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Catching up....

Wow, it has been a long time since I've blogged. My apologies. Life has been crazy busy since we arrived back in S. Korea. The trip back went well with no meltdowns, but frequent trips to the bathroom. Gotta love that Mya uses a trip to the toilet as an escape from boredom or anything that she doesn't want to do. My children also couldn't manage to get their bathroom schedules to coincide, which meant multiple trips for this threesome. Yippee. We had one day to deal with the jetlag in the company of Chris before he returned to work. Chris working meant that I singlehandedly dealt with the 2:30 am starts to our day in addition to my own difficulty falling asleep at night. It was a joyous week with many tears shed! Glad those days are behind us for awhile at least.
School/work is back in full swing. I've taken on the role as CSC Chairperson at our school, which basically means that I oversee all special education in our building in addition to servicing my Speech kiddos. We had 8 new special education students transfer into our district this year, which means I've been one busy girl trying to schedule meetings, complete the necessary paperwork, etc., again in addition to all the usual schedule organization, beginning of the year rigormarole. I am also returning to school this year to begin my journey as an Autism Specialist. Although I am so excited for this additional certification, I am nervous about the demands this coursework will have on my "downtime."
The humidity is still suffocating us daily. It is brutal and even worse is the fact that our kiddos LOVE to play outside. We have two Korean girls who live down the street. They moved in around May sometime and didn't want to interact too much with our children except with the casual "smile"every so often. The language barrier made it very difficult. While in the States, we picked up two Barbies for them and brought them over when we returned. They were delighted--big smiles immediately before running into the house to show their mother. From that point on, the doors of friendship have been opened. Our girls play together almost daily. The older girl ("Ina" pronounced-"Eenah"learns English at school and is practicing her English with each interaction. It really is such a neat interaction to witness. We are so thankful for our neighbors. They are wonderfully kind people and are very sweet to our children. Ina introduced the world of catching dragonflies to Claire. This is one of her favorite pasttimes now.


Ina and Claire

Yoogi, Ina and Claire

She got one!

2 dragonflies!

Mya is not so impressed. Love that face!

Ahh, friends. Look at that happy expression.

Yoogi sat on this and pushed the button by accident. She was quite surprised when it started moving! She was very curious as to what was happening, but trusted it a bit more when she was off it vs. on it ;) So cute.

Yoogi and Mya are 2 months apart. Mya was trying to tell Yoogi to sit in the car with her as she and Claire often do, but Yoogi didn't quite understand.

Mya loves shoes. Here she is wearing Ina's and loving it. Oh--Mya often comes home with facepaint from her school. The kids love it.

Ina is such a sweet girl. She lets Claire bug her and tolerates it all. Ina is 4 years older than Claire. She is 9 Korean years old, but when you are born in Korea, you are actually 1 year old. Ina would be 8 years old in America.
So, that is what the past few weeks have been for us. Crazy busy. I am hoping life will slow down a bit, but I won't hold my breath.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Finally another post! I've been waiting for weeks. The girls have grown so much already time is just flying by! Miss you guys--less than a year to go!

Love ya,
J
Anonymous said…
Hi Kara,

It was good to hear from you again. Glad you are all doing well. The girls look great as usual.

Good luck and congratulations with your new schedule and responsibilities

Talk soon
Jeannie
April said…
Sweet pics! Good for you on the autism specialty, I've been reading a lot about it myself, lately. It seems they've really broadened the criteria for diagnosis in recent years, the prevalence is shocking. Happy fall!

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