Father's Day

"Blessed indeed is the man who hears many gentle voices call him Father!"

~ Lydia M. Child

There is certainly nothing gentle about the voices in our house.  In fact LOUD is something we do really well.  Also Phil is called many things, Dad, Daddy, Appa and Pappa but never Father.  HE is, however, certainly blessed by the many tiny humans who live in our house.  The rest of us are blessed by our loving Daddy.

We got the chance to celebrate our Dad on Sunday.  We had a fabulous day.  We started by going over to Wabasha where we played on the beach and swam in the Mississippi river.  We also had a picnic and got ice cream from D.Q.  After returning home and taking naps we got dressed up and took Daddy out to Osaka for some hibachi cooking.  We hope Dad had a good day because the rest of us sure had fun.

 Hey look at that really white guy in the river.  Could ALL those kids be his?

 Enjoying a picnic under a tree.

Charli LOVED the sand!

Gabe in his too cool and scary snake gogles.

Ellie enjoying the river.

We decided to bury big sister in the sand. 

No summer adventure is complete with ice cream. 

Charli feels the same way. She must be a Germann.

Communication

Lots of people have asked how much English Charli knows and conversely how much Korean we know.  The answer to both questions is very little.  The social worker in Korea wrote out some of Charli's key words to help us.  For instance we know that "dunga" means she needs to go potty and that "oyoo" means milk.  They told us she spoke 2 word Korean sentences.  I think they were wrong about that.  She will often go on for what feels like a paragraph rather than a two word sentence.  Oh if only we knew what she was saying.  I have no doubt that somewhere in there is the phrase "crazy white people."

In the last two weeks she has started saying several English words.  Her English vocabulary includes, "owie, peek a boo, banana, orange, hi, bye, beep (when she beeps your nose), ding, puppy (though she thinks all stuffed animals are called puppy) and Charli (yes, she can say her name but doesn't associate it with herself yet).  She also does the signs for more and all done.  We are very impressed with the speed that she is picking up English and signing.

She also communicates in the language of two year olds....grunting and pointing.  That we understand quite well.

Edited to add that because she is the 4th child in this home she also says, "come on," "stop it," and "no, no, no."

Our redneck swimming pool

Last week was the first full week of summer for us.  The big kids of course wanted to do water activities.  I was not yet up for venturing out to the swimming pool with four kids (three of whom don't swim well).  So instead I set up a sprinkler and filled a rubbermaid tub for the filling of buckets and water guns.  Our kids decided that the rubbermaid tub was our swimming pool.  Yes even our Koreans are rednecks!

Happy Second Birthday Charlotte Yeong Eun!

Charli turned 2 today!  We went to church in the morning and she handled it quite well.  After nap this afternoon we went swimming at the RAC and then came home for Korean food and cake.  We made many of Charli's favorites including bulgogi, jap chai (glass noodle dish with veggies), rice, gim (seaweed) and oranges.  She was just delighted to have her favorite foods.  She grinned ear to ear through the whole  meal.  She did a great job using the kid chop sticks.  She ate SO much we thought we might have to cut her off before she made herself sick.  We had brought Pororo (a funny little penguin dude that all Korean children adore) decorations and plates from Korea and also got her Hello Kitty balloons and cake.  She enjoyed blowing her candle out so much that we kept relighting it for her.  She opened her presents and got a teddy bear from big sister Abby and a doll and a Pororo microphone from Mom and Dad.  She loved her gifts. 

It's hard to believe Charli has been with us such a short time.  She fits in our family as if she has always been there.  She is a very happy little girl and is always smiling and laughing.  She even has the ability to joke with us.  She is very smart and she is starting to learn English, though we quite enjoy listening to her Korean.  We are so grateful that she was home for her second birthday.

Airplane Day

Airplane day was Wednesday.  We loaded into the adoption agency shuttle van at 8:00 a.m with considerably more stuff than we brought to Korea including a tiny human .  Charli snoozed on the way to the airport.  The drive takes about an hour.  We had no trouble getting through immigration or security.  We introduced Charli to her first french fries in an airport food court.  She thought they were interesting but wasn't convinced.  She really enjoyed dunking things in ketchup she just didn't actually want to eat the ketchup.

The flight was 12 hours Seoul to Chicago.  Charli slept for about 3 of the 12 hours.  She had her moments but all in all the trip was better than we expected.  We were supposed to have the inside two of three seats but convinced our seat mate that we would be getting up so much that she would be better off by the window.  The most difficult part of the flight was that Charli wouldn't let Phil hold her or even really touch her.  That was a LONG 12 hours holding a two-year-old for me.

We cruised through customs/immigration in Chicago and made it to our gate with enough time to grab some lunch.  The problem with having a lap ticket kid during a long flight is that it is almost impossible to eat. 

The flight back to Rochester was quick and uneventful.  Charli slept most of the 45 minutes.  We were met at the airport by Grandpa and Grandma with Abby, Gabe and Ellie as well as some dear friends.  What a wonderful welcome home.

 Waiting for the shuttle van with all of our acquired *stuff*.

 Long rides make me sleepy.

 This photo would lead you to believe she actually ate the fries.  She didn't. 

 There was a fun playground near our gate in Incheon.

Hanging out in the stroller in Chicago.

 The welcome home committee.

 Sisters.