Kindergarten, here he comes!

Today was Kindergarten orientation. Andrew has a spot! Hooray! Today we met his teacher, Mrs. Alcott and got to see his classroom. He'll be riding the bus this year and even has a bus pass with his photo on it!

School is from 8am-2:30pm. Once a week he'll have Art, Music, Korean culture, Spanish and PE. He'll have lunch in the cafeteria . . . a whole new world for our little guy! The first day is September 4, so tune in next week for the 411.

Happy Birthday, Ainsley!

Today was Ainsley's 35th birthday! We celebrated the big 3-5 with a trip to the water park and birthday cake :)

Flower Mart

Today Angela and a couple of her new friends (Jenna and Maya) went to the Korean flower mart near Seoul. HUNDREDS of beautiful, fresh flowers for dirt cheap. Most bunches of flowers were anywhere from $2-4. Plus, tons of craft supplies: baskets, ribbons, vases, tissue paper. . . Angela only spent 40 bucks and came back with these two new vases, all of the flowers, and a couple hundred sheets of Korean tissue paper.

The trip took about 30 minutes to get there but 1.5 hours to get home! Traffic on the freeway is at it's worst after 10am. The strangest thing seen today: a man standing in the middle of the congested lanes of traffic, selling rice cakes. It was crazy. Oh, and in the midst of the traffic, a Korean couple did a Chinese fire drill (or would that be a Korean fire drill?).

My flower arranging can use some help, I know, but still looks pretty on our new Korean table!

Water Park

This weekend we went to the water park at a nearby base. It was awesome. It was only 6 bucks for all of us to go and the boys LOVED it. We will be going again!

The boys spent lots of time on this structure

that had lots of fountains, hoses and nozzles,

perfect for our Future Firefighters of America.

Andrew and Josh even loved going up on these big waterslides by themselves. Mommy or Daddy would slide down first, then Josh, then Andrew. No life vests for these guys!

Wild Kingdom

Here is a video where Madeline discovers balloons for the first time. This is after a birthday party, so listen closely, the boys are on a sugar high and it's hard to hear anything over their screeching!

Madeline -- 5 months old

Madeline's new tricks this month: sucking on her toes and eating baby oatmeal. The other day I was driving in the car and the boys start saying, "Eww, gross!" I hear a sucking noise from Maddie and ask Drew what's going on: Madeline is sucking on her toes!

EMart and Lotte World

EMart and Lotte World are two big stores here, a cross between a department store and a Target. They are both 4 or 5 stories high, super modern, very clean and really fun to shop in!

When you drive up to each store, there is a parking attendant that greets you with some crazy hand gestures to direct you to the nearest parking spot in the high rise parking garage.

Inside, instead of elevators and escalators, there is a moving ramp and it's perfect for carts and strollers!

On the ground floor is a supermarket. There are some American brands there, but twice as expensive. A bottle of Johnson and Johnson lotion was 9 dollars!

There are kids play areas here, too. For three bucks a kid, they can play as long as they want:

With some lovely Korean techno and rap music playing over the loudspeakers to "set the mood," there is a wide variety of clothes and toys, although I've been told if you are bigger than a size 6 you won't be buying clothes here! Still, the women's clothes are pretty cute and trendy, the men's clothing, not so much!

The strangest thing we saw today was a kid riding through the store on his tricycle, complete with helmet!

Well, maybe not, here is a display of feminine hygiene products:

When you check out, you either bring your own grocery bag or you can buy theirs. Today we saw families taking their carts over to a little counter where they have free broken down boxes. You simply take one, tape it back up and put your food in it before you leave.

We are a bit of a spectacle when we go out. Today, a giggly gaggle of Korean girls followed us the ENTIRE time we were there, they were really entertained by Andrew and Joshua. And, of course, the older generation LOVES Madeline, one woman opened the stroller for a peek and grabbed the sleeping Madeline's cheek for a big pinch!

License to Drive

We got our official drivers' licenses this week. Angela missed one on the test and Ainsley aced it, of course. Immediately following her test, Angela proceeded to run a stop sign. Minor details...

The rules of the road here are merely "suggestions." The only hard and fast rule that seems to be followed religiously by anyone is that left turns are only allowed on a green arrow. If it is a green light, you can't turn. Red lights, again, suggestions. I don't even think we see red lights anymore, we just keep on going. The larger vehicle always has the right away so it is very common to see large trucks and buses blowing through a red light.

Pedestrians always have the right of way so we try not to hit them. Also, don't drive with your doors unlocked unless you want to give a nice stranger a ride. It is not uncommon for Koreans to jump in the nearest car and take a ride with you. In general, the driving is fairly aggressive. Koreans figure if they don't know who you are, they don't need to show you any respect so they will cut you off and not think twice about it. Needless to say, we are developing some poor driving habits and will be pretty bad drivers when we get back.