Spring in Korea...

What a busy Spring! I've been so busy trying to write about China that I have tons to catch you up on. So this is going to be a whirlwind report! The weekend after we came back from China we had 2 days of races! On Saturday we took park in the yearly Dragon Boat races down on the Tae-hwa river. We had a bunch of great heats but messed up on our last one. We came in 4th out of 15 teams so we just missed the podium.

What a team!

The next day was the Hyundai Climbathon. This is an 11k+ run through the mountains that is pretty darn tough. Cora and I both ran it. I wanted to finish in 1:10 and I did 1:06 so I was pretty stoked. Those hills were tough!

After the race Jeff and I built a tree-fort up at Y-Block:

It's bomber and one of the best things this spring has been being able to hear the voices of all the Y-Block kids playing in the tree-fort just outside our windows. Ok, sometimes the Mom's play up there too..

We brought our kite back from China and thought we would give it a go with Korean wind. It went right up at Ilsan beach and then dove into the sea and snapped in two! We're gonna need a better kite.

And Teddy finally got to celebrate his Birthday with all his friends! We had a bottle-rocket party and we launched a bunch of rockets and ate rocket cake-pops.

His friends all pooled their money and got him the LEGO Star Wars Millennium Falcon. What a gift! He was amazed!!

Next up was Croatian night. We had an incredible evening celebrating the music, customs, and mostly the food of this amazing country. These guys pulled out all the stops!! I am so glad no one is asking us to host an American Night next. This will be a tough act to follow....

And then we had the school talent show. After 2 years I still have 9 fiddlers in the HFS fiddle club. They are all amazing and I love playing with them!

They played a tune together and then the played and danced a very hard tune called Money Musk. I was so proud!

The week after that Cora, Karen and I helped lead a school-wide hiking day. The kids were split into 2 groups and one group went up into the mountains and the other group took a slightly easier path. Both hikes ended at the same place though so we could all hang out and have lunch together. It was  great day!

Then Jeff had to go to Houston for a business trip. So the kids decided to have a big sleep-over night. Kid dinner!

Sasha and the girls. They stayed up waaay too late talking!

Teddy and Raphael on the other hand played so hard that they were out like a light!

Our next big event was the Solar Eclipse. We felt very lucky to be in a place where we got to see it! We made a pin-hole camera and went up early in the morning to the roof of X-block where we had a perfect view.

Eclipse projection:

 

I see it!

Then the compound team got invited to a soccer tournament! I thought they looked quite smart in their uniforms.

Jeff came back from Houston and Karen, Cora, Allison and I took off for a girl's weekend in Seoul. It was very kid-free and VERY relaxing!

We had a party for the Queen's Jubilee. There were lots of scones and biscuits and all things British. It's always so fun when you get to celebrate all your holidays plus everyone else's!

And the girls and I got our Yellow Belts in Tae Kwon Do! Our TKD master was so proud of us that he cooked us all breakfast and then gave us shots of some milky, strange Korean alcohol. Because there's nothing like celebrating athletic achievements with shots (?!?!)

Proud Yellow-Belt masters!

2 Astronomical events in one Month?!? We're gonna need a bigger pin-hole camera. Because to see the transit of Venus you need a pretty big image. We saw it. It ruled.

Teddy is now missing both top front teeth and is going to have one heck of a time eating corn on the cob this summer.

And we had another great international week. The kids did fantastic activities all week long and then on Friday we had Sports Day. Here's all the teams lined up and ready to rumble:

The yellow team does a cool challenge:

And the Green Team gets their whole squad across a "bridge"

The final event of the week was the international food faire. We all dressed up and brought in food from our home countries. The food was AMAZING! We all ate waaay too much. It's always so interesting to see other people's national dress and favorite dishes. Here's me and my girl. I'm just red white and blue but Sasha wanted to dress like a pioneer so that's what she did. WHEW! So that's been May and 1/2 of June in a nutshell.