Cross Country and Cheerleading

I haven't done any of these in a while so here are two for you:
Lost in Translation-Part 3:

They sell Hineybee Donuts at the Dunkin Donuts here in Korea.  I love donuts but I am not interested in eating a Hineybee donut.

Funny Korean Signs-Part 5:

This was a sign outside of a place of business.  It wasn't open so we couldn't tell if it was a restaurant, cafe or store.  The sign really doesn't give away to much about what type business it is, but it made us laugh.  Maybe it is a store where you can buy awesome people or things to make you an awesome person or maybe only awesome people can go there.  We will have to go back sometime and check it out when it is open.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As the girls have grownup and developed their own personalities we have tried to find activities that best suit their individual characters.  We have had a bunch of misses but this year we have found activities that they have both excelled in.

Taylor has joined the middle school cross country team and is doing wonderful.  Her first meet was an almost 2 mile course she placed 64th out of 160 girls.  I was so excited for her.  She is only in 6th grade and is running against girls that are in 6th-8th grade.  This last weekend was her second meet and once again there were about 160 girls on a 2 mile course and this time she placed 27th.  We are so proud of how hard she is working.  Every day after school she has practice for an hour and half then she comes home and does homework.

Holding up her jersey

With her friends before the run

One last pep talk from the coach

The starting line.

Crossing the finish line-she does not look like she just ran 2 miles-she was barely out of breath!

Waiting to get her name and time recorded

The team with the coach after the meet.

 My mom was able to go to the meet with me and cheer her on.

Awesome job Taylor!

Cross country is wonderful for Taylor but it would not be good for Lucy.  However, we have found something for Lucy to participate in that she has excelled at-Cheerleading.

The child is a natural born cheerleader.  She loves it, she walks all around the house practicing her cheers.  We are having a little bit of trouble getting her to spell s-p-i-r-i-t correctly, but other than that she is doing awesome. 

Just like Taylor, Lucy is one of the youngest on her cheer squad.  But she volunteered to go up in front of everyone and lead a cheer during one of their practices.  While Lucy is a clown and has a crazy personality, she does not like to be the center of attention and so this was a very big deal for her and I was proud of the courage it took her to do it.

 In her uniform ready for her first game.

A perfect fit for Lucy.

The coach getting them ready before they started to cheer.

They are cheering for the flag football teams.  Unfortunately, Lucy does not know the first thing about football and has no idea what is going on during the game.  But she has a great time yelling and waving her pom-poms.

Her second game was at night and she had to wear warmer clothes.

This is my favorite cheer to watch her do.

How fun it is to watch their unique personalities shine in various activities. 

Ben Has Arrived!!

Taylor was the first grandchild on my parents side.  Before she was born I asked my mom and dad what they wanted to be called as grandparents.  I told them the only options not available were Grammy and Papa because that is what Russ' nieces called his parents and I didn't want to have both sets of grandparents called the same thing.  So, my mom choose Gram and my dad Grampy.  When Taylor was born we had a Grammy and Papa and a Gram and Grampy.  It worked wonderfully until Taylor got to the point where she was starting to talk.  Instead of calling my dad Grampy she called him Papa.  Every time we corrected her she would insist he was Papa.  And when she tried to say Gram it came out sounding just like Ben.  None of us could figure out why it sounded so much like Ben but every time she said Gram it came out Ben.  So, as a joke we started to call my mom Ben.  And, unfortunately for my mom, it stuck.  So now, 11 years later we have a Grammy and Papa and a Ben and Papa.  My wonderful mom has gone with the flow and embraced the name Ben. 

We were very excited when my parents decided Ben was going to come over for a visit.  Unfortunately, when her plane arrived I had another commitment and I wasn't able to pick her up at the airport, but she had quite a welcoming committee there for her arrival.

 She arrived a few days ago and we haven't sat down since.  In the last three days she has gone to Lucy's class for a special lunch, rode the subway, visited a famous Korean palace, walked 3 miles along a river, hiked a mountain, met tons of my friends and shopped in a Korean produce market.

There is no time for jet-lag when you come to visit us, we just jump right in as soon as you get off the airplane. 

A Korean/American Wedding

In the past few months Russ and I have had the opportunity to attend two different weddings of fellow Marines.  Both Marines married Korean women but the ceremonies were very different.   The first ceremony was a traditional Korean ceremony.  I am still collecting some pictures from that event so I will post pictures of it later.  The second wedding was a mixture of American traditions and Korean traditions.   Koreans like things a little more flashy than many Americans do.  It was fun to see the two cultures mixed.

The groom asked a few Marines, including Russ, to be a sword detail for him.  Therefore Russ wore his dress blues to event.  It is always a good day for me when I get to see Russ in his dress blues.  :)

Often Korean wedding are held in wedding halls.  These are "one-stop-shops" for weddings.  They do the pictures in different settings (many times Koreans get their wedding pictures taken a few days before the wedding-in my opinion that seems like a major pain to have to get dressed up 2 times), they will plan the ceremony, help with the preparations, details and decorations and host the reception.  I can't imagine how much it costs to have all of this done but it does seem much eaiser to have everything done in one building.

One of the major differences in Korean and American weddings is that you sit at tables during a Korean wedding.  Often you will even eat during the ceremony but at this wedding we just watched and ate afterwards upstairs at the wedding hall.

The bride and groom walked down a lit up aisle.  I so badly wanted to pretend I was in a fashion show and do my runway walk.

I

I don't know about every Korean wedding but at this wedding the bride and groom did not have anyone else stand up with them and they faced the audience during the ceremony, which was entirely in Korean.

It was a very quick and simple wedding.  I didn't really understand any of it, so I can't tell you much of what was said.  The bride and groom bowed to each of their parents and they did say their vows to each other in English. 

The sword detail was very cool.

Russ is the first one closest to the elevator doors in this picture.

During the reception the bride changed into another dress and they both moved around visiting their guests.

 The cake-I have no idea what the red and blue birthday looking candles signify.

A few last pictures before Russ changed out of his uniform.

We don't get many opportunities to attend weddings anymore and we both had a great time at this wedding. 

First Day of School

Lucy started 3rd grade and Taylor started 6th grade.  I can't believe my oldest is in middle school and my youngest is in 3rd grade...that does not mean I am old it just means I had my children when I was very young.  :)  I was talking to some ladies the other day and we were discussing how when we had toddlers we used to look at the moms who had children that were all in school and think how old they were.  I don't think that way any more.

Both girls had a pretty good first day of school, lots of adjustments and changes to get used to.   I was thinking about Taylor's years in school and I realized...in the 8 years she has been attending school (preschool, kindergarten and 6 grades) she has attended 7 different schools in 4 different states and 2 different countries.  Only a military child would be able to say that.

"Stand close to each other and act like you love each other"

6th grade and 3rd grade

One of Taylor's birthday gifts this year was to customize a pair of Converse sneakers.  She decided to wear them for the first time on the first day of school.  I think she did a good job designing her sneakers.

Russ was able to be home the morning of the first day of school. 

Waiting for the bus.  This is her first year riding the bus alone without her older sister.

This year Taylor walks to school with some of the other neighborhood kids instead of taking the bus. 

Rolling Ball and Fun Museum

Just like they have a ton of themed cafes in Seoul they also have a lot of museums.  Some of the museums are historical, some are cultural, some are dedicated to the arts, some are very random (they have an entire museum dedicated to rice) and some are for fun.  In fact, they even have a museum called "The Fun Museum".  The Fun Museum is right across the way from The Rolling Ball museum.  One humid, rainy afternoon we decided to visit the Rolling Ball and Fun museum.

We started with the Rolling Ball Museum.  You may be wondering "What is a rolling ball museum?", we were wondering the same thing.  I had just read it was a fun place to take older kids.  After buying our very cheap tickets we walked inside and realized it was an entire room filled with huge marble tracks. 

They had some that were interactive.

Some massive ones.

This one was all wooden with a large, metal ball rolling around in it.

Some that were just fun to watch.

They were in all shapes and sizes.

 They even had one you could build yourself.

Russ and I are waiting while the girls worked on building their own marble track.

This was a huge one that the ball would spin around based on the way you moved the wheel.  We all worked up a sweat turning the wheel.

They had these great signs describing each of the tracks.  I definitely think something was lost in translation on a few of the signs.

What in the world is a "schanze"?

We had a great time and spent over an hour walking around, watching and playing with the marble tracks before we headed over to the Fun Museum.  

Just like the Rolling Ball Museum, the Fun Museum was exactly like it sounded.  It was a museum (or rather a large room) filled with "fun" or funny items.  We had a great time taking pictures of each other.

A ton of people smoke in Korea.  Russ and I often joke that they haven't figured out that smoking is bad for your health yet. They had these funny gloves in the museum where you could hold your cigarette without having to take your hand out of the glove.

For the record I have never seen anyone here use these things.

 Some fun book covers.

They had these silverware crowns that Russ and I put on as well as this glove so that you could hold hands in the wintertime but still keep your hands warm.

 The whole place was filled with quirky, fun stuff for us to try on.  We went on a week day when the Korean kids were still in school so we had the entire place to ourselves.

 This is a toilet paper holder that as the toilet paper runs out the man and lady figures get closer together until they are kissing when the roll is empty. 

  They called these "The Disco King of Wash Up" dish scrubbers.

This was an egg white separator where the egg white comes out of the nose.  Pretty gross and funny at the same time.

 They even had a rolling ball track in this museum as well.  This was the biggest one I have ever seen.  It was made of steel and it used a bowling ball.  We had to turn the wheel to get the bowling ball to the top. 

At the end of the Fun Museum, we thought the fun had come to an end for the day; but oh how wrong we were.  They had another small museum that was included with our ticket that was full of bears that were dressed up.  Remember in an earlier post I told you how the Koreans like to dress up bears and take pictures of them?  Kind of freaky to me, but they think it is cute.

Beyonce bears.  I'm not sure if she would be honored or embarrassed to see herself in bear form.

Michael Jackson bear

The famous Korean rapper PSY bear

Wedding bears.

They had bears dressed up from all different countries and they had other scenes with bears.  No pictures of those, it just is a bit much for me.

"If teddy bears ruled the world..." I never thought I would read a sentence that started with those words.

 A few last bear pictures before I decided I had had enough.

 A stop for some donuts on the way home.

 Our on the way home picture.

With the exception of the freaky bears, it was another great day exploring Seoul for the Pound family.