Whew! What a Week!

What a Week! I know you had to wait a little longer for this one, but you get 3, count 'em 3 video links so no wingeing.  That's pronounced Win-jing, and it's an Aussie term that means to whine and complain. Integrate it into your vocab, it's my favorite new term. 

So first of all it turns out that we left the kids pillows (with their blankies and animals inside) in Goseung. TEDDY'S BLANKIE. WAS LEFT. E-P-I-C!!! Of course we panicked and called Edan who's first words were "You lost your CHILDREN?!?!" and we had to tell him no, no -we lost the Children's PILLOWS. Ahh the language barrier. So that was the comedy routine of the week. Either Jeff or myself would just bust out "You lost your CHILDREN?!?!"and then start laughing like mad. I mean, c'mon the poor man must have had like a nano second of stark, raving terror. Can you imagine his thoughts? 

"These flippin' wegugins lose their kids and drive all the way back to ULSAN before they call me and now I have to find missing wegugin midgets. Who to call first? The dinosaur museum people? The cops? What if I can't get 'em back?"

But then he realized it was just the pillows and in true Edan miracle fashion, he showed up with the pillows on Wednesday. When we came I told Jeff that we were going to have to get him something really nice from the states and then a few weeks into it I said Ok, like we have to get him an engraved iPod, but I'm thinking that by the time we leave we'll pretty much owe him a BMW. So the picture above is Teddy reunited with his blankie seconds after Edan brought it back to us. Laaaaaa!

Teddy's class had a bake sale this week. They sang to the year above them and all the Moms and then sold their goods. Here he is all ready to sing. Sooo excited!

 

I didn't get video of the group routine, but I did get the solo version the night before:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGoFhPIBh18

Here's the whole group:

He was at a table with his BFF Ryota (more about that later) and Shreyan:

They were awesome little salesmen and sold out of all their stuff. Quite proud!

So that was Thursday. On Friday there was a St. Paddy's day party in the clubhouse and they asked if we would bring the fiddles and bust out a few tunes. I said yes, but remembering that the last time Sasha said she would play in public she ended up crawling into a cabinet and hiding, I was prepared to play solo. The kid stepped right up though, and went for it, playing brilliantly. The proud look on her face when the clubhouse broke out in applause for her was priceless! I forgot to bring the camera, but my friend Aurora saved the day and recorded both tunes on her iphone.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83aJtX-6aLU

So then Saturday we had Sasha's birthday party. We did it a week early because next week starts school vacation and a lot of people are taking off so we thought no one would be around. She had a Mom and Daughter Craft/Tea party with a flower, butterfly and bug theme. One of the ladies in the compound is a professional baker and she made these cupcakes for the party. They were AMAZING, and tasted even better than they looked if you can imagine. Click the picture and check out the detail. Totally great - I can't wait to see what she does with Dinosaurs next month!

We made 4 kinds of finger sandwiches and cut them out with heart, flower and butterfly cookie cutters and did a fruit tray, a veggie tray and some other snacks. Here she is with her food table:

We set up the room so there was 4 craft tables and then the rest set up for lunch afterwards. Had to take this picture of the outfit. You can take the girl out of Texas but you can't take Texas out of the girl am I right?

Here's the B-day girl and pals working on butterfly suncatchers:

And a while later...Sasha's at the far table coloring in a fuzzy book mark:

Crafters hard at work:

Here she is opening her presents, in her fluffy skirt, surrounded by wonderful friends and just totally in heaven!

And a little bit later mackin' on a delicious cupcake...

 A b-day vid:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFMYvPa-udQ

Ingrid got her a Hanbok (Traditional Korean Dress) for the Kit or Emily. Don't know where they got it from, but it's one of those things she will probably pass down to her kids some day. Beautiful!

So that was Saturday. Sunday Team Stolasz was in charge of laying out the Hash route. We did it in Ulgi park - that place with the cool rocks and the bridges and all. We also stashed a geocache out there and sent the hashers after it with 12 clues. It was a big success and the kids loved the treasure hunt aspect of it so that was fun to have our hash so well received. No pictures because I had to run the course 3 times, first to put it all up, then to monitor the process during the hash and then to take it all down so I was super busy (but got a great workout!)

In other news. Teddy has a best friend. His name in Ryota and he is from Japan and might be the cutest, sweetest child on the planet. They are in the middle of a full scale Bromance and literally will both start weeping and wailing at the end of the school day if they have to say goodbye to each other. His big sis Mizuki, is in Sasha's class though and his mom and I have found that if you have to do something with the girls or lunch duty or whatever, that its just way easier to tag team it with T and R, so they get to spend lots of time together. Here they are Monday afternoon because Akie - Ryota's mom had lunch duty.

They have a really sweet friendship, especially since Ryota is as quiet and gentle as Teddy. When they play together there is no running, karate kicks, pig piling or anything - in fact you have to check on them to make sure they are still there! They will play dinos together almost non-verbally with just little quiet comments to each other or work on a puzzle together and silently hand each other the pieces that the other one needs. They're like a pair of 8o year old ladies. It's hysterical! 

We did find out though that life is much easier if we always send our kid to the other one's house with their lunch. Apparently there is no union of the set between what an American kid eats and what a Japanese kid eats and the one day Ryota came without his own food, It took me many tries before I got him something he would eat (Apple with no skin and a noodle cup). That worried me because he is also the lightest almost 4 year old in the world. I once carried him all the way down to the clubhouse and all the way back up the hill to our apt and it was like carrying a loaf of bread. He's tiny! Ted just told me that he did not want to go to school tomorrow and I told him that Ryota will be there and he paused and said. "I want to go then..." It's just adorable and sweet and fun to see Teddy with his very own BFF!

So that's all the news that's fit to print. We have international week this week and then a week off from school (what to do, what to do...) and then Japan! So lots to look forward to. Love to all!