Bloomin' Fun

Spring is slowly arriving to the Korean peninsula. So slow that we still have temperature dips below freezing, but nice enough that there are signs of Spring all over. The girls and I have been snapping pictures of flowers and sprouts while enjoying the warmer weather. Granted warmer means high 50s, low 60s, but that's much better than the 20s we were having.



Korea has an abundance of flowering trees. Pleasing to the eye, not so pleasing to my sinuses. Currently we have apricot blossoms, azaleas, cherry blossoms, forsythia, and magnolias in bloom. I'll add more pics as I take them this week. It's Spring Break and we're bound and determined to not be at the house much.



Hope you enjoy the sights!

Take Me Out To The Ballgame....

As our parents did for us, we have been encouraging our girls to play sports. I think there are a lot of good life lessons you learn when you play a team sport. Like not everyone can be the pitcher/quarterback/point guard, but every position is key to winning the game. The best lesson of all is also how to be a humble winner and a gracious loser. Life lessons, doled out freely game by game, practice by practice. Learned not just by the kids, but retaught to the parents as well.

I bring this up because we have now entered the realm of our kids playing sports. Holly is playing T-ball on the Osan Reds. YEAH!!!!!! How exciting is that?!? Ronnie says that T-ball is reminiscent of Calvinball. Everyone stands around on the field, and not really playing a base, because normally they just stand on it anyway. Each team has a complete run through their lineup. There are no outs and score isn't kept. I have to remind him that we're not really playing baseball, it's just more of a scrimmage than an actual game, but it's fun.

Holly was super excited about her first game. We bought her a glove a few years ago, and picked her up some pink "sleeves" to wear under her uniform like a "real" player does. Mostly she twirls around, talks to whomever is standing by her, picks at the astroturf, and tries to field the ball while running the bases. But it's all in good fun and she gets excited when I tell her to go get her glove.

Of course, this hasn't come with us learning a lesson or two about ourselves. In case you were wondering and didn't know this already, I'm "THAT" mom. You all know her and who her offspring is because she screams at the top of her lungs cheering and coaching from the sidelines. Yeah, that's me and there is video evidence. Ronnie's lesson that he's learning is he can't be the one to teach his kids all the time. There is a reason behind the saying of it takes a tribe, and never is that more apparant when Holly hangs on every word that her coaches say, but ignores the crap out of what he's trying to show her. Guess he got stupid quick.... and obviously doesn't know a thing about baseball (insert sassy eye roll here).

Speaking of, Ronnie is playing baseball again! Well, trying to at least. He's found a Korean baseball team that plays every Sunday. We went out to watch the team today; somehow it reminds me of when the Bad News Bears went to China to play. Or was it Japan? Whatever, the point is that they aren't really good. But it's baseball and that's a good thing. We're hoping he and our friend Matt will get to play this upcoming weekend, so more posts to come on this.

So, if MLB Opening Day didn't get your engine going for the baseball season, I'll leave you with this video. All I can say is this is what our national pasttime is all about!

What's That Dog's Name?

As we were driving home today, the girls noticed there were a lot of dogs running around the neighborhoods. There was one on Sarah's side, so she asked me what his name was. I told her I didn't know, but he looked like an Akita to me.

Seizing the learning moment, I asked them if they knew that dogs had other names called breeds. They didn't so I went in to explaining that on "101 Dalmations", Pongo was the daddy's name, but his breed was Dalmation.

This started them asking what kind of dog Grandma's Riley was; I answered that he's an Australian Shepherd. Sarah said, "Yeah, Riley is a play dog, not a work dog."

Then they wanted to know what kind of dog Grammy's Oscar was; I answered that he's a Pekingese. To that Holly answered, "Yeah, Oscar is a fancy dog."

These kids crack me up sometimes.....

She's Crafty and She's Just My Type

The great debate of whether or not I'm a crafter is still brewing.... I make things that I'm inspired to, but not all of just one thing. I think I create best with food (go figure) and am able to come up with some cute things to take to the girls school or be able to pick out a yummy recipe to try out. I've always been able to experiment with food, because it doesn't take any more time than cooking a normal meal.

Since having the girls though, I've found that I've had to come up with other ideas and things to do. Lately, I've been branching out into sewing and other crafts thanks to my set of Childcraft books. It's also out of necessity since you can't just run to Wal-Mart and get what it is you want. Plus, I need to keep the girls busy when we're cooped up in the house due to weather. So, here are a few projects we've done just in the last few weeks.

French Memo Boards - I took the girls to our local fabric warehouse, Happy Quilt. This place is awesome. Their fabrics normally run 3,000 Won/yard. They picked out the fabric they wanted and I bought some extra to do some cute dresses here in the next few weeks. These took about an hour to do all together, mostly because I did both of them at the same time and explained to Holly what I was doing every step of the way. Can't learn early enough to measure twice, cut once right? The finished product turned out way cute!

Cascarones are confetti filled eggs which are said to bring good luck to the person who's head they are broken over. We picked up having this tradition around for Easter when we were in Texas and it is just plain fun! Unfortunately, they don't have ready made cascarones in Korea. So, I took to the internet and figured out how to make them. Even though it was a multiple day project, they were pretty easy to do. Day one was tapping a hole in the egg to get the yolk out, rinsing and letting them dry. Day two was dying them and letting them dry. Day three was filling with confetti and sealing the hole closed with tissue paper. The girls helped me pick out the colors and make the confetti by hole punching some brightly colored scrap paper. It was a lot of fun!

Next up on the craft project list is making dresses for the girls with the fabric they chose for their memo boards and sewing curtains for my room.

Happy Easter!

Hope everyone has a wonderful Easter!

More Sarah-isms

Sarah is turning into quite the manipulator...

We had a Hail and Farewell today. When heading for the house, I told the girls that they were going to ride home with Daddy. Sarah said, "No, I want to go with you mommy." I told her no, they were going with Daddy.

Sarah then summoned up all the pitiful she could muster and said, "Why mommy? Don't you like me anymore?"

Knowing that she was playing me, I just looked at her and shook my head. She started cackeling and said " But, I love you mommy!"

We're in for trouble with that one if she really learns how to properly guilt and manipulate someone.....

The Earth Laughs in Flowers ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Never is that quote more appropriate than at the Yangjae Flower Market in Seoul. We had tried to go there last weekend, but really missed a lot of the action. Ronnie had to work today, so the girls and I headed to the Flower Market for the day.

It's sectioned off into different buildings: potted plants, cut flower retail zone, the auction room, cut flowers wholesale zone, and the floral materials area. The potted plant building is a big greenhouse full of any type of plant that can grow here. The most overwhelming of this area is the orchid room; imgaine stall after stall of beautiful orchids. If I were more sure of my gardening skills, we would have brought one home. They had azaleas and water lillies too. I told the girls we would do some research to see what all can grow on our porch.

The cut flower retail zone is stall after stall of florists and floral arrangements. They ranged from really small bud vases of a few stems to the large palm frond standing arrangments. The bouquets in here are full retail prices. Holly was really wanting roses, but the florist wanted 20,000 won for them. No thank you....... We went home empty handed, but armed with tons of intel for our next visit.

Our return visit was far more successful, including finding a quick in/quick out parking spot (SCORE!). Since we had checked out the greenhouses and retail zone already, the girls and I headed straight to the cut flower wholesale zone. When you walk in the door, the floral frangrence engulfs you. Not in a make you sick kind of way, in the take a big deep breath and enjoy kind of way. This place is the Pike's Place Martket of cut flowers. The stalls had 3 or 4 shelves full of roses, irises, lillies, gerber daisies, and the like.

I had given the girls 3,500 Won each to spend on any flowers they wanted. We made the rounds first to see what everyone had to offer, and I then directed them back to the stalls that carried the flowers that caught their eyes. Sarah chose a mixed bouquet and a purple pom-pom type flower bouquet. Holly chose a bouquet of medium-stemmed fushia pink roses. I chose a bouquet of deep purple irises for myself.

Now, you probably are thinking that we broke the bank... NOPE!!!! We spent a grand total of 12,000 Won , or a little less than $12. AMAZING isn't it?!? And we didn't just get 2 or 3 stems; Holly got 10 roses and I got a dozen irises. That's the best part of this place. Beautiful fresh cut flowers for cheap. Needless to say, we will be back there....

After our finds in the cut flower area, we headed out to the floral materials area to see what they had. The girls picked out a flat of brightly colored bedding plants to plant in a container on our sunroom/porch. Unfortunately, we didn't find the "perfect" container for them, and the girls were getting restless and hungry. Plus, if we spent any more time we would have been late getting home.

After a trip to E-Mart for lunch, we headed back in our wonderfully perfumed car with our beautiful flowers.

Sarah's flowers

Sarah's other flowers in her room

Holly's roses in her room

My irises with a few of Holly's roses "for color"