Green Eggs and Ham (or granola, in my case)

In the story of Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss there is a man being followed, badgered, and annoyed by Sam. Sam is convinced that the man will like green eggs and ham if he only tries it. Many times I feel like Sam. Recently Brett asked for granola. It is not readily available in any store around here so I planned to buy the two hefty bags at Costco when I visited this week, only to be appalled that the price had jumped from $16 to $22! I decided I would try to make my own granola. The next day I whipped up some which I thought tasted pretty yummy. I was excited to greet Brett in the morning with a bowl for him only to be shot down with "that doesn't look the same" "why does it have nuts in it?" "I wanted the other granola" Brett, you may like it... Try it, try it and you may... If you know the ending of the book the man does try it and discovers he likes green eggs and ham, thus the ending to my story as well.
I have a vague memory of my mother saying she wished I had a child like me one day. She got her wish! Oh, how the tables have turned and now I will be the persistent Sam I am.

Clean Water Fund

Imagine tomorrow waking up and not having running water anymore and the only available water was more than a mile (or kilometer) away in a small pond. And that pond was also the water hole for animals (you can bet there would be some feces in it!) No showers, or coffee to start the day, only a hike carrying buckets to fill and then carrying them home--roundtrip about two hours. You could only carry about 10 gallons each time, how dramatically life would change. This is reality for millions of people in the world, bacteria are rampant and people are dying just because they don't have access to clean water, yet how quickly we are able to access water everyday for every purpose. When I read about this in a World Vision Summer 2007 magazine it forever changed my life. (Articles: Just Add Water, Water in a Child's Life, and Splashes.) I have been wondering what I can do. I am setting a challenge out to raise the money needed for a deep water well to be dug in a community by the end of 2009. The cost is $18,000! I know most do not have that kind of money but as a group of people we can raise that over the course of a year. With your help, we can make a difference together in the lives of many! I will be working on this all year, would you join me in thinking outside the box to help others around the world? Get creative and get others involved. Give a donation as a Christmas gift, a birthday present, or anniversary gift. Do a fundraiser, walk-a-thon or bake sale or help raise funds. Please pass this along. Change happens when a group of people work towards the same goal!

To learn more click on the "First Giving" widget on the top right of this page.

Celebrating 9 years

It's hard to believe we've been married for so long, yet it's gone by so fast. We had the wonderful opportunity to get away just the two of us (thank you Bruce and Susan for watching the boys!) and headed to Namisam island about 2 1/2 hours bus ride from here. The island is known for Winter Sonata, a romantic T.V. drama that filmed there. It is 5k of beautiful nature and with the season being fall, many, many colorful trees! My favorite season is the fall, probably because growing up in AZ I never saw the leaves change colors. The first year I experienced fall I fell in love with the beauty of it and look forward to it every year. As you can see we took a lot of photos of the the trees.

Tae kwon do

Tae kwon do is a big deal in Korea. There are studios in every apartment complex and it seems that all children participate in it at some point. We have been toying with the idea of Brett taking it for awhile and finally decided to start he and Ian in lessons. They will be going 3x a week. Most places do not start students until they are 5 but this place starts at 4yrs and it is directly outside our apartment. Today was our first class. There are about 7 other kids ranging from 4-8 years old. The teacher speaks a little English and between his broken English and the boys limited Korean they were able to understand. Of course all they really need to do it follow along with what everyone else is doing. I thought this would be a great way for them to be hearing and hopefully learning some Korean, meeting other kids from our apartment/neighborhood and getting some energy out. I stayed to watch and just today we learned the words for master(teacher), right and left, hand, foot and go. The kids did stretching, running races, jumping rope, and tae kwon do poses. Ian was disappointed at the end of the hour when it was done. They look so cute in their uniforms, don't you think?

Costume party

This year a group of us got together to have a Halloween costume party. We procrastinated till the last day to think of something so Joe and I's were pretty simple. Dressed as himself Joe put a cotton ball on his eye. Anyone know what the reference is? Cotton Eye Joe, ha ha. It won out over a Cup of Joe (how is the world were we going to make that?) My costume was a sign. Shirt $20, pants $25, shoes $50, costume that needed minimal effort: Priceless.

One of the reasons our costumes were simple is because we took hours making Ian's. He was the best looking Robot, for a whole 5 minutes! I can't blame him though, who wants to be confined to a box all night!
Brett went showing off his muscles as Mr. Universe 2008.

Joe said we've officially earned a new badge of parenthood: costume making.

Tooth be told

Brett lost his first tooth this month and another tooth is loose. He was pretty excited to feel it wiggle back and forth, so excited he spent the whole day lightly pushing and pulling at it. The next day it was grossly hanging on, flopping back and forth. Brett tends to be uneasy about change so I was worried that this right of passage was going to be a time of turmoil for it seemed as though we needed to yank it out. He also does not have a high tolerance for pain or blood, so you can understand my concern. To my great surprise (and relief) he decided on his own to pull it out. The 'tooth fairy' gave him 1,000 won which in the US equals about 80 cents with the exchange rate being so low. I'm sure the going rate is higher these days but he was pretty excited about getting any money. He knows it was Joe but we had a good time with it anyways.

Letting go of the training wheels

Recently a friend gave us a new bike. It was suppose to be for Ian who has out grown his tricycle but it was bigger than Brett's bike. So the bike became Brett's new bike. His old bike had training wheels on it though he didn't really use them anymore. We thought what a great time for Brett to learn to ride without the extra wheels. But when we took him to the park to try he was too worried about falling over even though I was holding the back of the bike. He begged for training wheels to be put on. After putting the wheels on we realized they were too short and didn't even touch the ground. He desperately wanted to try out his new bike and we headed out to the parking lot where he took off like a bullet and never touched the training wheels to the ground. He was so scared of trying it without the wheels but really they just gave him the "safety" he needed to boost his confidence and take off riding. It made me wonder how many times I've needed some type of training wheels to get my confidence up just to realize I wasn't using the wheels at all.