Constant Beginnings

just beyond our fence is a huge tree. i say huge because our house is on a pretty high hill overlooking a cliff of sorts. anyway, this tree peeks beyond the cliff. on this tree are green prickly balls. they are the strangest looking things. i've been wondering about them since first seeing them. in fact a few weeks ago,  i climbed over the binju ditch (not sure about the spelling) and tried to reach out and grab one. no luck. fast forward to yesterday. i ran to a portable classroom to escort one of my students who happens to be korean. she noticed one of these spiky balls on the ground, picked it up and began peeling away the casing. low and behold---a chestnut! what an odd discovery. she knew just what it was and began to describe her family's method of cooking them. the ironic part of this story is that she is severely language impaired, yet teaching me a little something. they soak them to soften the shell, then add the actual nut to other dishes.

we've been here about three weeks now and haven't done much except adjust, get settled and survive with little bits of fun thrown in here and there. bbq and blues was on the docket for today up until last night.we decided to mix up life a bit and head to seoul. first we thought we check out the coex mall but then our adventurous side took hold. we ultimately decided to spend the day at the "children's grand park." it was a goldmine! we didn't pay a cent, which we aren't entirely sure why that is--either it truly is free or the person who was supposed to stop to redirect us to some secret ticket booth didn't speak english. either way, we thought it was fantastic. it is a botanical garden, which provides some gorgeous landscapes for photos, a zoo, and playground, fountain set to music like at the bellagio in vegas (mya's absolute favorite. we had to tear her away, tears and all.), sprinkler park and good ol...

guess what greeted us today? it was our first shipment of 'stuff,' actually called our "unaccompanied baggage." i have never been so happy to have a tower of boxes to unpack. it has been so long that i had actually forgotten the specifics of what those boxes included. our kids did too. they scoured through their toys like the deprived children they've been and now we have a disasterous living room as a result. love it. everyone was in heaven. oddly enough, the items i was most happy to see were my bathroom scale (which confirmed that i have maintained and perhaps shed a few additional pounds since my summer loss--having not weighed myself for well over a month, i was nervous) and my messy, messy box of recipes from my mom, sister and grandma. i've been cooking the basics and trying to do the rest from memory. the box is in severe need of organization. i am adding that to the never ending 'to do' list. nothing like some good old home cooke...

just down the path from our school is this little trio of webs. the webs are rather large, but nothing in compared to the nasty freakin spiders that make their home there. honestly, these things give me the heeby jeebies. i actually almost walked into one of their webs, which most likely would have made me vomitted. scratch 'probably.' i would have definitely. these spiders are by far the nastiest spiders i have encountered beyond the plated glass in zoos or other 'safe' places. i was certain that something this big  (the sucker was just a tad smaller than the palm of my hand) and nasty had to be poisonous. anyway, a little research has revealed that these gems are called 'the golden banana' spiders in north america. they are basically harmless, unleashing their venom only if provoked. lord knows i will not be provoking these little monsters. have a look. don't they just scream 'friendly?'

mya is so stinkin cute. i told her i wanted a pic and asked her to stand by the wall. she complied. it was awesome.  my loves. this picture melts my heart. really. it wipes away all the difficult times and fills me with pure happiness.  we ventured to church this morning. it was a different church than we attended when i visited in july. the congregation was mostly young couples, the nursery programs provided bibical discussions and the congregation was very outgoing. it was different. i am more comfortable in a traditional church setting and can easily adjust to a fairly contemporary worship, but this was VERY contemporary, much like you'd see from 700 club or something like another tele-evangalist type place. not sure i was 100% sold, but i am willing to try it again. i really wanted to find somewhere that claire would get a sunday school type experience. anyway, i snapped some pics of our beautiful kids. they were soooo cute.

We live in a little community referred to as Pyeongtaek. Obviously, this is our first weekend in our little community, so our exploration has been minimal thus far. However, we decided to venture out a bit and take a little walk to a local playground. It was a fun experience. The playground itself was nothing fabulous, but filled with little Korean children and their parents. It took a bit for them to warm up to us, but once they did, it was difficult to pull away to go home. The people enjoyed watching our children playing. A few stopped to watch as the girls were giggling on this spinning apparatus. At one point, Mya got off and Claire kept spinning. A gentleman held out his arms to lure Mya towards him. I was a bit torn as he was very much a stranger, but I've learned that the Korean people think of us as an extension of their families. Thankfully, Mya resisted, which eased my burden a bit. Another little Korean lady was there with her granddaughter. The lady kept smiling and ta...

mya was in love with her boots. she wanted to wear them each day. we were wasting time while chris was retrieving a load of our things, so the girls and i went outside. the moment mya saw the puddle, she was in heaven. the girl is not dainty! a girl can't live in rainy korea without having a nice umbrella and rain boots. claire outgrew her old ones, so we went shopping. i found these in both girls sizes. you know me, i love matchy matchy!   looking back on my previous posts, i realize a change is needed. no more worrying, complaining or stressing. we are finally moved into our house. (i'll post pics when our baggage comes in october?) my job is going well. after settling into one classroom which i shared with a learning disabilities teacher, i am moving to a space of my very own. i am really excited as i was supposed to have my own room from the start, but the school is bulging at the seams right now. i'm not entirely sure what happened to initiate the...

i picked claire up from daycare yesterday. our conversation involves a review of the day's events. let me interject by saying i received no phone calls and all was calm when i picked them up. claire was doing tangegoes and mya was playing with another little person. loved both sights. fast forward--claire got wet on the slide and being the top notch mom that i am, neglected to include undies in her extra set of clothes. needless to say, she was going commando. that conversation lead to claire's report of, "jacob has a straight bum." hmmm. and how, exactly, do you know that??!!! we've talked at length about people who should see her bum and who she can accompany to the bathroom, etc. i try not to be over the top protective, but i want to give her the language and knowledge to know what is and is not okay. this conversation has made me a wee bit concerned. she loves the cdc, but i am making a list and checking it twice. three strikes and they may be out.

mya's teacher didn't seem to understand that i wanted HER to pose with mya, so this is what we did instead. picture chris but with a korean lady's face. that is ms. minaun. mya jumped right into discovering her new room. glad to know she is consistent--making messes wherever she goes. ms. minaun keeping a watchful eye on mya's messes--only kidding, she was describing some of the toys mya was finding. i asked claire to smile for a picture and this is what i got. despite her expression and who knows what is going on with her hands, she really was excited for her first big day. she had a blast too, despite a "brown girl saying down to me." we work a lot on colors and describing EVERYTHING as you may be able to tell. anyway, the deal is that she most likely wasn't giving another child an opportunity to ride the big bike, so the girl told her "down," which must have been a simplified request to get off. who knows?!! claire wasn't so...

this is the mystery item, although the picture was a late idea. it looks a bit nastier than it was when dinner was served. so we survived our first weekend in korea. the kids and i are slowly adjusting our sleep schedule, but that being said, we have slept some crazy hours in the past few days. take today, for example, we laid around--sleeping off and on, until 10:30 this morning, took a nap around 3 and didn't wake up until 7. it is now almost 10 at night and mya is out for the night with the rest of us to follow her lead shortly. i guess we are all exhausted. anyway, back to the post---i love to cook and i am pretty decent at it. thankfully, i had great teachers along the way--my mom and grandma. they are/were awesome cooks. i also love to cook for others. really. i am not the most social person in the world, but i really love making something wonderful for others to enjoy. our vision for the rest of our life is to entertain--alot. night number one of entertaining is officia...