Jeju - Last adventures

We went to a fishery on our last night in Jeju. We got to catch octopus, fish, and eel by hand, and also eat fresh seafood. :D We also took a video of our adventure there. I'll upload it later, maybe. The owner was shocked that we would want to have the fish cook instead of eating it raw. He said it would be wasting a good fish, so he suggested that we don't eat that certain type of fish. lol. We were so worried that our camera would die (it was on red), but it lasted us the whole night. :) Alden had a big accident at the place after two full days of no bowl movement. It leaked out of his diaper, all over into his pants, so he had to get a quick shower there with cold water. Poor baby. But I was really glad he finally had a bowl movement. (Diarrhea is better than constipation, I think...)

With octopus we caught. They peed on us and shot ink at us. lol.


More octopus shots.

Cody with his catch.

Kyra with her catch (that fish costs $20)

Dinner time!

Being a good mom.

The next morning, I found him like this in the playpen. lol.

Our last meal in Jeju. Cody and Kyra had an earlier flight, so we dropped them off in the morning and had

America's funniest home video

Alden almost dies....

After this video was taken, Joe was watching it on the camera, and Alden wanted to watch it with daddy. After the movie, he took the camera from dad and started playing with it. He started swinging the camera so Joe took the camera away from him. Later, when I wanted to watch the video, I couldn't find it! It was no where on the camera.... We figured Alden must have deleted our all time favorite video and were so sad! Joe thought of data recovery, and we were willing to pay money to get this video back. Fortunately, we found a free software called Pandora Recovery, and it worked a miracle! Thanks to the program, we're able to watch Alden fall on the ground from laughing so hard. lol., I mean, rotfl.

Gyungju Trip

A couple weeks ago, while mom was down in Ulsan for a weekend, we took a trip to Gyungju. Gyungju is a city with a very long history of hundreds of years. It was a capital of the Shilla dynasty for almost 1000 years, and it has lots of historical buildings, etc. to see. We took a train to Gyungju, then took a tour bus to go around the city. It was so much fun, especially for Joe, and we had a really nice weather (overcast and cool) for a tour.

Taking baby steps while waiting for our train.

Reading books with grandma on the train.

Looking like a true American tourist with a hat and a Hawaiian shirt.

Men's bathroom with a glass door. lol.

Star gazing tower.

Eating rice crackers

Way of wheelchair and stroller. How fitting for a Buddhist temple. We also saw a sign that said, "Up road."

Caution of stairs...

Family picture

The studio was nice enough to offer us a family picture session. It was fun and awkward at the same time, but I love how the pictures turned out!

Our baby model

We've been feeling bad that we never did anything real nice for Alden. So I wanted to have his pictures taken professionally in Korea. They are amazing at taking pictures. Baby pictures, wedding pictures, just name it. Cute backgrounds, props, all the outfits, etc. Following are some samples from our picture sessions. We can't wait to get our album printed!

Playing catching up

Long time no see! We're still well and alive. Unlike what my mom thought, we have been doing really well. I've just been too busy/lazy to keep everyone updated. lol. Here's what we've been up to these last couple weeks.

1. Having mom down in Ulsan.
2. Taking Alden's pictures at a studio professionally.
3. Going to Gyungju with mom.
4. Finishing up Enlish teaching and internship.
5. Painting Gomo's house.
6. Going to Jeju Island.
7. Moving to Joe's Imo's house in YongIn.

Here's what Alden's been up to lately....

1. Screaming and yelling when he doesn't get what he wants.
2. Screaming Nah, nah! whenever he's not happy with what's going on.
3. Shedding real tears for fake and real cries to express his unhappiness.

4. Smiling and waving hands at strangers, especially girls.
5. Attracting attention wherever we go, even moms with their own babies stare at Alden.
6. Learning how to open his new fall-proof binky.
7. Laughing at random things.
8. Sharing his food with others, sometimes.
9. Enjoying playing with the small toy car we received at the Hyundai Motor tour.
10. Trying to steal daddy's Book of Mormon whenever mom and dad try to do the scripture reading for the day.

We're having so much fun with Alden. Sometimes I look at him and realize how much he's grown. It's crazy. :D We're not sure what the late personality shift is about, but hopefully he'll go back to the good-baby Alden.

"Hello."

A couple of things I forgot to mention in the last post. Alden understands "binky" when I say it, and whenever I say the word, he starts looking for it or looks over at the place where I usually keep it. lol. Who knew Joe and I'd have to already start spelling things out so Al doesn't understand what we're talking about. lol.

He also knows that we say "hello" on the phone, but in Korean. He'd be playing with an object that looks like a phone, or sometimes w/o anything, and he puts his hand up to his ear when we say "Yeoboseyo (hello in Korean)."

Do you see the shelf at the head of the bed? Alden also likes to pull things off the shelf, so we've been storing his toys, etc. on the bottom two shelves and storing dangerous and keep-off items on the top shelf. But now, he can pull himself up, climb on the pillows and get at anything on the top shelf. I'll post a video of him getting something off the shelf later.

Developmental changes :D

Alden has grown so much! He can do more tricks now.

1. I forgot to mention that he has become really good at using his sippy cup for quite a while now. He can hold it w/o handles or with one hand and drink. Plus, if he starts by holding it upside down, he will use both hands to turn it around so he can get water out.

2. He's a biter, pincher, poker, scratcher, and a puller. lol. He bites fingers, shoulders, and arms with the 6 teeth that he has. It hurts quite a lot. He's also really good at pinching with his little fingers. lol. He also scratches with his small finger nails. He also likes to poke your nose (inside of your nose), and that hurts the most... :'( He also likes to pull on mommy's hair.... (sigh)

Joe's big toe with bite marks...

3. He can now easily pull himself up and almost walk along furniture. He walks if we hold his hands, but he walks really funny, using mostly his right leg.

4. He also likes to run around in circle on the floor like Sophie. :D

5. He can officially say Mom and Food in Korean.

6. He's gotten really good at blowing raspberries. But watch out, he'll start biting while pretending to blow raspberries!

7. He's getting two more teeth on the bottom, and has been drooling a lot lately because of that.

8. He's started to wave bye and hi.

9. He kind of says, "More," but he expresses his wants more by waving his arms up and down in the air or beating the floor or the table with his hands.

10. We still have no idea what he's allergic or not to... :( We have to give him Benadryl about once every two weeks. But the rashes clear right up if we give him Benadryl. Thank goodness for benadryl....

11. He likes to dance to music, but he's also started to sing on his own. He usually just screams one or two tones, but it's really fun to watch.

12. He Loves eating fruits and vegitables. In fact, he likes ANY type of food. He's completely weaned himself off breastmilk.

13. He likes to crawl around, even in car rides. Makes mommy and daddy really nervous about after we go back go America. Boy, will he hate being in carseats and high chairs!

14. He likes to climb on things very much. He'll climb on anything he can. Chairs, mom and dad, tables, pillows, boxes, etc.

Well, this is all I can remember now.... If I remember more, i'll post more later. Feel free to add any, Joe.

Little Beethoven

Look at him go! :D
Only if the piano had more keys and the bench was wider.... lol.

Visiting my grandparents

Last weekend, Joe and I went to visit my grandparents' grave site. It was nice to get out into the counry side and also have Joe meet my other aunt.

Gomo, setting a table for my grandparents
My other gomo, reading to Alden

Bowing to my grandparents.

Gomo and Kangnam bowing.

Scary YY on a scary slope.

Beautiful site

Bowling

To celebrate my cousin, Donghyuck, being done with exams, we went bowling. In America, bowling alleys are fun. It's a place for weekend dates and is full of music and fun lights. In Korea, bowling is a serious business. No lights, no music, and there are only groups of professional/amateur bowlers in uniforms. They mean serious business. They even asked me to stop taking pictures because the flash was distracting them. Anyway, we had fun, and our team won! :D

Shoe dispensers. Cool, huh?

My award winning boys

I entered a photo of Alden and Joe in an internet photo contest called I Love Dad photo contest. It was on Babble Playground, an online forum for parents. They have a photo contest every month, and last month was for Father's Day. I put on a picture of Joe holding up Alden at the beach (you can check it out at Happy Father's Day post from June), and we were one of the three winners out of over two hundred participants! :D We'll be receiving a Jeep stroller. We're really excited about it because we need a new stroller to go with a bigger carseat when we get back, plus this stroller has a toy handle for Alden. It's just perfect for us! The webpage for the contest is at the following address: http://babble.ning.com/group/photocontestilovedad

The cookie monster

Just watch it... lol