Fun Times With Sam and Maddie

Our family had a great time with Sam and Maddie.  Their weeks here flew by and we were busy pretty much every day they were here.  They especially loved the markets, and since I love any shopping I took them to quite a few different markets around Seoul.

One of the most popular items of clothing right now in Korea are ajumma pants.  Ajumma is the Korean word for "any woman that is married or old enough to be married".  Therefore, technically, I am an ajumma, but the Koreans typically use it for older women that are more of the grandma age.  Being an ajumma in Korea means you pretty much have a free pass to do anything you want, say anything you want and wear anything you want.  If you are in an ajumma's way on the market street she will just shove you out of the way, if you are sitting in her seat on the subway she will stare you down until you finally move and there is no reason to what an ajumma will pair together to wear for the day.  Maybe I will start a new series on this blog called "Ajumma Style" to share some of the fun combinations we see every day.  Sam and Maddie particularly enjoyed picking out the fun, "matching" ajummas.  I pretty much think ajummas run the country behind the scenes.  You don't mess with an ajumma.   One very distinct feature of ajummas is their pants.  They wear these pants that are either knee length or full length and the literally translation for the name of these pants is refrigerator pants because they are so cool (in temperature not in style) to wear.  It has taken me a year to fully embrace my ajumma style but as soon as Sam and Maddie got here they began to embrace their inner ajumma and wanted to get some pants.  The best part about ajumma pants is the price...you can easily find a pair at the local markets for less than $3.00.  One day we all got a pair and modeled them for Russ.

Ajumma pants come in all different colors and pattens.  On this particular day we all happened to have coordinating ones on.  Made for a nice picture.
We decided to try to do some karate kicks in our ajumma pants. 

 

This was the best we could do.  Russ probably took 15 pictures of us and we couldn't all get our feet up at one time.

I had so much fun with these girls.  Just looking at these pictures, I have a big smile on my face.  How can you not have fun doing karate kicks with ajumma pants on? 

I took the ajumma pants to another level and dressed a pair up and wore them to church. 

I am trying to convince Sam and Maddie to wear them to school and start a new style trend in the US.  They aren't sure they are ready to do that yet.

Besides shopping, I made sure we did a few cultural things as well.  I didn't want them to go home and only talk about all the shopping we did.  So one Saturday we took them down to Suwon and walked around the Suwon fortress wall.

We all got a chance to ring the big bell.

Even Russ and I got in on the fun.

It started out innocent enough, but Russ wanted to really get that thing ringing and it got a little out of hand for me.

He rang it so loud, I was out of there.

They also have a bow and arrow shooting station at one point on this wall.  The girls all decided they wanted to try to shoot arrows.

They all did a very good job and each hit the target at least once.

But guess who hit the target the most out of any one?

Yep, that is a scary sight.  She hit the target 3 times.

After they all shot their arrows they had to go out and collect them.

We stopped along the way in this rest area for a break and a chance to look out into the city.

This road sign made me laugh.

I am pretty sure it is a given, that if you don't turn before you hit the river your car will fall into the water.  I don't know that the sign showing the car going into the water was necessary.

Our days with the girls were wonderful and we are so thankful for the time we had to spend with them.