Why deviate?!

The one thing Korea could give me that Colorado never could, is the perfect batch of cookies, right out of the oven, EVERY TIME. To all my sisters, or would-be-sisters who live "at altitude", here's a picture of what cookies look like when you live at sea level:


This batch was devoured about 3 seconds out of the oven, by four children who were with me, every step of the way. And it did make me wonder why I would ever deviate from this type of perfection?!

Dear Jane-

This was the funniest thing I saw all day long.

I love you.

Mom

Cookies weren't the only thing I was making.... Big news here today, from now on I'll be posting all my sewing creations on a new blog:

Made on Maple

It's my new creative space that I'm sharing with best friend Liz. It used to be that almost nightly I would send Liz an email with an attachment of either my finished project or my latest work in progress. And in return, she would show me what she was making. Those were the most delightful emails, but we decided we should just be posting those pictures to a blog. Surely there is no shortage of sewing blogs on the internet, but it feels exciting to have one of our very own. If you want to know what I'm making...come on over.

A little bit of everything.

My mother always taught me, if I didn't have anything nice to say, I shouldn't say anything at all.

I hope that explains my silence over the past week or so.

But we did just enjoy a long, four day weekend. And our Monday ended up being really fun, so that's worth remembering.

We gathered with a bunch of families from church, we drove about an hour to a city where a Hyundai car factory was located. We had our "tour guide" arrange for us to have a guided tour of the Hyundai factory. Happily, there was another deluxe sledding hill only about fifteen minutes from the factory, so we sledded first, and then went on the tour. It was a lovely sort of day.











Korea cracks us up with it's controlled sledding hills. But now, I almost forget how to sled any other way. And maybe they are right? Maybe it's best to all line up at the top of a hill, sit down on your sled in your designated "go slot", and wait until the worker blows his whistle to let you know it's safe to go. I mean, what's wrong with that? Somehow I can't really picture it in America. But maybe it's just because no one has introduced it yet. Maybe it's my next great venture in life...

After a bit of sledding, we let the kids go crazy and partake in the few little "rides" that were there.



In case you can't tell, that would be George who picked this bungee jumping type activity, as his "I'm taking a break from sledding for a minute" carnival ride. What a guy! P.S. Henry kept his feet firmly planted on the ground during his "break from sledding".

After re-applying our lip gloss...

...and having a bit of our picnic lunch...


...it was time to move our party over to the Hyundai factory. I am SO glad this stop was put on our tour schedule. Who knew that watching the entire car assembly line from the stamping shop, to the welding shop, to the car parts assembly shop, could be so much fun? Honestly it was exhilarating. To see a car at the very end of the assembly line, actually drive off the assembly line and get parked against the wall with the other finished cars, nearly had me announced that we would be stopping off to buy a new Hyundai on our way home. I'm not sure who was most excited about the car tour, the children or me?! Thanks to our own sweet Jihyun Knudsen for being our girl on-the-scene in Korea, who gets us access to such fantastic opportunities. We're going to miss her, and all the fun excursions she leads us on!

So that's about it, my friends. The rest of my January days are filled with my ladies finding me at various points in the day, to ask where the camera is. In secret hope that it will break (and then I can get a new one!), I give it to them, and they go and take pictures of whatever it is that is entertaining them right at the moment...

(Grandpa, the cat is what Ruby spent her $5 from you on. She loves it.)

When George isn't busy talking to me, or someone else in this house, and he momentarily doesn't know what he should do, I tell him to read. Then he tells me he doesn't like to read. And then five seconds later, I'll find him, READING. In case you haven't heard about it, "audible.com" might change your life. It's changing George's, and it surely has changed mine. For George he can now "read" the books that he thought were too difficult. He follows along as the book is read to him. For me, it means multi-tasking while "reading"! It's the most amazing thing. I thought books and reading were gone for me for this period of time. But now I read while sewing and that's nearly a miracle.


And to wrap it all up, I give you Beauty and the Bee. I recently ordered these little yellow shoes, and yellow striped shirt, because I LOVE this shade of yellow right now. I would dress the whole family in it, if everyone would let me dress them. As soon as the box arrived, Ruby volunteered to try everything on for me. About five seconds later she was running down the hall to her room to look for her wings. Once those were found, she was running to the craft paper and rummaging for scissors. When I asked her what she was doing, she told me she was going to be a bee. The shoes and the shirt combined together had her buzzing around our house all afternoon long, asking me 2004 times, "What do bees eat?"








It was a buzzing good time! And that's the way we're rolling this January.

How'm I doing?!

Grandpa Z. came to town!! George turned 8 and was going to get baptized. That's a big deal in our world, so George wanted it properly noted. He started Skpying Grandpa Z. some many months ago asking him if he'd come out for it. And true to his word, on January 7th, two days before the baptism, Grandpa appeared at our doorstep (if only it had been that easy)!




Just in time for Grandpa's arrival, the temperatures dropped down to like 7 degrees. But something had to be done, Grandpa was here! So on Friday after only a half day of school, the kids were rescued from their classrooms and we braved the elements and found ourselves at our favorite sledding hill.





Then Saturday rolled around with it's three basketball games, and the baptism! We were running to and fro literally all day long.







George played a piano piece that he had been practicing all week long. My dad and I both gave talks, and there were more people there than I ever would have guessed would show up at 4pm on a FREEZING Saturday afternoon. I was moved several times throughout the whole experience.

One, with the fact that my dad was there.

Two, with the fact that so many came to show their love and support of our family.

Three, with how wonderful of an experience it has been for our family to live way over here in Korea for these past couple of years.

Four, with how mature and grown up George was taking in the whole event.

And Five, that it was perfect. I wouldn't have changed anything (oh yeah, except for how crowded the tiny room was that we were using. We could have moved to a bigger room had we known that so many would show up!). It was so lovely, so wonderful, the Spirit was so strong and I was so proud of George.

And that sums it up for the most part. We came home from the baptism, dumped our stuff off and headed out the door AGAIN to see "The Princess and the Frog". Then Sunday came and went in a blink. And finally Monday where Grandpa sprung the kids from school once again to go bowling! Who ever heard of such shenanigans all taking place during school hours?!

On Monday night as everyone was going to bed, each kid expressed how quickly the past five days went by with grandpa in town, and how sad they were they he had to leave. Ruby asked him more than once if he would miss his plane. I guess they are all feeling the affects of living so very far away!

But, my friends, we are rapidly approaching our time when our Korean experience will be mentioned in the past tense. It's remarkable. And just when I thought January and February might drag by, January is nearly half over, and February is showing no signs of taking it's time.

I had three goals for this day of "life getting back to normal". One was to run! I have no more excuses! I must be consistent from here on out if I'm going to be ready to hit a marathon anytime this late spring or early summer.

Secondly, I had to get these shoes listed on Ebay.



Darin bought them a few months ago, and they didn't fit! They've been sitting around for quite a while now. Do you need a pair of brand new, brown leather Danskos? If so, go check out our auction...I'm even offering FREE SHIPPING! I feel our 1900 square foot apartment shrinking by the day. It's time to clear things out!


And finally, it was to get the blog updated again. So much happens so fast, I am surely going to be forgetting the details!


So that's not too bad for my first day back into a "normal" routine. I hope the rest of the week can be equally productive! I've got big, big ideas (but what's new?!)




P.S. Are you admiring the table runner that the Danskos are sitting on?! I sure have been. As soon as the Christmas sewing season ended, I was able to get to a few of my own projects that have been sitting around far too long. The table runner was one:



My "Krazy About Korea" quilt was another:

front.

back.

And the "RubyJane Dress" that has been floating around in my mind forever, was the third:

Original design, by ME. Sewn and created by, ME. Nothing so amazing as seeing my originally designed and created dress being worn by:

Jane.

Too bad her eyes closed. Some moments you never get back! Now onto the RubyJane Dress #2! It could be huge...maybe less poofy sleeves....maybe a pocket...maybe a different length...or a ruffle. I'm loosing sleep over it. Probably should just bring it to life!

over-and-out.

Wrapping Up 2009

The day after Christmas to carry on the tradition started last year, we set out for our favorite Bulgo gi House, Sam Il's. Imagine our confusion when we arrived and were met with the following sign:

Dear Sam Il's-

Will I ever dine in your fine restaurant again? It remains unclear to me.

Yours truly,
Annee

We ended up at another Bulgo gi house. But It wasn't the same. A day or so later, we decided it was time for Darin to stick his feet in the fishy water. Nothing says "Happy New Year" like having fish eat your feet:

I remain now the photographer for this activity. That's my preferred way of participating, thank you very much.

Did I mention that Ruby and Jane got an Easy Bake Over for Christmas? If you saw that one coming, I'm not surprised. It seemed inevitable that one of those would find it's way to our house.

Let me just say, you haven't really known a good time until you've Easy Baked with these little Ladies. And let me also add that there is really nothing "easy" about it. NOTHING. I think we've sampled everything now, at least once. I feel round two coming on very soon.

New Years Eve found us playing games with some friends until late at night, and eating breakfast around 10pm. But midnight was not going to happen for us, so we loaded the kids up and came back home. After getting the girls tucked away in bed, and dreaming of a quiet night of reminiscing with the Major, the boys somehow talked their parents into getting to stay up until midnight. And though I wasn't 100% in the mood for it, I caved in upon remembering my own first time staying up until midnight on New Year Eve, and remembering how for a kid it actually feels like, something. So at midnight I shoved them out on the balcony with loud tools, and made them make a lot of noise.

It may have been 12:03 am when they were in bed. But at least I cannot be called a Kill Joy!

The next afternoon, after we went to see Alvin and the Chipmunks the Squeakquel (to which the Major declared that he had just wasted precisely 1.5 hours of his life, and wanted a refund), we were back home in time to celebrate the New Year on the West Coast of the US with our traditional cheese fondue.



And after about an hour of resting and making room for dessert, we gathered AGAIN for the second course of our two course meal, the CHOCOLATE!

I think it was during the second course that the Major and I began our discussions as to how we can get thinner in 2010. I think the first idea on our list was the elimination of all things dipped in chocolate. It's a 'one time a year event' to be sure!!

And just when I was patting myself on the back for a Christmas Vacation well spent, while getting the boys backpacks out of the front closet, and checking the lunch menu on Sunday night, I was awoken VERY early Monday morning with the news that Osan was blanketed in newly fallen snow, and school seemed unlikely. I wasn't sure I had the strength to endure it, but the children sure felt the hand of Providence in their lives. School was canceled instantly for the next TWO DAYS!!






And to be honest, here I sit at 2 in the afternoon still in my pajamas, perhaps I wasn't actually ready for real life to resume either. Perhaps two more days of Christmas Vacation hasn't been the worst thing ever to happen to me? Sometimes your own resilience will surprise you when put to the test. Sometimes.

So that's the wrap up. Maybe I'll go get dressed now??

Just what we always wanted...

The kids managed to wait until 7am to drag their parents out of bed. In fact, I believe the ladies had to be dragged out of bed as well!

Looking sleepy and adorable on Christmas morning 2009

Henry found tons of mint gum in his stocking! Sometimes it's the little things that get us the most excited :)

George giving us a fabulous Christmas morning smile. It wouldn't be a fabulous Christmas without George's enthusiasm!

Jane was excited to get Tiana from Santa. She came with outfits to change into and was exactly what she had dreamed of getting. Score for Santa!


Ruby having to blow a kiss of joy for the glittering princess horse that she had dreamed of getting on Christmas morning.


Henry showing an unusually jolly Christmas smile for having gotten the two books he most wanted!



Lately, I have been the reigning Scrabble champ in this house. It appears that perhaps Santa is questioning the integrity of some of my word choices. Needless to say, this is a gift I could get excited about!

Here's Darin, usually behind the camera on Christmas morning. I captured this shot of him assessing the Santa damage, and probably strategizing how best to get the placed cleaned and organized before breakfast.


I told Darin this year he was not allowed to give me any Christmas gifts. He has already given me everything I have ever wanted. And I wanted to see what it felt like to have a year completely focused on the giving rather than the getting. It was magical.

And here you have my all time favorite picture from Christmas 2009. It was delightful.