Winter....

After our winter trips we had 2 months of "normal life". Winter in Korea tends to be very cold and grey and bleak. But we did have a few fun events that helped us get through the brunt of the season.

We missed St. Andrew's Night this year and celebrated Burns Night instead. It was fun although the dancing was the best part and unfortunately also the shortest part of it. Next year we need more dancing!

In February I turned 40 and Jeff and the Gang threw me an awesome surprise party! It was a ton of fun and I got a Goofy cake to spur me on to my next big goal!

 The guys wore Mickey ears and the gals all got Tiaras at my party. Teddy wasted no time in setting Mitzio up with a tiara as well when we got home. She seemed to kind of like it and man oh man it pretty much completes her whole personality.

The kids got very excited to run a 5K with me. We put a sticker chart on the fridge and everything. I was stoked! Until they bailed on me after only 2 training runs. I handed out sport beans and everything! Maybe next year....

 Max is continuing to put on weight and is doing absolutely great. He seems to be totally back to normal. Of course now I'm totally stressed about leaving him again this summer lest he immediately go into organ shut-down mode again. What a high-maintenance cat!

 And..... we built a volcano! It has a plastic chamber in the middle so you can do various types of eruptions with it. We tried the baking soda and vinegar eruption and it was pretty cool. Next we have to try Menthos and Coke. Think we'll do that one outside though...

Sasha had a little fiddle performance at school so I came to assembly and as luck would have it she was also chosen as star of the week! What a day!

 For St. Paddy's Day our little Celtic band was asked to play at the clubhouse. Our first gig!! We were very excited and had an absolute blast. We even got a new band member, Ian who plays melodian and mandolin. We proudly call ourselves the best Celtic Band in Ulsan S. Korea and let me tell you, on St. Paddy's day we're in HIGH demand. We even had offers for multiple gigs!

 We remained loyal to our clubhouse though. And the community gave us quite a turn out! We had some awesome dancers. Video HERE.

And last but not least, Jeff and Pero have been getting themselves through the last of the mid-winter jickers by building bottle-rockets. Really. And it's non-stop. My hair elastics have been cut up and used for gaskets, there are toys missing that have been pillaged for their moving parts and at one point my favorite cutting board was stolen. (I got it back though...) They assure me that this is all for the kids....

The Ski Trip!

Lunar New Year came very early this year in Korea. It was the 3rd weekend of January! The kids celebrated the holiday at school and Sasha and Teddy finally talked me into getting them some Hanbok.

 

For the 3rd year in a row many of us headed North to the big mountains. We stayed at the Greenzone Pensione. All these little bungalows cover the side of a hill Each one has 2 units: one on each side. When we go we pretty much take over the whole place!

 

For the first time ever we were able to ski as a family. No splitting up between the bunny hill and the intermediate slopes. The kids did great and being all together on the slopes was a dream come true!

And of course evenings were just as entertaining.... here's a bunch of us out on our porch for BBQ night. It was FREEZING cold but the plastic drapes around the porches kept a lot of the heat in.

The teachers were on the other side of our unit so we were able to go back and forth just to make sure that they weren't cooking better stuff than us (and so we could steal some if they were!)

And the kids went around in a huge posse causing trouble and trying to convince all adults involved that this really was their FIRST round of dessert.

This was what he HAD to wear for the evening. So he could look "cool". Lord, help me - I'm raising a Back-Street Boy....

And then we made a big bonfire and gathered all around.

And set off some crackers that the Smith Family had left for us.

We got to ski 3 and a half days. The kids were amazing and we even made several trips to the very top of the mountain in the Gondola!

On our last day, before we had to drive home, we decided to swim instead of ski. It was so nice to soak the various aches and pains of 3 days of skiing in a nice hot Spa.

And they had a really cool water slide but it was kids only - no adults allowed. WHAT?!?

Then we got in the car for our 5 hour drive home. It's always nice to see the countryside of Korea. One thing that cracks me up is how they use every single inch of usable land. Most of the country is mountainous so wherever you have a little valley there are farms, orchards and fields all the way up and even into the foothills!

And once you are on the highway you can't get off unless you want to pay a toll. But all along their excellent highway system they have all of these really nice rest-stops. There are bathrooms, convenience stores, outdoor food stalls selling really weird things, and inside there is usually a counter-service restaurant where you can get any kind of food you want as long as it's Korean. Which means noodle soups and rice with seaweed side dishes. This one even had a batting cage!

Next year we want to go back to a resort a little farther down the road. They are hosting the 2018 Winter Olympics there so we want to check it all out so we can remember it when we see it on TV in a few years.

Dunsborough - Side Trips!

 While in Dunsborough we tried to alternate beach days with trip days where we got to see some of the surrounding region. One of the first things we did was go lookin' for kangaroos at sunset. Now I was under the impression that to see a kangaroo we would have to go to a wildlife preserve or zoo or something. Not so. All you have to do is drive around the more rustic areas of town at the end of the day and they are EVERYWHERE!!! I was sure we were not going to find any the first time we went looking but we hit about 10 different groups of them on the first day alone. They are awesome. They remind me of a cross between Meercats and Deer. Meercats because they all stand up and look at you with their little front paws hanging down, and deer because they are all over the place and eat your garden when you're not looking.

 These guys are not too sure about us....

 I made a kangaroo movie:  Click Here

The next day we went for lunch to the Eagle Creek Brewery. I had a Kangaroo Salad. It was yummy. Don't hate me.... those things are adorable but they're like rabbits. Everyone's gotta do their part I tell ya. Here was our view at lunch. You can just make out the ocean in the distance.

Here's my buddy and I having a beer sampler:

And on our way out we saw our first epic spider. AIEEEEE!

A few days later we went to Ngilgi cave. Here we are heading into the depths!

The kids had an absolute blast. Part of the cave had a tiny tunnel you could crawl through to get past one of the tightest spots. They must have done this about 10 times!

Team Stolasz in the cave:

Our whole gang:

This was the way Teddy looked on our way back from every outing:

And after the cave we stopped here and got free chocolate samples. It's hard to beat an afternoon that includes caving AND free chocolate!

A few days later we went to this epic maze. Whenever someone is on Survivor or one of those shows where they have to complete a maze challenge I'm always like "Oh C'mon, how hard can it be???" The answer is pretty darn hard! The goal is to enter the maze and make it to all 4 towers in the correct order without cheating. It took Jeff, Teddy, Jamie and I a good 20 minutes. There were times where you had to go waaaay in the wrong direction to make it to the next spot. It was SO FUN! I want to build a maze....

Jamie, Teddy and I make it to Tower #4. We did it!

After that we went to lunch at a winery. We had a great meal and got to taste some wines as well.

This whole region of Western Australia is a lot like the Napa Valley. There are tons of wineries and they also grow olives. We stopped at an olive place to taste their wares. No idea why olives = patchwork cow but the kids just went with it.

A few days later we went to an ice cream place that had a circus camp set up behind it. Ice Cream + Circus stunts??? Fantastic! The kids all tried to walk the tight-rope first...

Then they went on a trapeze:

Fly Sasha fly!

Parental therapy. When your kids get on your nerves you can put them in these thing and bash them into stationary objects and each other. I need one...

Then Teddy and I got into a HUGE one and went up against Sasha and Em.

A few nights later we went to an actual drive in movie theater. The kids played while we all waited for it to get dark. As usual they had a blast. They were laughing their heads off. Check out the video clip!

We saw the movie "Red Dog" Which was excellent but a little sad. Teddy burst into tears at the end of it and was barely consolable!

Once we got back to Fremantle we also took a side trip to Rottnest Island. They have these little kangaroo-like rodents called Quokkas. They are everywhere and I have to say they're pretty darn cute. All the stores have Quokka gates or the things would go right into the shops and restaurants.

We went to an area called the Basin where you could snorkel and swim. It was beautiful!

This guy was pretty epic the whole day. First he had major stomach issues and I thought he was going to puke on the ferry and then it was one thing after another with him. But we all have off days and when you're vacationing with kids it's all par for the course I guess. We made it through the day with the big guy in a bike trailer because him riding a bike around the island was just not going to happen.

Sasha and Em find another Quokka:

So as you can see, our amazing tour guides did a fantastic job exposing us to to Western Australia. We got beach days, chocolate, breweries, wine, mazes, wild animal encounters and a whole LOT of fun. Thanks so much Zoe, Julian, Em and Jamie, for being such amazing hosts!