Mission Accomplished.

I always find it fascinating when people say they don't believe in miracles,

How could I not?

We are in California

By way of Japan,

By way of Hawaii

Where it was sunny and warm. We showered, swam, laid out, ate, changed clothes (some of us went through four outfits during that brief layover.)

Went for a walk around Ford Island

Saw MANY battle ships. And then where we waited around for exactly 8 hours before our flight FINALLY took off bound for California.

Here's what we did on that flight:

Happy to report that we slept through the entire 6 hour flight, and only woke up when they announced it was time to prepare to land. That is my favorite kind of flight!

So, we are now in America. Now we are just working on finding a rental car and moving on to the next and much more enjoyable part of our trip, visiting our friends and family!

I spoke too soon...

Of course we aren't heading straight to California. That would have been entirely too easy. We are now going to "over night" in Hawaii. Aren't we the fancy jet-setters. We're having lunch in Japan, and now we're going to sleep in Hawaii. Don't you wish you were here too?!

Here's how we know we're in Japan, there are Japanese artifacts decorating the walls, with informative plaques.

The girls have found a fun phone booth to keep them busy.

The boys say "Thumbs up to Japan", while they build a Lego Star Wars ship.

Homeward bound.

I am proud to announce that we are sitting in an airport terminal in Japan. We caught a flight out of Osan EARLY this morning. We have made our first stop in Japan, where we each had to have our temperature taken (in search of Swin Flu), and where we are now letting the kids run all around while they refuel the enormous C5 before we get back on board headed to CALIFORNIA!!

Other than the two hours of sleep that I'm traveling on, everything else is going smooth. Surely the drama is saving itself up for some later point along the way.

California or bust!!

To help you catch a glimps,

(and to stay at the top of the blog roll on my sister-in-law Chelsea's site), I will share with you a few picture from our day...



Ruby wearing the "Brown bear, brown bear, what do you see?" dress. Out of all the fabric I came home with on Saturday, of course it was that one that Ruby thought a dress should be made out of. I only got that fabric because it was free, and thought it could be used at some point in time for baby gifts.

But you know, I've never been one to stand in the way of a creative vision. So I worked it out for her, and I think she's pulling it of quite nicely.


Now Jane wants a matching skirt and shirt, so I am trying to offer her a few other options. But the paper crowns printed off from www.pbskids.org, those I had nothing to do with. Not even the part where they typed in their names. (I just lied, I guess I cut them out for them once they had them printed off.)

A little baseball at dusk for the boys.

And then finishing the day up with a quick round of Aerosmith Guitar Hero in their underwear before bed.

(Of course when they heard the camera flash, George threatened to bash in the computer if this photo made it on the blog. Then I promptly told Major Earnest that maybe George was too young to be exposed to heavy metal music.)

George ran a race on Friday.

The boys came home from school and I told them that I had signed them up for the "America's Kids Run" race at the High School track.  Henry informed me he would not be participating in the above mentioned race.  He had an assortment of bad reasons why, and I let it go.  But George, he was on board.

 

 

 

 

He took third place in his age group, and the boost of confidence that it infused him with was worth every bit of effort it took to get him there.  Unfortunately we were late, so they were out of the kids size t-shirt, but even that he took in stride.  It's hard to tell sometimes if he was loving it so much just because he knew that I did.  But you know, even if that is part of the reason, that's sweet of him, so I guess I won't worry too much about that.  

The part I was most proud of... he paced himself!  When other kids had to drop out on the second lap, he was still running strong!  He had listened to me at the start line, and as hard as it was, he let the other kids speed past him in the beginning, because I told him if he would hold back in the beginning, he would be able to beat them at the end.  I was right, but it's so rare that kids are able to believe that bit of running advice.  

Later on that night he told me the following story, 

"Mom, there is this girl in my class who told me that she thinks if she's really, really nice to me, I'll want to marry her.  So today, she gave me her snack.  It was gummy bears.  So I guess that was nice of her."  

Good to know the girls are already lining up for our man George.  

On Saturday before we left...

Darin gave me the day off for Mother's Day. It was sweet of him, he's good at stuff like that. I went up to Seoul with some ladies from Church. We were spiritually fed, and when we came home I got a pedicure. Then I was temporally fed. I said to Darin while we were on Jeju Island,

"Darin, if you want to know something about my happiness, it is very simple. At times, I require only two things to be happy. One is the sun. Two is a nice pedicure. You have given me both all within a weeks time. Thank you so much."

I hope he learned a little something about me on Jeju Island.

But while I was going to be gone for a full day, we discussed what Darin could do with the kids to fill up a long Saturday. Jane was coveting a Barbie Thumbelina doll. We don't have commercials on TV here in Korea. But on websites, they play commercials. That's crafty of those websites. And I would like to bear my testimony about it's efficacy. Jane wants everything that she sees a commercial for from the Barbie website. Everything.

The Thumbelina doll was the latest item that she needed for her true happiness to be complete. I totally lied to her.

I told her I would buy her a Thumbelina doll at the BX the next time we were there. And the only reason I did that was because I was 110% sure that we would never find such a doll at the Osan BX.

When Jane heard Darin and I discussing the plans for Saturday, and that a trip to the BX was on the docket she exploded with jubilation that she would get a Thumbelina doll that day. Darin began to protest, but I quietly pulled him aside and said, "We're totally safe. There won't be any Thumbelina dolls at the BX. Just tell her you'll buy one and she'll love you for the rest of her life."

Guess what they had at the Osan BX on Saturday?!

Seriously, I had no idea.

But I think I didn't lie about one thing, she really will love him for the rest of her life. Even though I am the one who got to pose in the pictures with the beloved dolls.









We will ALL love you for the rest of our lives, Darin.

Home again, home again, jiggity jig.

Day 2 in Jeju (or Cheju for the locals) started with a trip to a Folk Village. I've discussed my feelings about folk villages before. This time the folk village just brought out the plain old silly in us:

After the folk village we headed over to this beautiful mountain and hiked to the top. It was a marathon of steps, but a good physical challenge worked into the day, all before lunch is always delightful.

View from the top

Celebratory self-portrait that we made it to the top!

Lunch followed the hike (don't get me started!).

Followed by a trip to this temple...

The best part of the temple visit was the fact that it started raining and gave me a perfect occasion to use my birthday parasol from my sister Sarah. And just as with all my gifts from my sisters, people started asking me about my cute umbrella. Thanks Sarah, none of the other umbrella were quite as beautiful as mine.



The trip was great. We'll miss our view from the hotel.


P.S. This is the actual view, taken from my actual camera. Not a postcard, or a photo found on Google images. I needed to type that out. I can hardly believe it myself. Being home now just over 24 hours, I look at this photo and wonder if maybe it was a dream. But it wasn't.

The "Hawaii" of Korea.

We left Monday afternoon in this aircraft...





Our seats...

And about an hour later we landed on Jeju Island...



The locals love to tell you it's like Hawaii in Korea. I'm not ready to substantiate that claim, but a free trip to a lovely island sans kids is surely very close to Paradise.

The Yongmeori Coast likened to a small version of the Grand Canyon, it was lovely.

Yum, an afternoon snack of sea cucumber and other various shell fish fresh from the sea, was surely hard to pass up. But believe it or not, I didn't eat any.


Couldn't pass up taking this picture. Apparently the jumping picture is an international photo sensation. I thought a few people I know would appreciate the global nature of the phenomenon.

Tomorrow is our last day in Jeju. A trip away always make you appreciate the hard work that goes into creating the joy and happiness that is our family. We'll enjoy our trip, but we are sure glad that normally we have more than just two subjects to photograph.

One sister sings, the other dances.

They make the perfect duo, go figure.

We try to encourage Jane as much as possible to sing along Karaoke style to her Barbie tunes online. With a bit more practice we'll have a real number ready to perform at the next talent show.

P.S. So much for posting one picture a day in May. I think I mostly liked that it rhymed. But seriously, every day since I wrote that down, I have tried to take a picture and dreamed of posting them. I have no idea where the plan fell apart.

P.P.S. The dresses showcased in the video are part of the Spring 2009 sewing Bonanza. I can tell I'm not done yet. That is both exciting and frightening all at the same time. Is it possible to sew too much? (Please don't really answer that question.)