Banpo Bridge Lights

We live right next to a ton of bridges; all unique in their own ways.  One of the bridges near us has a light show several times a day during the spring, summer, and fall.  Towards the end of spring, we rode our bikes over to check out the light show, and it was so cool! The boys were in awe the whole time.  Easton seemed interested in the lights and water, but seemed more intent on trying to get into the river. :)

I love checking off another thing in our list of things to do before we move!

Exploring with Friends

We have had the chance to make some wonderful friends since moving here.  I am grateful for these people in our lives right now as we are so far from family.

Grand Children's Park

Towards the end of the school year, Kayden, Easton, and I went out and explored Korea with some friends.  There are so many hidden treasures through out this busy city, and our friends showed us a wonderful place called Children's Grand Park smack dab in the middle of the city.  It is a huge Central Park like place with so many different things to do and see.  Kayden and Easton loved the mini zoo they had there.

Sokcho, South Korea

A week after Easton's birthday we took a last minute trip to the East coast of Korea to a place called Sokcho.  We were in need of a recharge, so we escaped the city for the weekend to hit up the beach.  

At a Korean pit stop

Unfortunately, our luck of going to the beach when it is cold followed us because it didn't get above 70 degrees the whole time we were there.  Not exactly beach weather.

View from our hotel

 The cooler weather couldn't keep the boys from going to the ocean though.

Easton hated the sand at first and did not want anything to do with it.

For some reason I love taking pictures of my feet in the sand whenever we go to the ocean, so here is my obligatory "feet in sand" shot. 

Slowly warming up to the sand.

The older boys got right to work digging in the sand.

We stayed in whats called a pension just right by the beach.  It was a beautiful place, but not really meant for small children I think.  We all shared one room, so when one person woke up, we were all awake.  Easton was the first one to wake up at 5:00 am, so by default we were all awake then! It was not the best way to start the day, and everyone was pretty grumpy that day.

We went out to explore since we needed to find away to get the crankiness out. We found a fun little pier and walked around exploring. 

We had a lot of people stop us to take pictures since we were in an area that didn't see a lot of little blonde boys.  In the picture below, we stopped to eat some ice cream, and we attracted quite the crowd. Kayden hated it and hid hid face in my stomach and cried.  Easton seemed completely obvious to it all.

I took the boys back to the ocean that afternoon while Easton napped, and they had a fun time playing in the sand and water, even though it was freezing!

The boys collected sea stars over the weekend, which they thought was so cool.  They brought a bunch home in a plastic bag that they forgot about in the car once we got home.  When I found them they smelled so bad! Needless to say, we no longer have those sea stars. 

It might sound silly, but the highlight of the trip was a visit to a local McDonalds.

The boys got these fun glasses.

Our order got lost in translation, and they ended up giving us a ton of food. We had a good laugh about that. Here Greg is holding 3 big macs. :)

When we got done eating, we walked out and saw this lantern festival.  It was so cool to see! It was a great way to end the day. 

I felt like our trip to the ocean was nice in the sense that it got us out of Seoul and to explore Korea, but it was also a very stressful trip.  I have decided that traveling with kids is not always that fun. :) I just hope as we try to make these trips as a family that our kids will remember the fun that we had.  One can hope right??

Easton turns 1!

On May 3rd, our sweet little Easton turned 1. Talk about time flying by! That year went by so fast! Easton has been such a wonderful addition to our family, as each of our children are. He was such an "easy" baby. Meaning that he was able to fall asleep on his own, and to be relatively content while I was baby getting ready to move, moving, and then settling into our new place here.  What a blessing it was to have him be so mellow.  (Since turning 1 he has become quite the tornado.)

Easton was sick right before his birthday, as was most of our family, so it was a pretty low key day.  I also kept telling myself he wouldn't remember his first birthday, so I didn't want to stress myself over it, especially since we had all been sick and our life was in chaos then.

The older boys were excited to help him open his presents.  

We got him a bubble machine for this birthday, and he wasn't quite sure what to make of it at first.  The bubbles were both fascinating and terrifying. 

I got him an ice cream cake, and he HATED it at first.  

He quickly warmed up to the idea of it :)

He also learned to walk the week of his birthday, so it was a big week for him!

He got an Elmo toy he took to bed with him that night.  The toy talked and vibrated and he thought it was so funny. 

 Oh how we love our Easton!

Getting use to city living

One of the biggest adjustments I felt when we first moved into our apartment was trying to figure out how to sort all of our trash, recycling, food, etc.  Who would have thought it could be so difficult and that it could cause me so much anxiety, but it did.  We have to sort all of our trash into the following compartments; food, paper, aluminum, plastic, Styrofoam, vinyl (plastic bags), glass, and then general garbage which then has to be put into a specific type of bag or else you get fined. It makes me tired just writing that out! The first few weeks it was such a pain to do all of that, and it would all just pile up in our apartment, and then it would become such a chore to take out.  Thankfully we have since figured a cart system with wheels that we wheel in and out of the elevator once a week (sometimes longer if I have been lazy and missed pick up day). 

The picture below is from letting the trash and recycling build up too long and we had to use the double jogger just to get it downstairs in the elevator. I think I was wearing Easton in a front pack in this picture with additional bags in each arm.  We got, and continue to get, a lot of strange looks when we take out the trash.  I have just come to terms with the fact that we will always get strange looks while living here. :)