You Know It's a Holiday in Korea...

When the grocery store is full of extremely over priced gift boxes of Spam, oil, fish, fruit, body wash, etc (you name it, they have it in a gift set). I think I saw a box of 6-8 Asian pears for about $80.

And when traditional honbok's are out for sale. (Yes, I might just have to buy one for E and use it as an art piece to hang on the wall in her room...they are beautiful!)

Chuseok is Korea's holiday similar to our Thanksgiving and is held September 11-13 this year. We are going to Jeju (Korea's Hawaii-like Island) the week before and then will be trapped inside our house for the holiday as everyone says not to travel and don't plan to eat out because everything closes and everyone is traveling to see family. We look forward to our first big Korean holiday in a couple weeks!

Future Star

So, you know that Justin Beiber movie that came about about his life and how he started in music so early? Well watch out world because you are getting the first videos of this little girl's career (don't forget the video of her busting out 'happy birthday to you' in a previous post)!

Watching her play this piano is hilarious because she has some serious rhythm in her shoulders! Now if we can keep this motivation for playing the piano she'll be much better off than me.

And here is just a little bonus video.

Party for Monsters

For E's birthday party we just decided to an extra special playgroup at our house. The party planner in me had to do a little something! Here is a glance at the theme...

We made a monster bean bag toss and monster eye cupcakes.

There was lots of chaos and fun with about 20 moms and kids.

We are so grateful to have such great friends here in Korea. They sure did make E feel special.

When E saw her monster cupcakes she was more excited about eating the jelly bean eyes than anything else so blowing out the candle was of minimal interest...at least we were able to pull it off since we didn't do it on her actual birthday! Her favorite part of the birthday experience was opening presents. She is still asking for more presents to open...I guess we'll have to re-wrap some and let her go at them again. Thanks to all those who have sent their love her way!

Two

We celebrated yet another year of us (as parents) managing to take care of this little cutie.

We started a tradition to give our kids a couple books to read the night before their birthday. We plan to have them based on their 'birthday theme' that year but we'll see how that goes. This year E was having a monster party so she got a couple monster books (which she hasn't been able to put down).

The 15th (E's birthday) happens to be the Korean Independance Day so daddy had the day off work. We decided to go to Tongyeong for the day. Tongyeong is the closest city on the west side mainland (it is a much shorter bridge than to Busan) and takes about 45minutes to get there without traffic. We joined the crowds at the Hallyeo Cable Cars. I think half the population of Korea was there. I'm pretty sure B told me it was a really stupid idea as we were walking up to the ticket booth. Somehow we lucked out and were able to walk right up to catch our ride up the mountain. (We are pretty sure the ticket lady gave us the foreign treatment and gave us immediate tickets when everyone else was given a time frame in which they could ride...but we weren't complaining!). The cable cars take you up the mountain where a trail was constructed to get you to the summit. Many people would then hike down but we didn't come prepared for that.

Side note: Korean's carry their kids on their back for years. We took up this custom and love it! This carrier is way more convenient around town than our huge hiking backpack.

After the ride we went to E-Mart. This is only noteworthy for us because we love finding new stores that carry a wide variety of items. Besides Costco this is the most familiar store we've been too...and with a huge selection (more like Wal-Mart). Nice to know it is fairly close!

E was then spoiled with presents. I had to go through the house and pack up or get rid of lots of old things to make room for the new. Our next children are totally getting re-wrapped gifts! E knew exactly what to do with the wrapping paper and took her job very seriously.

One of E's favorite gift was her piano from her dad. The video below is hilarious! She totally busted out singing "Happy Birthday" out of no where as we had only sung it a few time before. Love this little girl. Happy Birthday!