Beside the River

This morning we strolled with some friends down to the playground that's located beneath the highway, by the railroad tracks, beside the river, and between the gymnastic/work-out equipment spaces. It was lovely.

Here's the biking/walking/jogging path that runs along the river. If I wake up early enough in the morning, I can run on it... but so far, only managed that once. It's really a great place to run, but ... we're talking EARLY.

It seems like every playground area is also equipped with work-out equipment. These spaces always have Koreans getting their stretching and exercising done. It's one of the neat things about this culture or city (I'm not sure yet which it is. maybe both.) I've never before seen so much work-out equipment placed everywhere for public use. It's great!

No More Night

This is a recording that my family did this summer of the song "No More Night." It will be played tomorrow during the memorial service for my Uncle who went to Heaven this past week.

No_More_Night.mp3

Lyrics to No More Night :
Words & music by Walt Harrah

The timeless theme, Earth and Heaven will pass away.
It’s not a dream, God will make all things new that day.
Gone is the curse from which I stumbled and fell.
Evil is banished to eternal hell.

Chorus: No more night. No more pain.
No more tears. Never crying again.
And praises to the great "I AM."
We will live in the light of the risen Lamb.

See all around, now the nations bow down to sing.
The only sound is the praises to Christ, our King.
Slowly the names from the book are read.
I know the King, so there’s no need to dread.

Chorus: No more night. No more pain.
No more tears. Never crying again.
And praises to the great "I AM."
We will live in the light of the risen Lamb.

Bridge:
See over there, there’s a mansion, oh, that’s prepared just for me,
Where I will live with my savior eternally.

Chorus: No more night. No more pain.
No more tears. Never crying again.
And praises to the great "I AM."
We will live in the light of the risen Lamb.

All praises to the great "I AM."
We’re gonna live in the light of the risen Lamb

Pleased as Punch

Will and Annie admiring Annie's new animal curtains.

I showed Annie the fabric after I had bought it, and then she wouldn't stop begging me: "Can you please put my animal curtains up, Mamma?" So I had to explain to her that I still had to make them, and it would be awhile. But she persisted over several days and finally I just sat down and sewed them for her. She LOVES them!
A new friend for Will to play with! This boy lives a couple of floors above us and Will has really enjoyed the many occasions they've had to play together.

joys of life

Ok, you do the math: a brother+ a sister
+ lots of vehicles

+ baby dolls + a stroller
= our happy kids

*Correction: This is obviously bad math! We are well aware that toys are not what makes people truly happy, but just for fun, we wanted to share some things our kids have been enjoying lately. :)

Snacks and a view

Snack time- the kids are loving Korean yogurt-drinks, pretzels, string-cheese, and cherry-tomatoes these days. Snacks are better in Seoul and they beg me for snack-time or snacks all day long.

The kids have continued their creative playing together. Here they've built a pile of pillows. Or rather Will built the pile of pillows...
...on top of Annie.

They sure have a lot of fun together.

Tonight I went to our neighboring apartment building up to the 10th floor where some of our friends live and took this picture.

It's hard to see - sorry, but we live really close to a couple of landmarks in the city:

Seoul tower and the Hamilton Hotel in Itaewon which you can see a little better in the picture below.

That's it. Maybe someday we'll hike up to the tower, but for now... we're enjoying only hiking when we feel like it. :)

Where's the camera when you need it?!

Once a month, the stay-at-home moms group (mostly wives of teachers at YISS) goes on an outing to a park or a plaground to just get together and let the kids play while we socialize. Today was our get-together for August and I wish I had brought my camera! I've never been to such a fancy, expensive indoor kids' play area before - and my kids enjoyed it thoroughly. We would have gone to a free outdoor park, but the weather was a bit rainy, so we went to the "Children's Museum" - which is nothing like a museum. Just a big room with an area to jump around in balls and another space to play with baloons that are blowing around and another place to climb around with slides and trampoline areas and even plastic cars to drive! There was a little train that gave rides once each hour in a tiny circle to all the daring kids (Annie was NOT among them, although Will rode twice on it!), and an area that looked like a plastic pond... something... I'm out of words to explain it. Another part had a plastic kitchen area and dishes and food things for kids to play house with and Will busied himself serving up plastic containers labeled "oregano" and "dill" and passing them out to anyone who would accept him as a waiter. Annie found the short bathroom sink with an 18-month-old friend, and just soaked herself playing in the water, but had a blast. We moms spread ourselves out, some watching kids- just to be a little responsible, others of us sitting at nice tables, ignoring our kids for a couple of precious hours bought with $7.00/kid. It was very nice and I will try to bring my camera next time to show you the fancy places this city has for us to go, even if they're pricey. It's ok, it was quality time with new friends and I'll take it.

Velly Appy

[This ended up longer than I intended, but it is an update on our kids' health for those who are interested]
Last week I took the kids to the doctor for checkups since Will needs a checkup anyway due to his epilepsy, and Annie has never really had a checkup. ever.
We got to the doctor and I didn't know what to expect or to tell the kids we were going to do, so I just said the doctor would check that they were healthy. We talked with him for a few minutes and I told him about each kid's health (rather- lack thereof) and he promptly prescribed a bunch of blood tests and a couple of x-rays. He told me what each blood test/x-ray was for and how it related to each kid's health, and I felt confident that he knew what he was doing. So we trotted along behind a Korean translator who took us place to place in the hospital to get all the tests done. It took about an hour and a half before we were finally finished. Both kids had bandaids on their arms and had stood very still for x-rays, and we were told that one of Annie's bandaids had to stay on for the next THREE DAYS (!!!YEAH RIGHT!!!), and we should come in this week for results.

So we did. We managed to keep Annie band-aided most of the time, and when we got back to the doctor's office, he announced that he was "Velly Appy!" He explained all the results to me and showed me that Will's epilepsy is being controlled perfectly and we don't need to change his medicine at all. His body is handling the medication just fine and the only thing that he needs is more RED MEAT. go figure. Thank you very much, Indian diet.
Then he showed me Annie's tests and explained that possible things that might be causing her delayed growth or development can be ruled out (i.e. thyroid is fine and she doesn't have TB). He said that her development is fine and she seems to be a smart girl. When he mentioned the x-ray she had of her hand, he again expressed that he was "Velly Appy!" because her bone density matched her age exactly. So, I guess she must really be 2 1/2, even though almost all the 1 1/2 year-olds we know here are bigger than her. :) The doctor's only requirement for her is to eat more red meat too. :)

I wanted to share this on here because it is an answer to our prayers and to the prayers of many people who read this blog. Two years ago we were overwhelmed with concern for our little boy who kept having seizures and we didn't have any idea what the future would look like for him and for us. It was a hard season. Then we realized later that year that our little girl was tiny and not really growing. She seemed frail, often refused to eat the food we tried to feed her, and passed out in our arms several times, so we were concerned about her lungs and heart. She hardly talked at all until she was two and we prayed that she was developing ok. We lifted all of these concerns back up to our Father in Heaven, who knows our needs before we even ask for them, and who promises:
"Even to your old age and gray hairs, I am he, I am he who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you." (Isaiah 46:4)

And another promise that we clung to during the past 2-year season is that "He tends his flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young."(Isaiah 40:11)

We have felt gently led, sustained, and carried. We have felt God tending to our needs and drawing us close to His heart and He has given us peace about our kids' health. Their lives are in His good Shepherd hands. Thank you for praying and praising God with us. We are, as you can imagine, "Velly Appy!"

partial house tour

This is Annie. She'll be our tour guide for the moment. She's just walked in the front door of our apartment. To her right is her bedroom door which you can see partially open, and to her left is the white door frame of Will's bedroom. The bathroom is across from Annie's room, but really, my camera doesn't have a wide-enough angle to take very good pictures of our apartment. So you'll have to just make do with what I managed.

Above is the dining room table and Annie on a newly inherited scooter. She's also claimed Will's dog as her very own, but he didn't mind because he's just that perfect child... ahhemm.... I mean he has lots of other things to play with and he doesn't even notice that she has permanently swiped it.

The Kitchen.

The view through my bedroom door into my bedroom, which is very large, but my camera can't really capture it, so you'll just have to come and visit and see it for yourself. In this picture you can see our bed, and by the window is a desk where I am sitting right now. We have windows that look into our screened/glass-windowed-in 'balcony', which is where we hang our laundry to dry.

I wanted to get a picture of all the green that I see when I sit at my computer and look out my window. So here it is:This picture also shows how the apartment buildings look right here - ours is similar to the ones you can see across from us.

Ahhh! Yes, Pappa's home from his first day of work! Annie found him as soon as he walked through the door. Where's Will all this time? Very busy playing with hand-me-down toys. :) Maybe you'll catch him next time you visit. Bye for now.

Settling in

We're getting settled into life here... slowly, but surely. Tomorrow Nate starts teaching, so today is his last day of prep before another school year. In our past couple of weeks being here, we have managed to figure out how to use the subway and bus systems fairly well, how to shop for groceries and whatever else we've needed for our home, and we've explored a few different stores and market areas. We're figuring out the garbage recycling here and I've figured out a system for getting laundry, dishes and floors done.

We were blessed to have some of our past students from India meet up with us and show us a bit of our new city that we hadn't seen yet and take us out to eat. Another student took me shopping and taught me how to cook a couple of Korean dishes for a meal... that was a HUGE gift! We've bought a Korean silverware set (which only contains long-handled big spoons and chopsticks), and Will is eager to eat his food with chopsticks like everyone does around here. Annie will stick with her small spoon for the moment, but she's soaking up the culture too, little by little. The other night she was praying and her prayer went something like this:

"Jesus, sank you I say 'Anyanghaseo' and bow my head and Anyanghaseo means 'hi' in Korean. Amen." So overall, we feel like we're getting settled into life here and are enjoying learning as we go.

today... and 'a time to mourn'

To be honest, I did not manage to leave the house today until tonight when we went to our neighbor's apartment for dinner... but YESTERDAY we managed a 'play date' with another mom and her baby and 'almost-two-year-old'. The three older kids got lots of energy out on the nice playground by our apartment. You can see nearly the whole thing in the picture above. It's really nice, but busy in the afternoons. Let's see... today I kept busy with starting to write some emails to friends (I'm SO far behind in writing to people... -sad!), starting to iron Nate's clothes (which need to be ironed for the start of school on Tuesday), washing dishes, doing laundry, lanolizing Will's diaper covers (because they're leaking like crazy, but this should solve that problem), watching my kids (and all that entails!), and listening to music.

["There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven: ... a time to mourn..." -Ecclesiastes 3: 1, 4]

I have to say more about the music, because it wasn't just any music... it was my family's music I was listening to. This summer we had a chance to sing together again, and I recorded our singing and today was the first time I took time to listen to it. I suppose it sounds like any other choir group/chamber music group, but when I listened to it I just started crying. I've been thinking about mourning lately, and about how much of the mourning I need to do is because of wonderful things that have passed. I realized that the music brought back so much sweetness of growing up with a family that sang together and did so much together. I haven't lost that family, but I do miss the times that are so infrequent now. I haven't sung with my brothers/sister/parents in two years, and it was just sweet to my soul to get to do that this summer. So today I mourned living close enough to make music together more often. It was time for me to mourn that and to find joy in knowing that our music has always been a special gift to our family from our Father in Heaven. In my mourning I am so thankful.

One of the songs I recorded us singing is a song that we prepared for our Uncle who is dying of cancer. It's a neat song with rich words full of hope. My Uncle has lived a very full, rich life in so many ways, and I am already mourning the loss of probably not getting to spend time with him again. The realization struck me today that it's ok for me to mourn already, because it is healing to remember the excellent times I've had with my Uncle. I have usually felt that I'm not supposed to mourn the things/people/experiences that I miss, and so this was just a neat feeling - like God was assuring me that there is, indeed, a time to mourn.

And He reminds me that there will be more times ahead to dance.

I don't think I'm done mourning many things. At the moment, I'm sure that I will mourn India and all that our life there entailed for awhile. But intertwined in my mourning, I am so thankful that we have had such precious friendships and rich experiences - that there is reason to mourn the losses. So for now, I'll keep mourning with great joy and peace that these things are right and good.

home life

Welcome to our new home! Here you can see some make-shift drumming going on. It's a noisy place to be sure!
Annie has three huge floor-to-ceiling closets taking up about half of her room. Her bed just fits in the other half. It's snug, but she's happy because in one closet she has a shelf with her clothes on it and with the clothes down at her height, she can dress herself. Here's a picture of her sitting in her closet in front of her clothes shelf. We have a lot of windows in our apartment. Will loves to stare down at all that's happening below us. Often he shouts: "What's that, Mamma?!" and I have to go and tell him that it's a cement mixer or a garbage truck. He's enjoying watching city life.

Annie spends a lot of time re-packing her backpack with legos and other assorted toys. Then she wanders around telling me, "I'm ready to go on an airplane, Mamma." That's what she was doing in the picture below - check out how she's dressed for her next airplane ride. :)