Hiking With The Circus - IL Seonhaksan, Jinju

The kids are on winter break, so I brought the whole circus—my three kids, my two dogs, and two neighbor kids on our Tuesday hike. This one was right in the heart of Jinju. We parked at HomePlus and walked a few blocks there. It was tucked in the middle of a neighborhood and would totally overlooked if you did not know it was there.

Oh look--Eli found a stick.

This little hill lead to a lookout point.

 One of the ladies has heard a story about all of these numbers along the hill marking where remains of soldiers were found.

The view of Jinju to the east (?)  along the Nam River from the observatory.

 Snack time!

Keenan, Zeke, Ming, Sandy, Lauryn, Jinny, Daisy, Bongja, Eli, Trish

 On the way down Chuey scared a squirrel up a tree. Frito was behind with me and missed all the action. That's probably a good thing. My sweet Korean friends may have been frightened.

 My pokey little puppy got really far behind on the way down. The kids were all up front of the group. When we were finished Daisy asked where Eli was...oopsies! I had to go back up the trail to find him. Poor little guy was scared. So glad Korea is safe and he wasn't abducted!

[December 17]

Five Oh

So 50 happened. I'm not sure how. I still feel like a kid and often wonder who thought it would be a good idea to put me in charge of raising little people. But here I am, easing down the hill.

Daisy thought I should open Daddy's gift the night before because I might need it on my big day.

He got me a Sally O'Malley shirt from SNL. She's the skit that says, "I'm 50! I can kick. And stretch. And kick! I'm 50! Fifty year old."

The actual day was spent very low key with my 4 favorite people and 2 favorite dogs. I made plans to go to an Italian lunch and then walk the dogs to Elephant Rock. I had never been to the restaurant before, and as happens often here, I didn't find it on the first try. We were backing up from a little alley into the road, the dogs saw a little dog in the road and were both barking, kids were making noise and another car was coming at us. It was quite chaotic and Eli yelled out, "WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!" We did not. We made it to the restaurant which happened to be closed on Mondays, darn the luck. Eventually we made it to the Elephant Rock.

 My Daisy got me my favorite chocolates and some earrings.

 My boys got me some jewelry.

 We were going to make a cake, but I decided I like the frosting more than cake, so we just made chocolate frosting for my birthday cake.

 As I am tottering on the top of the hill, buckling up to start the slide down, I am reflecting on where I am in life. I am in a pretty good spot. I don't have accolades and honors to brag about; I'm not climbing up the career ladder because I don't even have a job. I do, however, have a purpose. 

John 3:16 tells us that 'God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son that whoever believes in him may not perish but have eternal life.' I have done that; I believe that Jesus died for my sins, and I know that has nothing to do with my goodness/not goodness. 'For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God, not by works, so that no one can boast.' Ephesians 2:8-9. 

My purpose is to live a life that emits the love of Christ so that others will be drawn to Him as well. This task isn't always easy, and I fail more than I succeed, I'm afraid. That, my friends, is the beautiful part. Even when we fail, mess up, do stupid stuff, or not do stuff we should, we are covered by grace and not kicked to the curb. Here's hoping I will fulfill my purpose as I ride on down the hill these next 50 years.

[December 16]

Field Tripping With Eli - Geoje Shipbuilding and Marine Culture Center

I was fortunate enough to attend Eli's field trip. The elementary went to the Geoje Shipbuilding and Marine Culture Center, which is about 1.5 hours away. Many of our students' parents work in the shipbuilding industry and live in Goeje. Those poor kiddos ride the bus for about 3 hours round trip every day. Makes me even more thankful it's a 4-minute walk door-to-door for us.

 The first activity was learning about light houses. Instead of using their eyes to see the lighthouse, like boats do, they were blindfolded and had to use their sense of hearing to find where the docents were making their noise from.

 The next activity was a scavenger hunt. The kids received clues and then had to find the answer to the questions. One of the questions was to find the ship that Columbus sailed on. Eli is standing in front of the Santa Maria. That was also the name of the boat we took our sunset cruise on while in Osaka.

 The last activity was constructing their own light house that even has a fun little colored light in it. I learned that light houses are white and red. If it is white you need to sail to the right of it, and if it is red you go to the left. They also have color coded lights if it's too dark to see the color of the light house.

After lunch they had a few minutes to run and play outside.

 This is the 3rd and 4th graders in front of a geobukseon, or a turtle ship. Admiral Yi Sun-shin had only 13 ships, yet Korea defeated Japan's 133 ships in the Battle of Myeongnyang in 1597. The turtle ship had armor on the top, making it look like a turtle. Canons were fitted in the front to shoot out of the dragon's mouth.

Just 2 days later the elementary kids went caroling near the school. They walked to a daycare, a coffee shop and a pastry shop.

 This is at the Coffee Tree. It is right across the street from school. I have bought gift cards from there and the owner is really nice. She gave the kids cutie oranges when they were done.

 I walked with them down the block to Paris Baguette. There were not many people there, but the shop sent home a box of treats for the kids.

 [December 10 and 12]

Lock-HOHO-heed Christmas

Lockheed hosts a lovely Christmas party every year. We were happy to be a part of it this Christmas.

That's a cute little KAI fighter jet on that cake.

Eli found his best buddy.

Look closely and you will see a little octopus that Abe's eating.🤢

All the kiddos got up on stage to do some caroling for us.

A surprise visit from Santa! And he brought gifts for all the kids!

Santa gave a few gag gifts to some of the employees.

Santa Claus knew how much Abe likes to workout and how healthy he eats...but he also knew Abe's kryptonite.

Ice cream!

The big kids did a cute skit about repatriating and eating at an American restaurant. It pointed out how different Korean restaurants are, from the no shoes and sitting on the floor to the different food choices and sharing a bottle of soda with the whole family. It was cute.

When they were finished they presented a thank you card to Brad, the big boss.

DanFam5

Lijee worked on his gift of Legos as soon as we got home.

The kiddos each got a stocking stuffed full of good stuff. Zekers is wearing his.

Daisy was happy with her makeup and bag.

Since we are away from home for the holidays, it was nice to have the holidays brought here.

[December 7]