am just sweating a black hole into Molly's stomach and my thighs are so jello-licious that they are shaking and threatening to give out on me at any moment. But let's stop and see if there is any way we can make your ride more comfortable. Someone could have been birthing a baby on the side of that mountain and I probably would have made a comment about how at least they got to sit down for a minute. And carrying the baby in your belly is SOOOOOooooooOOOO much easier than on your back. Empathy and sympathy- I was full of it.

At the end, during some of the flat parts, Sam wanted to get down and walk, and Molly wanted to switch rides because she was probably over the sweat and all of my heavy breathing and groaning. The thought of loading Sam back on me was kinda laughable (3 pounds heavier than my former load! Gahhhh) so Steve went into full-on Dad beast mode and carried them both.

And looked good doing it.

He made it all look effortless and easy and the looks and comments he got from the Koreans were pretty priceless. When they finally saw Molly in the backpack, their eyes about popped right out of their heads and they'd hold up two fingers and grab their heads in disbelief, incredulous at his Hulk-like strength and cute baby-making abilities.

More lanterns, a waterfall, yadda yadda, and then this fancy air machine that blew all of the dirt off of your shoes.

And last but not least...

This beauty. Just oozing class like only a leopard-print car can.

And that, my friends, is what we did last Saturday. Shockingly, I could walk the next day. No one was more surprised than yours truly. Here's to hoping this weekend is less physically-demanding.

Project 365 - week 17

I had a glass of wine before I wrote the captions, so please excuse the typos. I hope it all makes sense. Good night!

"Sam, go stand over there and stare out the window please." Boom. Done.

We visited the Buddhist monastery where I'm planning to retire. They appear to be well stocked with candy, so I'm obviously excited.

Doing what they can to destroy every visible surface, even if that means climbing to find new surfaces.

An afternoon snack

A sweet card from Australia! Thanks Kerry!

An easy science experiment while Myer was still napping. I love watching him get so excited about learning. Even if he has no clue what we're learning about!

A good day usually ends with some House Hunters on the laptop. I also had wine so this Tuesday is easily considered a success.

Molly is 2!

And has been, for a solid month now, so this is belated. Because I belazy. Also belated, Molly's 2-year well-check at our lovely medical facility here... When asked if she speaks in 2-3 word sentences and has a vocabulary of 50 words or greater, I just laughed. No, this girl doesn't say anything. Like, at all. Neither did Sam, and we went to EDIS, speech therapy, hearing specialists, etc. He was just stubborn and didn't want to talk. I have a feeling Molly might be the same way. Anywho, the doctor was shocked (at my laughing or the fact that Molly communicates only in grunts and whines? who knows) and said, "Is her father....." (trails off)... I said, "Is her father what? Korean? Hispanic? LOLZ no. No bilingual children here." (Seriously? The red hair?) And now a follow-up with EDIS and probably a scolding from CPS. Heh.

***

Where to begin with this child? I think when she was first born, I was hailing her as The Easy Child and then somewhere along the way, she became The Troublemaker. I know, I know, you don't believe me. How can someone that cute be any trouble? Let me tell you folks, I think that is some sort of God-given defense mechanism. She probably starts 90% of the fights between herself and Sam. She enjoys wrestling as well, so she's game to finish them too.

Molly loves:

• puppies (especially the raggedy-looking ones)
• bananas (but not a BROKEN banana, only a full-length, pristine banana will do)
• attention (someone is going to be devastated when she loses her Korean fan club)
• macaroni (double fisting wet noodles takes a special kind of skill set)
• pulling clothes out of the dryer (love ya for it, Molly!)
• standing at her crib and barking orders to whoever will listen (not bossy, just possesses "leadership qualities", yes?)
• swinging (not a fan of this one, Molly)
• reading books (ALL the books- God forbid I take a potty break in the midst of reading the entire bookshelf to you)
• Sam (he should probably be much higher up on the list, but see that stat above about starting 90% of the fights)

Molly does not love:

• being told what to do (bossy leader?)
• eating broken bananas (they surely taste different- offensive, maybe?)
• being ignored when she wants to be hoisted up and pushed in a swing (it's an activity that guarantees my full attention is on her)
• having to apologize (she will take herself to her room for timeout before she will apologize- I laugh every single time because it's hilarious to watch her bottom lip pop out and see her stomp off to her room. Jesus help me during the teenage years.)
• wearing shoes in the car (this is.... annoying)
• sharing anything with anyone (what's hers is hers and what's yours is hers too- The Rules Of Life According to Molly)
• finding someone hiding eating yogurt without being offered her own special cup (not sure if a messier food exists in this universe)
• pants (enough said)

She has recently become enamored with babies, but has no use for baby dolls or baby-ing anything at home. She wants whatever you're eating because it's definitely better than what she's eating. She will call your every bluff. She loves going to preschool. She is the reason my children are in preschool to begin with. She wants to snuggle for a few minutes after waking up from her nap. She is as stubborn as a mule and is quick to get frustrated when she can't do something on her own. She lets me put bows in her hair. She has no time for silverware. She loves shoes, even if they're Sam's. She "reads" in her own little baby language and I think I could listen to her jabber on for hours. She squeals every. single. time she sees Steve after he gets off work. She could watch a parade of cement trucks and diggers for dayssssss. She loves jumping on the trampoline. She doesn't like bathtime. She has one favorite teddy bear and none of us know its name. She randomly runs over and hugs my legs. She also bites when she doesn't get her way. She loves her friends. She is a sweet little doll baby and I sometimes cannot fathom how big she is when I pick her up out of her crib. She used to fit on my chest- in my belly! Now her legs dangle down to my knees and she is done snuggling before I'm finished wiping her gorgeous red hair out of her face. She is a little spitfire and pushes me to my LIMIT, which causes me to drink a ton of wine, but I love her so much and can't wait to see what this coming year brings.

Sweet, squishy newborn chub

Two years old, going on 20

Baby, you're fabulous. And I love you.

xo,
Mama

Are you tired of reading about everyone's Easter? Well that's a shame.

Because here's a recap of mine!

I honestly have almost no recollection of what we did Saturday (that was so long ago!). But here are some pictures from that day, so apparently we gave the kids baths and they played with the magnadoodle til bed.

When Sam cheeses too hard these days, his eyes close, and I think it's pretty darn cute. As are his jelly Joker lips that spread to his cheeks.

Must remember to do baths after dinner. We don't have dainty little eaters on our hands..

Saturday night, I'm fairly certain I completely forgot that the next day was Easter, so Steve and I drank wine and watched House Hunters and then we woke up to this.

We told them it was a game. And it would strengthen their hand-eye coordination and give them an advantage over all the other kids at the Easter egg hunt later that morning. They bought it.

We headed up to post to take the kids to their first-ever Easter egg hunt. Oh the anticipation. We gathered around with the other children and waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. We were waiting for more people to show up apparently. You know, so that when they had 35 kids show up to hunt the 15 eggs? The five year olds would dominate and make sure the babies wouldn't get any. I told Steve that I guess we can't complain too much because it was a free Easter egg hunt, but let me go ahead and complain about it anyway because I think that will make me feel better and it's my blog and I do what I want. And kids? If you're reading this decades down the road, just remember that I had no idea that your first Easter egg hunt was going to be such a shitstorm. Lesson learned- do not count on the Army for any warm and fuzzy first-time experiences.

What the hell kind of an Easter egg hunt is this?

It was put on by the single soldier organization so that probably should have been Red Flag #1. They assume that a bunch of toddlers are willing to stand around and wait for a bunch of unknown people to arrive. Red Flag #2 was that the eggs they hid were real live BOILED EGGS. As in, someone, somewhere went to the trouble of purchasing eggs (but only about a dozen, mind you), boiling them, dying them, placing them in individual plastic sandwich bags, and then hiding them. Red Flag #3 was that I could only eyeball about 7 eggs from where I was standing and there were something like 842 kids present. Red Flag #4 was that the age group to hunt eggs was 1-5 years old. Because that's totally fair to the one year old babies that are still adjusting to their sea legs. Once they yelled go, Sam freaked and froze up so I grabbed his hand and drug him straight to an Easter egg so he could "find" it. Molly found zero. So great, we have one disgusting boiled egg and a horrible experience for a first Easter egg hunt. We took them back to the car and promised that we would hunt eggs FOR REAL this afternoon.

Trying to smush ants and kill time while waiting for the "hunt" to begin.

Fast forward to after naptime. I have Easter chalk, a bubble gun, and lots of plastic eggs. Let's go to the park.

Bless their little hearts, they raced around finding those eggs like there was something in them. (There wasn't. Because they don't know any different and guess who is going to use that to their advantage as long as possible?) We hid them twice because they were just. so. excited. After that was over, we busted out the big guns.

The bubble gun, that is.

After the excitement of the egg hunt was over, the kids played on the playground and then we went home and had a home-cooked meal. Not ham or anything fancy, but I did find some fresh brussel sprouts at a different commissary (can't get them up here) (I'm sure I looked like a hoarder as I gathered as many as I could, much to Steve's dismay), so I cooked those and some chicken and some mashed potatoes. I'm sure my children will have super fond memories of this Easter - hunting for zero boiled Easter eggs and eating brussel sprouts. Feel free to send all of my Mother Of The Year awards to the north end of South Korea, thanks.

Project 365 - week 16

Since the smog/yellow dust was terrible today, and since I made my children inhale a great amount of it during a wog to and from PWOC this morning (whoops), we spent our after-nap-time at our favorite kids cafe.

Either you love bacon or YOU'RE WRONG.

First time one of my children has fallen asleep on the floor! That's some sort of mommy milestone, isn't it? This is what happens when you resist your nap after a busy morning of playing outside.

She's getting so big...

Happy Easter! Eventually I'll do a post about this day. But for now, behold the wonder of a $2 bubble gun.

Checking out the "monster truck tires" at Daddy's work.

I started out taking photos of Molly in her new shoes (she. is. obsessed.) before preschool, but she (very suddenly) became interested in her book and Sam wanted in on the action. Check out that cheese face. I love it.

Our first visitors in Korea

Familiar faces! We saw them! Steve's parents arrived in Korea last week for a visit. We crammed quite a few activities into their time here with us, so without turning this into a 20-page novel, I will attempt to show you what we did via photos.

NATURALLY, we went "feshing."

We can't play at the river without visiting this old decrepit dinosaur playground.

Picnic!

The kids were thrilled to have someone here that was willing to read the same book to them eight billion times.

Mom mom also had FROZEN on her IPAD and, well, she's pretty much the coolest person they've ever met. (This was the first time Molly has ever seen a "girl" movie, and boy, she was focused.)

We headed down to Seoul (sans children) to see Gyeongbokgung Palace and the changing of the guard. It's incredible that this ancient palace and grounds are situated right in the middle of the city.

The "selfie" situation in Korea is out of control. Also, hilarious. (See the guy behind me? Others were holding the flowers over their faces. Because I guess it's hard to see that bright yellow wall of flowers behind your face..?)

These ajummas! I am constantly entertained by the fashion here. No one is ever wearing the same thing. While the older women typically lean towards patterns upon patterns upon patterns, these ladies busted out the tight pants, ear muffs, visors, sandals, socks, hair spray, bright colors, and sunglasses for their day trip to the palace. I showed a friend here this photo and she died laughing, saying, "If anyone asks you what Korea is like, just show them this picture. It is accurate."

Next up? Seoul Tower.

Even though you can take transportation to the top, there is still a sizable hill at the end that everyone has to climb. But once you're at the top, the views are breathtaking.

A bit hazy, but still pretty clear for Seoul!

On the ground, we passed by people smashing cans and tossing them into these "recyclable" hearts. once we were at the top of the tower, we saw that they were mirroring the heart-shaped flower beds.

We had dinner at a little Korean restaurant at the bottom of the tower, and luckily for us, it had a wall of windows, so we were able to see Seoul change from day to night. I recommend.

The next day we made the trip out to the waterfall. It's been about 6 months or so since we were last here. We found that part of the road leading to the waterfall was missing, and they added new signs down near the falls about "falling rocks." So that was nice.

Then we baked a chocolate cake. Because why the hell not?

We also hit up lots of parks.

"But where is the tiger?"

Searching for bugs

After a busy week, we said goodbye at the Incheon airport around lunchtime on Saturday. We enjoyed being able to see family and showing them our new home! The kids are still convinced that since Mom mom and Pop pop aren't here with us, they must be on a jet plane. Well ok then.