Laughing at the falling duck

Playing with the dog and making monster sounds

Pictures from Korea

Together at the sauna. ;)
Having fun at the sauna w/ gma.

I love you, mommy!

Cute baby!

Getting changed

Pictures finally

Makeshift bed at the hotel in San Francisco.

What a cutie. This was taken 10 seconds before he fell off the bed.

What should we order...?

Where is my breakfast...?

He looooooooved IHOP pancakes! :D

We wanted to get this for breakfast but they didn't have it.. :(

Look at this nice Singapore Airlines plane... mostly nice except the economy seats.

We loved the complimentary ice cream. :D

First picture ever to be taken in Korea.

This is the ever famous infrared camera at the airport.

First picture together.

Getting our luggage.

And more

I forgot to say....
1. Alden has two bottom teeth, and has one more on top on the side. There's another one coming in on the other side. It's so cute when he smiles wide and shows us his teeth. :D

2. He learned how to clap!!! :D It's so cute. He claps whenever he hears songs playing, etc.

We're getting ready for bed now (It's past midnight) so I'll post more later.

Developmental improvements

Okay, here's what Alden's been upto developmentally lately.

1. He can now almost crawl. He still likes to stand up and jump up and down but hasn't really shown interest in taking any steps. But he really likes to be on his belly now, I think because he realized that he can see things better and reach out for things that are on the floor. If he's wearing shorts or in his diapers, he would use his knees to push himself, but usually beacuse he's in pants, he pulls himself forward with his arms. He gets tired after a few minutes so mostly he just turns around in circles at the same spot on his belly.

2. I forgot to mention this earlier but he's been really curious about his surroundings for quite some time. Whenever people are holding him, he likes to turn his body and twirl around so he can look at things around him.

3. He's mostly on solids now. He won't take breastmilk during the day now. It's only at nights or early in the morning when he's very tired that he will take breastmilk. He likes to eat rice and other foods during the day and taste many different things.

4. He can completely sit on his own now. If he has an interesting toy, he can sit for quite a while playing with the toy. But I still watch him closely because I don't want him to bang his head on the hard floor in Korea.

5. He's a chatter box. There are times he would start talking and talking and will not stop. It's really cute.

6. Instead of making the poo face when he's trying to go, he yells out like he's doing a karate chop.

7. He's said mom a few times but I don't think he knows what it means yet.

8. He's still not at the clingly stage yet but he cries whenever someone walks out of the room.

9. If he drops a toy, he knows to follow it and look for it.

10. He's really good at pulling my hair, even if it's up in a bun. lol.

11. He's a pinching monster. He pinches really hard with his thumb and index finger, and twists his hand so it hurts like nothing else. I'm not sure if he means to pinch or if it's an automatic response or something... just like grabbing and pulling.

That's all I can think of for now. I'll post more if I think of anything else. Oh, by the way, I lost to the mosquitoes again last night, 7:5.

FHE and the war with mosquitoes

Last week, while Gomo (my aunt) and Joe were having their English sessions, Gomo asked what his hobbies are. He told her he liked to play ping pong, and Gomo got really excited. Apparently, she's really into pingpong. So we decided we would play pingpong as an activity for this week's FHE. Usually, in my Gomo's family, everyone has dinner at different times. I've been trying to encourage everyone to eat together, but it's been so hard with everyone's busy schedule. My Gomobu (my uncle) has different schedule everyday, and so does Gomo. My oldest cousin, Kangnam, goes to an English school that's about an hour away, and doesn't come home until 10 pm. My second oldest cousin, Euna, has school until 10 pm, and sometimes stays longer to study. And the youngest cousin, Donghyuck, comes home around 4 pm so he's pretty much the only one we have dinner with everyday. But yesterday, Kangnam decided to skip her classes yesterday, and everyone was there for dinner except Euna. It was fun to have dinner with everyone, especially because everyone liked the food I made for dinner. :) Then we were trying to decide what activity we should do for FHE. We thought we could either play pingpong or let the boys play Starcraft (Gomobu plays too) and have the girls watch. We decided to go play pingpong since we don't always have everyone around (except Euna). We went to a pingpong school close by (Yes, it's a pingpong school. We are truly in Korea), and played several games. It was so much fun! Gomo KILLED everyone! Ha ha. I didn't even dare play her. To finish off, we played Around the World. I guess they don't have this game in Korea, but everyone liked the game, and we had a lot of fun. Gomo said they haven't been having FHE for years. Hopefully we could keep this up and even after we leave.

(Sorry. Still no pictures...)

So two nights ago, I woke up with itchy spots on my arms. I immediately remembered the vicious mosquitoes in Korea that I had forgot about. I had already scratched my arms in sleep, and the bites were swollen up pretty badly. They were so itchy that I couldn't go back to sleep, so I had to use some of Alden's hydrocortisone to go back to sleep. So last night, Gomo gave me some bug spray to kill those mosquitoes with. She said they'll probably be back tonight unless I kill them first. Well, I must have not done a very good job spraying because they did come back. I woke up because Alden had woken up but I realized I had be bitten by mosquitoes already. I moved Alden to our bed with us and started feeding him. The mosquitoes kept coming back and buzzing in my ears. I tried to ignore them but I couldn't after several minutes of trying to fall asleep. I finally got up, and turned on the lights. And that was the beginning of the war with the moquitoes. To tell you the results first, I lost to them 6:2. After turning on the lights, I tried to find those mosquitoes in vain. So I just sat still until they came to me. One of them came back, in hopes of biting me. I realized that I had lost the touch of capturing the mosquitoes while being in Utah for 8 years. Finally, I caught one against the blanket. But I noticed that this one didn't have any blood in it! That meant that there was at least one more that had been biting me all night long. Trying to keep the boys safe from those evil mosqitoes, I kept waving my arms around their exposed arms and faces. (Actually my mere presence would've done the job since the mosquitoes only bite me whenever we sleep together) Finally, I saw another one flying towards our clothes. I noticed that it was much more plump than the first one and also had dull movements from being full. After a few failed attemptes, I finally caught it. It was disgustingly full with my blood. I could finally sleep in peace but I still had to admit my defeat since I only killed two and they got me six times.... I'm going to use the mosquito net starting tonight so I never have to do this again...

We are still alive in Korea

Hi, don't worry, we are still alive. :D Today was Sunday, and we had a really long Sunday. There was a district welfare meeting with a area seventy after church, and it lasted more than three hours! Well, other than the parts that I fell asleep, it was really good. Korean sisters are really nice, too. During Relief Society, two sisters offered to watch Alden for me. I didn't have to hold him at all during class.

Well, I should probably talk about where we live. My aunt runs a pre-school with about 75 students, ages from 4-7 korean age (2 to 6 American age). It's in a four story building, and the first three floors are used for the pre-school, and my aunt's family lives on the fourth floor. There is an empty classroom on the third floor, and that's where we are staying. It's really big, bigger than any of the rooms my aunt has upstairs, and has a bathroom attached to it. We have a big flat screen tv, lots of shelves, and a pad that we sleep on. The only thing is that since the bathroom is for little kids, the toilets and the sinks in the bathroom are children's size. Ha ha. It's a little awkward taking care of business in there. We mostly just use it for brushing our teeth.

Now I will talk about what our daily lives consist of. Joe works from 8 am to 6 pm everyday. He leaves for work around 7:15 am (It's customary for Koreans to get to work half an hour early and stay an hour to two longer after work), and gets home between 6:30 and 7:00, depending on how fast the bus comes (The buses don't really run on a schedule, mostly because of the traffic). After sending Joe off to work, I would feed Alden breakfast, do the dishes, and hang out in our bedroom for a few hours. This week, I've been busy running errands and unpacking, etc. but now that everything's pretty much been done, I'm not sure what I'm going to do starting this week. There is a lunch lady that comes every week day to cook lunch for the children, and she fixes me lunch, too. Very nice lady... So I eat lunch, play with Alden for a few more hours, and then start preparing for dinner. My aunt and I made a deal that she would take care of breakfast, and I would take care of dinner. Joe comes home around dinner time, and so we eat dinner, hang out, and then Joe has his English session with my aunt. He teaches her English, and she teaches him Korean. I can actually tell that they've both improved a lot in the last week. It's fun to see them communicate. Then we retire to bed. That's pretty much all we do on a week day. lol.

Yesterday, we got to go to Haeundae, my hometown. My technology teacher in middle school, Mr. Ko, told me to come visit and said he'd take us out to lunch. I had kept in contact with him, so I was excited to see him again and also show Joe where I went to school. It was so fun to go back to the place I lived 8 years ago and see how much it's changed and also stayed the same. We went to the pharmacy to get Joe a corn medicine, and I recognized the pharmacist! We also went to the copy center in the area, and it still had the same owner! Yearim always went there to play with their dog, so we went inside to say hello. Surprisingly, she remembered me. :D Our next stop was my school. A lot of the teachers remembered me, and some even remembered my name! It was so fun to see all the middle school girls (I went to a girls' school) stare at Joe and point at him, and also whisper to each other. Joe really enjoyed being the center of attention. Ha ha. When we were about to leave the school with Mr. Ko, my 9th grade homeroom teacher, Mr. Lee, came down running, yelling my name! He was disappointed that I didn't come to visit him. Ha ha. So we ended up going to lunch with him, too. We went to a nice hotpot restaurant, and the food was wonderful. :D

After lunch, Mr. Lee left go to home, and Mr. Ko offered to take us to the aquarium in Haeundae. I guess it's the second biggest aquarium in Korea. We had so much fun. Alden was too young to really enjoy anything (he fell asleep) but I think he liked looking at the jellyfish and the big eels. We were so sad we didn't have our waterproof camera!!! (We left it at Joe's Imo's house in Seoul)

After the aquarium, Mr. Ko left, and we were waiting for my aunt to pick us up at Lotteria (Korean McDonald's). There was a group of middle school students there. We had to call my aunt to see where she was so Joe asked one of the boys if we could use his phone. They were so excited that an American asked for their phone. Ha ha. He even had a spongebob cover on his phone. Afterwards, we striked up a conversation with the girls. They were giggling and laughing. They were wet from head to toe and were standing outside so we asked them why they were wet and standing outside. One of them said, "My friend push, baby. We shy, baby." And she kept saying, "baby" to Joe. Ha ha. And they were all laughing and kept saying, "We're not crazy." Oh, and I should mention that I was pretending to be an American, too, and didn't speak any Korean. lol. One of them seemed shy, and she finally got enough courage to poke me in the arm and say, "Brittney Spears?" Well... Let's just say that Joe and I got a biggest kick out of talking to those girls, and we plan to do it again.

Oh, Joe reminded me to talk about this... Joe's been having trouble everytime we have hotpot. So this morning, he had to run to the bathroom, and also right before church started. The Branch President was introducing us at the beginning of sacrament, and um, he didn't see Joe sitting next to me. He asked me where Joe was, and I had to tell everyone, in sacrament, that Joe was in the bathroom.... lol. It was quite embarassing, probably more so for Joe, except he wasn't really there.

Joe also wants me to tell you all that one of the kids from the pre-school came up to the living quarters on the fourth floor (they're not supposed to come up) to see the little dog. He was so scared by the dog jumping on him and barking at him, he was screaming and running around in the small room. I was in the kitchen at the time, and I thought something really bad happened when I heard the screaming. Joe was having so much fun watching the kid, he didn't help him out at all. My cousin finally got a hold of the dog, and the kid ran out the door and ran downstairs.

I apologize that the recent entries have been really long and without any pictures. I will try to write more often and post pictures as soon as I get the camera from Joe's mom.

Hyundai Heavy Industries

Yesterday was Joe's first day at Hyundai Heavy Industries (HHI). Alden and I decided to go with him to work the first day to practice taking the bus to work with Joe. We met with Mr. Jang Jung Woo, the Human Resources guy, at the door since the securities were very strict. They were checking IDs of every single person going in. Alden and I had planned to go back home after dropping off Joe at work, but Mr. Jang asked if we wanted to join in for the tour of the work site. Joe had to first go and register and meet his boss and his boss, etc., so we waited outside of the compounds at a nearby Starbucks. (Well, it didn't open until 9 am so I waited outside most of the time). Alden and I met a Scottish man at the store who works for the shipyard. I thought it was funny that he was the first person (a foreigner) to walk into Starbucks, well, and plus us, and the only people to be there early in the morming.



Anyway, Mr. Jang and Joe came back to pick us up and we drove to the compounds. It was only about 20 yards away, but according to Mr. Jang, the securities are very strict and the only way I could enter the compounds was to be in the back of the car. lol. We watched a promotional movie on HHI, which was very touching, and also walked through a memorial hall for the founder of the company and the company itself. I was very impressed with what they do and how much they do. They own 30% share of the world's ship building market. We also found out that they build military ships such as destroyers, etc. (Thus the strict securities, and also the protection of their technology, I think). Mr. Jang told us that their compounds don't even show up on Google Maps.



Below is the Welcome sign they had for Joe.



This is after we watched the movie. Alden kept turning his head right on "3".

A funny story. After dropping Joe off at his office, Mr. Jang was giving me a ride back to the bus stop (the compounds are thousands of square miles big, there was no way I was gonna first, walk back out carrying the baby, plus second, find my own way back). While we were waiting for the green light at the entrance, one of the security guys knocked on the window.

"What were you doing in there? What're you doing with a baby?"

Mr. Jang said, "Oh, we have a new American Intern, we just got back from a tour. This is NOT my wife and baby. She's the American Intern's wife. She looks Korean, but she's actually American." Then he added in English, "Say something!" So I waved to the security guy and said, "Hi." I guess apparently, those guys are supposed to be really scary, and Mr. Jang was afraid he'd be flagged for taking his wife or something inside the compounds. lol. Anyway.. He's a really nice and funny guy. I think Joe's in good hands for the next 10 weeks. :)

Some pictures

At Salt Lake airport after getting through security


In the plane to San Francisco




Sad face for missing our flight to Korea




Getting a bath at the hotel
(I look like I'm about to eat him alive)

San Francisco

Hi, reporting from San Francisco. So... After saying bye to everyone and being more than 2 hours early to our flight, it ends up that our flight is an hour and 45 minutes delayed due to weather in San Francisco. They weren't letting any planes in for over an hour, and having only 2 hour layover made me really really worried. After talking to the customer service guy, we decided to take the risk and just fly over. One person having the same flight canceled, I heard, but I wanted to at least try to make the flight.

The flight itself wasn't too bad. The plane was really small and we didn't have too much leg room but Alden was being so good, and he slept through most of the way over. As soon as the plane landed, we were all ready to get off the plane. We had our bags packed and I had strapped Alden in the baby carrier. There was a half Korean girl and her half black, a quarter Korean, a quarter American son sitting in front of us, and they were also going on the same connecting flight as us. As soon as the door opened, we bolted out and started running to the international terminal. We had no idea which gate we were supposed to go to but we ran towards the general direction. When we were trying to decide which gate to go to in the internation terminal, an a lady stopped us and asked if we were flying Singapore Airlines. She told us that the door has already been closed and that we couldn't get on. She took us back out to the check in area where she rebooked our flights to tomorrow. She said since it was United Airlines that was delayed, we would have to ask them about arrangements. But she mentioned that United rarely provides anyone with accomodations but we still wanted to go talk to them.

Well, let's just say it didn't go too well. They told us that since it was the air traffic control that told them not to fly, it wasn't their fault, and thus they couldn't provide us with accommodations. Oh, well.... After trying to decide what was the best option for us, we decided to look for a hotel nearby. It seemed like most hotels were running at around $70 a night. But we decided to have my brother look online to see if there were any better options. He found a hotel for $42, and when we called them, it was even cheaper! They said their rate was $34 a night! And they even had free internet and shuttle to the airport. Well, it turned out to be a really old motel type place, but hey, it's nice enough and has an IHOP right next door.

Joe and I decided to call this a 24 hour vacation. I got a stake at IHOP for dinner, which didn't really reach my expectations, but I don't think I will be getting any stake in Korea so I was happy. lol. Joe got a monster double burger, and that was really good.

Now that I think back, I think it was really good for us that we missed our flight. We got to have a short vacation in San Francisco (although we are far from downtown), we don't have to worry about hurrying to make the next flight, and Singapore Airlines told us that yesterday, there were no bassinet seats available but there is for today! :D I'm excited for the 12 hour flight, and hopefully Alden will make it through.

I still have to post pictures from before we left but please be patient. I will post them when I get to Korea. The internet's pretty unstable at the hotel.

Nana

No pictures yet.. Sorry. I just don't have my computer hooked up on internet.
This morning when Alden woke up, he started saying, "Nana."
He's just been saying the d sound but it's nice to see him trying new sounds.
Hopefully he'll start saying the m sound soon. :D