Singapore!

 I've always said to Jeff that if he gets to go somewhere COOL for a business trip (instead of lame ol' Houston...) that we would tag along. So finally he got to go to Singapore. The kids had only been back to school for 4 days though and I really didn't want to pull them out again. Awesome friends to the rescue: the Smiths offered to take Sasha and the Cuff family extended the same offer to Ted so I got to join Jeff in Singapore sans kids. WHOOT!!

Singapore is off the hook. I've been in ritzy places before but this place takes the cake. Not only do they have Prada, Gucci, Luis Vuitton ect, they have 10 of all those kinds of stores and you kinda get the idea that shopping at those places is like us going to Walmart. Jeff and I said that if we lived there we would be the government assistance food-stamp family in comparison! I never saw so many crazy sports cars too! And they have Rold Gold pretzels!

 Our second night we went to this great restaurant and Jeff got the biggest order of fish and chips I've ever seen. And next door was a Chocolate Lounge. Sign from God? Oh yeah...

 On Thursday we went to Sentosa, this resort island that's just full of recreation things. We went to a place called "Mega Zip" and did a parachute jump and a high ropes course.

 Me on the zip line:

This was the hardest part of the ropes course:

 Then we took trails back to the start. Jeff says that the 2 of us always end up bushwacking no matter where we are in the world. Sure enough....

 We took a gondola back to the main part of the city. Here's a shot of the Hard Rock Cafe resort and Universal Studios on Sentosa:

 And a shot of the City:

 That night we went to the Marina Bay Sands. It's this HUGE hotel with 3 towers and a ship-like structure on the top that connects all 3. The ship holds 2 restaurants, an outdoor park and an infinity pool that makes you feel like you are swimming in the clouds.

 The Grand Prix was about to race through the city that weekend so there were car displays everywhere. Easy there sista...

 Up at the top of the Marina Bay Sands:

 We went for dinner at the top and had a few extra minutes to check out the park and the pool. How cool is that?

 Here's a view of downtown Singapore.

 Aww....

 We had this amazing 7 course meal in the restaurant up there. With an incredible view of the city.

 The Grand Prix race course was lit up and as the sun set the lights of the city came on and you could see exactly where they had set up the course.

 Here's another shot of the hotel at night:

 The next day Jeff had to fly back early but my flight back wasn't until midnight so I had a day to go explore. I headed over to the Singapore Botanical Gardens.

 The National Orchid Garden was really amazing.

 Whenever we travel together my friend Tara always loves to look at flowers so these shots are for her!

After that I still had some time to kill. I decided to try a "fish spa". You stick your feet in a tank with these mini-pirahna type fishies and they immediately swarm you and start eating all the dead skin off your feet. The feeling of it is impossible to describe. Part tickly/part creepy!

 One of the fish died (It wasn't me I swear!!) and the other fish picked it down to a skeleton in about 5 minutes. EPIC! I thought I deserved a discount for this since it took some of my fish "off task".

 And finally for the super-geeks out there I have to share my best Singapore gadget moment. In August I bought a PORTABLE SOLAR PANEL (rockin'!!!). The outlets in Singapore are not compatible with American or Korean plugs and we only had one adapter for all our many, many gadgets (when geeks marry geeks it happens right?). So I whipped out my new device and saved the day. "Why yes, that IS a portable solar panel charging my iPhone. Thank-you for asking." Geeky awesomeness!

Settling back in...

You know you're back in Korea when your "Tex-Mex" rice has squid in it. Hmmm.... Welcome back!

We arrived back in Korea in early September and we had to hit the ground running as school was already in full swing! This year Sasha is in Year 3 and Teddy is in Year 1 so they are finally together on the same campus. They love seeing each other at recess and at lunch. First day!

Of course we only got to go to school for 2 days because then it was Cheusok. This is like Korean thanksgiving and we got Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday off from school. Jeff got to choose his Cheusok gift from work and he chose:

Yep. Another Cheusok, another giant gift box of SPAM. The Koreans love it. Check out what it says on the box. Really.

The stores are INSANE right before Cheusok as you have to buy gifts for everyone. All the stores set up massive aisles of Cheusok gift boxes. You can buy gift boxes of alcohol, nuts, shampoos, rice cakes, mushrooms, SPAM... pretty much anything you could think of. Of course if you're shopping for that super-special someone you can get them the $130.00 box of apples. Am I crazy or does that work out to over $13 an apple?? Now maybe I'm overlooking something. Like maybe these apples have a solid gold core that I am unaware of. But I don't think so. I love the fact that they're on sale though. 10% off - what a screamin' deal!!

We thought about going somewhere for Cheusok but we were so burnt out on travel that we opted for a staycation instead. We had some nice pool days, did a little bike riding and spent a day at Jinha beach.

 We had a really nice Korean meal there with lots of bulgogi and kimchee. We all loved it!

And we've moved! We're now on the compound in Y block. Here's our new place:

It has a view of our old apartment block where we lived at the mercy of ONE ELEVATOR for all 25 floors for nearly 2 years. Yikes!

In our new place we are on the 2nd floor instead of the 17th. I can't tell you how awesome this is. I wake up every morning to actual sounds outside my window other than wind and I can actually see leaves and trees wherever I look.

But best of all is no elevator! When you open the door to the apartment you run down the stairs and right out the front into the fresh air. It's so much nicer to come home with a load of groceries or whatever and just be able to go into the house without waiting or multiple trips. And if someone forgets something we just run right back in and get it! In our old place if we forgot something it was like a 10 minute round trip!

We actually got the very last spot in Y block, all thanks to Zoe who realized that the elevator was killing me and put all the gears in motion for us to move before I even got back, snagging us this awesome score! So we're all settled in now and enjoying this new chapter. We even had time to experiment with some new Tie-Dye effects. Mickey Shirts!

The rest of summer in one post!

The last time I reported in from the US we were growing corn and doing Home School. That was about early June. So there's no way I'm going to pull a repeat of last summer and try to blog the ENTIRE summer. Instead, you're gonna get the super condensed re-cap version all in one post!!
Here we go:
Right about this time we found out about Julie being sick. Julie and Ana had a million Dr.  appointments to go to. You know what they say: "When the going gets tough, the tough go to Disney World." (Ok, so maybe that's just what I say...) so Tim and I got a campsite at Ft. Wilderness and got ready to head to Wilmington to grab Ethan and Ana's 2 girls KK and Julia. My kids had no idea where we were going, they just though they were going on a mystery road trip:

Disney with 5 kids was actually AWESOME! We loved our time with all of them and they made us laugh about a million times a day, even when they were being EPIC!

I have so many special memories of this trip. Our first day at the Studios the CM running the Toy Story fast pass machine thought our passes weren't working so she got exasperated and threw 7 little fast pass grabbers at me so we ended up with DOUBLE FASTPASS POTENTIAL all day long. Did we rock it? Ohhh yeah we did! Then at the Magic Kingdom KK and Ethan found one of the hidden paintbrushes on Tom Sawyers Island and we all got to reap the prize!

This is one of my favorite pictures of the trip. 3 cousins having an absolute blast together! The big kids were so awesome with their little cousins.

And Tim loved it too! He totally "gets" Disney and really appreciated the amazing food. This was one of our best meals at Flying fish.

When we go back to Wilmington Tim surprised Julie with her dream car! It was such a special moment and although she didn't get to enjoy it as long as any of us hoped she would, the smile it put on her face is something we'll all remember.

Then the kids and I flew to RI to meet Jeff! We had a nice week enjoying our Bristol family, seafood and beaches!

My adorable little niece barely remembered me so we had to re-bond. We're tight again now. Until next summer when we'll have to bond all over again!

Then it was back to NC for the big 4th of July pig roast! This event warrants it's own video montage so you can see that here.

 After the pig roast Jeff whisked me away to the Grove park in for a night (10th anniversary!) and then I whisked him to Florida so we could see the final shuttle launch! He was totally surprised and even though the weather was crazy, the shuttle miraculously managed to launch as planned.

Another major tick mark on the old bucket list. Video here.

 The next day Jeff had to fly back to South Korea. We had 24 hours to turn it around and then Sasha and I went off to the Swannanoa Gathering. We had a great week of fiddling and Sasha got to be a pirate in the kid's program.

Then we went back to RI since we had only spent 6 days with our RI family when Jeff was home. We packed a lot into 2 weeks there. Got all the kids yearly Dr. visits out of the way, got to hit the American Girl store up in Boston:

And stopped in to see Team Venuti and their newest addition Porter!

 We had a blast with our cousins,

 And went out to Block Island with Tim, Bob the Diver, and some friends.

Block Island sunset from the North Light:

 Then we headed BACK to NC for one more week!

We got to spend a week at the beach with Grammy and Poppy Duck, and some friends from Germany. Since we were right near Wilmington I also got to spend a day with Julie and Ana, Aunt Donna and the kids came to the beach to see us one afternoon. It was so good to see them all one more time before leaving the east coast.

Next we were off to Oregon to visit our west-coast family! The kids wasted no time re-bonding with Nimanim and Auntie and getting back to their barn chores.

 And of course, people who do their barn chores get to ride!!

I had separated my ribs in mid-July so I couldn't go backpacking but one of Tim and Cris's friends let us use her vintage RV so we headed up into the mountains to base camp and enjoy the mountain lakes just day hiking.

The kids had a blast camping in the RV. They ALMOST managed to domesticate the chipmunk population with a combination of peanuts and this weird chipmunk call they developed. I wish this picture had audio. Hysterical!

 And of course they HATE our nightly S'mores ritual...

We had some amazing days hiking up to mountain lakes that had water as clear as a swimming pool:

And it was pretty easy to just flip up the step on the RV and drive to another trail head. I am SUCH a fan of the old RV!

On our way out we stopped to check out the snow on Mt. Bachelor (3rd week of August!!!) and my kids hiked to the top of the Pine Martin lift! We played in the snow all the way to the top and then enjoyed a free ride back down on the ski lift.

Next we were off to Valley of the Moon fiddle camp. The best camp EVER!! The best part of this week was watching the kids re-connect with friends they made last year. They had an awesome week!

Here's the kid band hard at work on a piece for the banquet dance:

 And Teddy continued to rock his ability to nap ANYWHERE! Even in a room with 30 some fiddlers!

Of course once you're in CA, you just gotta make a quick pit-stop at Disneyland because I mean c'mon... you're in the neighborhood right?

We had a quick 2.5 days at the happiest place on Earth. The kids ran the kids' races on Saturday:

And then on Sunday it was my turn! I was SO HAPPY that I got to run the Disneyland half because 3 weeks before this I still was not able to run because of my ribs. It was nice to be back on the ol' horse.

Of course no summer re-cap blog would be complete without that final Splash Mountain shot:

 So that's it in a nutshell. It was EPIC, exhausting, wonderful, sad, and fun all at the same time. We were glad to get on the plane and head back to South Korea for some relative normalcy!