Andy's bath song

Sing hey! for the bath at close of day.

Kate Swims!

Kate had a couple of swim sessions at the YMCA a couple of years ago, which I didn't feel were particularly productive.  This summer we decided to sign her up for Real Live Every Day Swimming Lessons.  In these past four weeks she's suddenly transformed into a little fish.

The day that she learned how to open her eyes under water, she came running out of the pool yelling, "I LOVE SWIMMING LESSONS!"  She was just so excited and so proud of herself.  We dug out the goggles (which, as I recall, were originally purchased with the hope of alleviating some of the hair-washing drama at bath time) and now she likes to stay under even longer, because it's so cool. 



We got some video for her last day.  Lessons are at Kandle Pool, which has a wave generator.  They don't normally have the waves on during swimming lessons, but they turn them on for a bit on the last day of the session.  (Exciting!)



Kate heads into the pool.



She's getting pretty good at this!



Kate's teacher counts a ten-second front float.




Molly Beecher was in the session right after ours, and we got to see her every day as she was coming in and we were going out. Molly has a couple different swimsuits, and one matches Kate's (so of course I had to get a picture).




The zero-depth entry pool is fun because the kids can practice in the really shallow water.  I wish they'd had something like that when I was growing up!



Kate doing her "Underwater Flying Dragon" impression.



Quite a long way from the girl who didn't want to get in the water when she was little!  It's been great for her to have this experience of learning something new and practicing and getting to be good at it, and enjoying it! 

Crabs at Kopachuck

We don't have a big trip happening this summer. I've had the feeling that the whole summer could get away from us if we don't make the effort to seize the day. Doug and I both tend to be kind of homebodies, and not really good planners, so it can be an effort to get the family out of the house and doing things. Doug picked up a Discovery Pass for us a while ago (good for all state parks!) but today was the first time we used it.

We took the kids out to Kopachuck State Park in Gig Harbor. I'd heard about it but hadn't ever been there before. It's a very cool beach--the water is sheltered and shallow, and there are lots of creatures. (It was a nice day for it, too. Not too sunny. Is that weird? I actually do better if it's not super sunny.)



Doug points out the little crabs in the water. Kate thought the crabs were great fun. (That weird thing sticking out from behind Kate is a large plastic dinosaur that she's holding. Just in case you're wondering why she's sprouting chicken feet.)



My camera battery died right after this (whoops!) but we did get some video. You can see a pretty good view of the crabs in the water, and at the end you can see Andy making letters with his fingers.



Lots of fun!  We'll have to go back again.

"I'd never eat your brain!"

My friend Julie posted a link to The Zombie Song by Stephanie Mabey (featuring cute drawings by Stephanie's fifteen-year-old niece). Andy was particularly enthralled and watched it over and over, and then started singing along.



Here's Andy singing, "If I were a zombie, I'd never eat your brain."

(Good to know.)

Boating and Bribery

When Doug volunteered as our ward coordinator for Parks Appreciation Day, he got a "Metro Parks Volunteer Familiarization Pass," which includes one-time passes to various Tacoma Metro Parks sites for free or at a discount. One of these was half-off a boat rental at the Marina ($30 instead of $60). We hadn't used that one yet, and Saturday was nice and sunny, so we decided to go do it.

The problem was that Kate, for some reason, decided that she did NOT want to go for a boat ride. When I told her what we were going to do (trying to get her ready to go) she ran into her room and hid in her bed, hollering, "NOOOOOO! I don't want to go! I'm not going to do that! Not ever!" All the regular cajoling ("Come on! It'll be fun! You'll have a good time!") did no good. She couldn't give us anything like a coherent reason, either--she'd just got it in her head that she didn't want to go, and she wasn't changing her mind. And lines like "Sometimes it's good for you to do things you don't want to do" really don't work on a six-year-old. (I know, shocking, right?) Doug said, "She's just going to keep this up--are you sure you want to do this?" I considered, and decided, yes, I do want to do this. She's going to come along and she's going to have a good time, and then we'll be able to use it as an example the next time she thinks she doesn't want to do something.

Well, in the end we bribed her with McDonald's (ice cream and playland). Perhaps this was not the most effective lesson, but she did come, and she did have a good time. She was pretending the boat was a baby sea dragon named Yoshi.

It was about 59 degrees, and windy on the water, so we had the kids bundled up. Andy really didn't like having the life jacket around his neck and just sat stiffly in my arms until he fell asleep. (I think he had a good time but it was hard to tell.) It was kind of funny because I had just commented to Doug that it was nice not to have to schedule things around Andy's nap, and then he fell asleep anyway. (Just this week we decided to discontinue his daily nap, after he stayed up until midnight two days in a row. Bedtime is going much better now.)

We went out by the Vashon Island ferry landing, and saw lots of cormorants, and another bird that looked an awful lot like some kind of puffin. I'm not sure what those were. (Anybody know?)

I decided not to take my camera (it would have been rather awkward, anyway, with the way I ended up holding Andy) but we did get the video. It was a nice little ride. I'm glad we got to go out and enjoy the sunshine!

Kate sings for Daddy

A song for Father's Day!

Kate's Concert

The Kindergarten, First Grade, and Second Grade concert was tonight.  I got really close with the video camera for this song, and it just brought out Kate's inner ham. 



What do you do when your child starts extemporizing her own motions?  Do you look stern and shake your head, hoping that she'll shape up and just sing it straight like everyone else?  Well no, you just try to hold the camera as still as you can while laughing, and capture the moment for posterity.

(When she holds up her crooked finger for "I think to myself," she says that's a question mark.  It's so funny to see what she comes up with.) 

Popcorn Popping

This cracks me up. (Even cuter is watching Andy watch the video.)

Bowl o' Fun

Starring Andy!

Saturday Night Fiddler

A beautiful spring evening hanging out with the neighbors:



Doug fiddles, Andy endures getting passed around, Glory listens, Sky dances (and gets her pronouns mixed up), Kate appears right at the end to mug for the camera.

Korea videos--church and temple

When we were in Cheonan we attended the local branch. I got permission to film part of a hymn (unobtrusively from the back) one Sunday, and then we got some of the general mayhem after the meeting.



Sister Cho Kyung Sun (조경순) also served in Taejon mission, and was in my greenie house in Gwangju. Her husband was the branch president in Cheonan. I remember going to church there that first Sunday and seeing her. "Hey, I know you!" That was cool.

The Tices were another American couple that was there teaching. We discovered that Sister Tice's sister was friends with Doug's brother Al's ex-wife. Kind of an odd connection. And after we got back home I realized that I had a book by Brother Tice, that one of my Young Women's leaders gave me when I was fifteen. We just recently got back in touch with them, and found out they're in our area now! It's like we keep following each other around.



The temple in Seoul. I love the way you walk up the street and turn the corner and Bam! There it is. They do have a sign, in English and Korean, out on the main street, so hopefully that helps people find it!

We ran into Sister Jung Su Jin (정수진) outside the temple. She'd been a stake missionary in Gwangju. There was one sister missionary who was serving in the little visitor's center by the church (which I hear is not there anymore), and Sister Jung filled in as her companion for a while. At the time I couldn't really say much in Korean, so it was fun to run into her again and actually be able to carry on a conversation. She was serving a mission in Seoul.

After I got these videos put together I thought I really should get ahold of someone in Cheonan, so I got the number for the missionaries serving there now, called them and got Sister Cho's number, and called and talked to her. She has four kids now. When we were there she had two little girls. Now she has two boys as well.

I asked about Sister Yoon Jung Hee. (윤정희--she's not in the video.) She was always really sweet. I remember we had her and her husband over for dinner once, and then she fed us the night before we left Korea. Sister Cho said they were not in Cheonan anymore but had moved to Jinju. So I called the Busan mission office and got the number for the missionaries in Jinju. I talked to Elder McCain (who was serving there with his companion, Elder Elder. We had an Elder Elder in my mission too. Apparently not related). I asked him if he knew Yoon Jung Hee, and he said, "Yes, we just had dinner at her house last night!"

So I got Sister Yoon's number and gave her a call. It took her a minute to figure out who I was, which was kind of comical (well, it has been a long time!). We exchanged email addresses. I knew that her husband had family in the U.S. and occasionally came over to visit, but I was surprised to learn that his mom lives in Tacoma. Holy cow. He said he was just here a couple of months ago, and should be coming again this summer. I said, "Bring your wife this time!" It would be great to see them again.

You know that six-degrees-of-separation thing? In LDS circles it's waaaay closer.

An Influx of Isopods (or, Kate and her 37 little friends)

(Warning: this post contains creepy-crawlies. If you do not like creepy-crawlies, feel free to not read this post.)

Roly-polies. Pillbugs. Sowbugs. Woodlice. Small terrestrial crustaceans. In Newfoundland they call them carpenters.

We have them.



(Illustration by Kate. See the rolled-up one?)

Last week I took Kate and Andy out for a walk around the bike path. Kate picked up a roly-poly that she found crawling across the road. She brought it home and named it Turtle.

Poor Turtle did not make it through the night. (Let us pause for a moment of silence....) So I went looking online and found some information, and this cute video, about how to keep pillbugs. It looked like it would be pretty interesting, and not difficult.

A couple of days after that we went out around the bike path again, and asked our neighbors Glory and Sky (담이와 하누리) to go with us. They packed along some Choco Pies and 귤 (little oranges) and we had a little picnic. We had some fun turning over rocks and looking at worms and things, and then we found some rotting wood that was full of pillbugs. Pillbug heaven. We put some of the wood in a plastic bag that I had brought along to put our garbage in, and brought it home.



We put the pillbugs and their wood in a little tub we've had sitting on our back porch. It used to have a flower in it, and now has a lot of dirt, dead leaves, a bit of moss, and something else coming up volunteer. A good home for pillbugs! Doug went out and picked up a spray bottle so we can keep things damp. (But not too damp.)



Kate drew some pictures to tape around the tub so the pillbugs would have something to look at. She's been having fun watching them and picking them up and naming them things like Daisy and Pug Bill. (It eventually dawned on me that Pug Bill is an anagram of pillbug.) Most of the ones we found are the non-rolling variety, but we do have a few rollers, too. We've been giving them little bits of fruit and corn. So far they seem to be doing okay!



Kate expounds upon pillbugs. (I have no idea if there are really 37--I have not counted them.)

I learned how to say pillbug in Korean. They're called 쥐며느리 (chui myeo neu ri), which means "mouse's daughter-in-law."

I tried getting some pictures with my macro lens. This is not easy. They keep moving.



It's interesting to see how their armor plates fit together, and the shape and texture. They are pretty cool little critters.

Korea videos--at the hagwon

More videos! This is the hagwon in Cheonan where we worked.



Doug shows off a classroom with his "Trashman and Ratboy" wall, and some more of his creations in the teachers' room. Appearing at the end are a few of the kids that we worked with. It's kind of alarming to think that they're practically all grown up now!



Min Young shows off her mad gonggi skills. I love the bit at 1:49 where she does the quick hand sweep and picks up the two pieces that are farther apart. She was so good at that.



I have Min Young's original gonggi (not the ones she's using in the video). I bought several sets to bring home, and she liked the ones that I got, so she wanted to trade. Which I was happy to do because I thought hers were very cool. I remember sitting on the floor in the Seoul airport and playing gonggi with Doug while we waited for our flight home.

Next: Doug's class says hi!



Choi Ji Young pouts because she wants to look through the video camera. I think Doug let her, after this. (Note: the Korean last name 최 is generally romanized as Choi, which looks like it should be pronounced "Choy," but it isn't. It's kind of like a cross between "Chay" and "Chweh.")



The book spinners. Yong Il and Yong Ee are twins. Their names mean "Dragon One" and "Dragon Two."

Cities in Korea are divided up into sections called dongs. (That's with a long O, like "dome" with an ng sound.) The dong we lived in was called Ssang Yong Dong (쌍용동), which means Twin Dragons. The hagwon was in another dong, close by. One day it occurred to me to ask Yong Il and Yong Ee if they lived in Ssang Yong Dong, and they said they did. I thought this was hilarious. They didn't seem to see anything remarkable about it.

Aram is the boy whose cards Doug was reading through the camera. He was a funny kid. (I recall he appreciated Doug's sense of humor.) I wonder where he is now.

Doug just started a new quarter at school. He has two morning classes back-to-back, in different classrooms. A few days ago he stayed behind a little longer than usual in the first classroom, to talk to a student. A couple of students came in for the next class. One of them starting writing something in Korean on the chalkboard, and Doug read it (much to their surprise!). Turns out she's from Cheonan. In fact, she's from Bek Seok Dong, which is where Doug is pointing the camera in the first video when he mentions the apartments up on the mountain. Small world.

Korea video--Galbi with Mr. Ha

Here's the first of the Korea videos. I've decided I'm going to post Korean stuff on Tuesdays (for 한국 화요일).

While Doug and I were teaching English in Cheonan (in '96-'97, right after we got married) Doug took a kumdo class. Kumdo is what's called kendo in Japan--the fencing with bundled-bamboo practice swords. I went along at first to help translate (and came down with a case of kumdo elbow after doing the quick head strike 500 times). After we started actually hitting each other I stopped going.

In the class was Mr. Ha, a forty-ish restaurant owner with two kids. His full name is 하종률, which I think he romanizes as Ha Jong Yul. (Or something like that. Though the last syllable is really more like "nyool.") He spoke absolutely no English at all, but he and Doug managed to communicate well enough in their classes, and he would give Doug a ride home afterward.

Mr. Ha fed us at his restaurant a few times. On New Year's Day we went over to the restaurant and ate, and then went with him and his family over to his brother's house and ate more. We spent the evening eating, playing yut nori, eating, singing (we still have the song book they gave us), and eating. We had a wonderful time and went home completely stuffed at 1:00 in the morning.

In the weeks before we left Korea, we were able to go back to Mr. Ha's restaurant with a borrowed video camera, and record the experience for posterity.



(If you watch it at youtube the picture is bigger.) You only see Mr. Ha for a couple of seconds. I wish we had gotten more of him. It was also pretty noisy, so you may not be able to catch everything. (I could add subtitles... should I do that?)

Mr. Ha was unusual among our acquaintances, being not someone we knew from church or someone who wanted to practice English, but just a regular, nice guy. We kept in touch after we went to Newfoundland, exchanging letters a few times. In one letter he mentioned that he had sold the meat restaurant and started another place. The whole economy at the time was not doing very well, and it sounded like they might be having some trouble.

I sent Mr. Ha one of the cards that I made for the lunar new year, and it came back. I had no idea how I might find him, since he's not LDS and I couldn't use the same channels that I used to track some other friends down. Then Sister O'Bryan, whose blog I've been following, got transferred to Cheonan. I thought, "Hmmm, maybe she'd be able to find him somehow." So I sent her an email, giving her the information that I had. And then I thought, "Hmmm, I should try googling again." (I had tried this before, inconclusively.) So I googled 하종률 천안 and up popped this site. It's a restaurant in Cheonan. With owner Ha Jong Yul. And a phone number. I thought, "How many restaurateurs named Ha Jong Yul in Cheonan could there be?" (And I totally had to look up how to spell "restaurateur.")

It was way too early to try calling. I had to wait till evening, when it was about 9:00 am in Korea. Then I called the number on the site, and it was Mr. Ha! He was so surprised. Just completely gobsmacked. It was so awesome. I got his email, and we exchanged further news. He sent some recent family pictures. His kids are 20 and 22 now. The new restaurant is actually a fugu place. (Ooh, fancy!) He said he's also studying hotel management. Maybe he'll start a hotel and then we can go visit. Wheeee!

Point Defiance Playground (video)

From Saturday!



Andy loves watching the video of himself swinging. He points and babbles and just shrieks.

Christmas Eve 김

Andy's first taste of kim. (Actually his second taste--we gave him one piece and he chomped it down, so Doug got the video camera.)



After this he wanted some more!

Guess what we got?

A Flip video camera! (We decided to unwrap it and charge it, you know, in case we want to take any videos for Christmas.)



Kate's been making a neighborhood with boxes, Andy's been pulling movies off the shelf. Just a typical day at home.

Thanks (my) Mom and Dad! Looks like Flip is a hit!

Silent Pipe, Holy Pipe

(The title was Doug's idea.)

This last Friday was our ward Christmas party, where we played the pipe chimes. Doug got a video with his PDA--not great, but you can hear it.



I'm the one doing the pointing. It's hard to tell, I know!



Better pictures! (I think they're having a good time, they're just concentrating.)



That's Don Tracy's twenty-year-old Christmas sweater. Isn't it fabulous?



You can see Doug in the background, trying to film and hold a wiggly baby at the same time.

Originally I had planned something quite a bit more complicated with the bass part, but I didn't test it out with a piano player ahead of time, and we discovered that it just didn't sound right. So we improvised something simple using only three of the six low notes that we'd made. This was probably just as well, as we didn't really have enough people for three more big pipes. Most of our players were doubled up, and Tim and Don each had three.

Big thanks to everybody who helped out with this! (On both sides of the pond.)

We are finally getting some snow today. It's been cold and dry for about a week now. Andy and Kate are both fascinated by the falling flakes.