Recently....

Ahh, spring. New season, new look for the blog. We have been BUSY again, with many events and end of year school activities. It also seems like many families leave at the the end of the school year so we have started saying good-bye to friends that have already become dear to us. It seems like every day is either a sports day, PTA meeting, end of year celebration of some kind, or a good bye tea in the clubhouse for someone. So this is going to be a little stew pot of recent events...

Ok, so Sasha's grade up to year 3 went to some botanical gardens for a field trip. She had a blast and asked to take the camera on the trip. I nervously said yes, but she brought it home in one piece.

 She took about 50 pictures of plants and animals that she saw on the trip. What a photographer! I'm thinking it might be time to get her her own camera. Here's one of her shots:

Teddy's class and the year above him had a spring picnic. The moms met the kids at a nice area on the compound right at noon. Here's the kindy gang getting off the bus:

Teddy and good buddy Abdul:

And of course, BFF Ryota. Sadly, Ryota and his family are heading back to Japan for good at the end of the month as his Dad's work project has come to an end. I feel so sorry for Ted. First I rip him away from the Manatee class and his cousin and now he is losing his best friend AGAIN. The kid's gonna have attachment issues....

We had such a nice picnic under all the beautiful flowing trees!

In other news we have found some tasty treats here in Korea. These little things are tiny plastic pineapples. You pop the green top off and the little pot is filled with pineapple ice cream and it's YUM!!! I love tasty food that's presented in cute little packaging. We re-use the pineapple containers for all kinds of things including school snacks.

The kids are celebrities here. Wherever we go people run up to say "hi", ask their names, and ask to have their pictures taken with them. Recently we went to Jinha beach for the day and Jeff and I felt like Brangelina. We were literally mobbed by papparazzi!

See those Koreans with the giant cameras all shooting something down the beach? Wanna know what they're taking pictures of?

My 2 kids playing in the sand. Seriously. It was BIZARRE...

We walked down the beach and splashed and played in the water and on the rocks.

When we got back we got an interesting lesson in the very VERY different views that Asians and Americans have when it comes to personal space. Ok so first of all, the beach was EMPTY. There was plenty of space to spread out and have your own area. So we had a blanket down and had plenty of space around us. The crowd levels at the beach that day:

When we came back the people with the blue tents (Green tent was not there yet) had literally put their tent stakes touching the corners of out yellow blanket and were playing in front of, and totally taking over our space including walking across our blanket and playing with our toys. If these people had been one of my relatives, I would have been like "Dude, there's no need to sit on each others laps eh? move down a few feet." But these were total strangers!!! I glared at them, gathered up my things and pulled my yellow blanket 1 blanket width away to create a buffer zone. They literally looked at me like "Geez, what's your problem?"
Then 5 minutes later, the green tent people came and set up in the notch of space between me and the blue tent people. WHAT ON EARTH??? And they were not "with" the blue tenters in any way. Green tent people had 6 adults and about 50,000 children and they were aaaaalllll up in my business. I couldn't handle it. COULD NOT. I mean look at the empty beach in the shot above and then look at this set up:

Can anyone come up with any reason for the 3 parties to be that close to each other (other than the fact that I'm super-hot and usually smell nice I mean...) We pretty much had to leave the beach after that.

There was windsurfing races going on so that was fun. FYI, the Koreans wear clothes to the beach. Not shorts and T-shirts but nice dresses, tights, socks, long pants - CLOTHES. They swim in the clothes and then lie in the sand. With their SOCKS ON. All covered in sand like shake and bake chicken. Only being drooled on by sticky cotton candy eating giants could possibly be more uncomfortable than lying on the beach fully clothed and wet and all coated in sand. Help me understand....

He's wearing socks. Sometimes being in Korea is really fun and sometimes it makes me want to go to sleep for like the next 2 weeks.

Swimming in clothes. The stores by the way are full of swim suits and they're pretty darn cute too. Hasn't really caught on yet I guess...

Ryota and Ted had a fun playdate after a Saturday birthday party. Sasha went to play with Mizuki and I left the boys with Dad and went to get some groceries. Gotta love a lazy Saturday afternoon. This is how I found the 3 boys when I got back:

We had a huge Spring Festival sponsored by Hyundai. We all got T-shirts and competed in field day type events, had snacks, drinks, entertainment, an amazing catered lunch and it was all free! What a party! I even won an ipod touch in a raffle.

Sasha, Maddie, and Lorena getting ready for the parade of nations that started off the festival:

My sweet Sash! What a trooper. She has adapted to so so many new things and almost never complains. She sees the positive in every situation and is always ready to try new foods and new experiences. What a lucky Mom and Dad we are to have moved to Korea with such a flexible kid. So when Jeff was on a business trip I arranged a play date for Ted with Ryota and sprung Sasha from school at noon. We went out to Lunch, shopped at a cool craft store, bought her an outfit, and went for a treat. It was such a fun "girl date"!

Sasha outside Paris Baguette where we went for a treat. She is a really fun kid to spend the afternoon with.

So that's all for now. The kids and I head home for the summer in 2 and 1/2 weeks! We are excited and it will be nice to be in familiar territory again, but we will also look forward to heading back here to our awesome little community in September. We have a lot to look forward to!