Friday, January 12, 2018

A New Year

 The kids are back into their full routine of school again after Christmas.  They all got some Christmas money (and some still have some saved from birthdays) and were eager to spend a little.  Where? They asked to go down the street to buy a hot dog on a stick. :)
 They enjoyed it!
 And this guy. Look at that smile!  All he could talk about was how he wanted to spend some of his money to "get his picture made" He wanted to get passport photos so he could make himself a badge. The others he put up on his bulletin board. :)
 Oh, he was just too excited.  The lady taking his picture said that they wouldn't work because you couldn't see his eyes because he was smiling too big. I told her it was fine. I don't think she believed me, but I decided it was best not to try and explain that the photos were just for fun.
 Check out this awesome black belt!  She got promoted to assistant coach for some of the classes!!  She LOVED it!  She got to work with these two and had a great time. Some of the kids have even started calling her Coach instead of Hudie.
 Shadow. Enough said. I knew it was too quiet!  I walked out of the school room to find this site. He froze in his tracks in hopes that I would not see him.  Sorry dog. The evidence is still in your mouth.
 Finally got our dryer fixed! YEAH!! It's been several weeks since our dryer quit working.  The place that fixed it in the past is no longer there, so I asked our neighbor to help call a repair guy. I should have asked my neighbor in the first place, but when I saw that the weather was going to be raining and in the 40's for the entire next week, I decided I better hurry!  I just couldn't handle that much laundry all over my house trying to dry for days.
 He came and fixed the dryer, but in the process he accidentally broke off the water pipe!  Water was gushing and spraying everywhere!! He yelled for me to cut off the water to the apartment (as he was trying to stop the water from coming...which wasn't working) but I had no idea where to do that.  I sent three kids running to find a neighbor who might be home and I went running outside to find a guard in our complex to get help.  Turns out that there is a closet looking thing on each floor in the hallway near the elevator where you can shut the water off for each individual apartment.  So, we had to do without water for the day while I found someone to fix this problem...which I had to pay for. Hmm. I'm glad we have water again and a dryer again! :)
 There's a show at the seashell building and lots of traffic to go with it...
And this girl is SUPER excited!! One of her dance friends gave her a ticket to go see Swan Lake!!!
 They made it to the seashell building in time.  I love the dresses and tennis shoes :)
 The mom of the other girl sent me three pictures for Lauren from the ballet.
 We have been waiting for this day to come!  It is finally out here!!  We bought our movie tickets for the brand new theater in town!
 Star Wars 8
 (in 3D hence the glasses on Lauren and Hudson)
 WE are moving up in the world! Look what just opened near us!
Katherine said it looked so good and she was pretending to eat the beef off the picture! We were already watching a movie and could splurge for Burger King as a meal, but we got some fries to snack on while we walked home.
 Once all the stores open up in this mall, it looks like it will be pretty nice.  Time will tell.

 Check out the size of the screen!  The kids were going nuts!  I'm sure this is a normal size screen in the States these days, but it's been awhile.
 The movie theatre was really comfortable and the sound was excellent!
 We had the entire place to ourselves until about 2 minutes before the start of the show.

 Ok. Lauren's face cracks me up. Maybe she should go into acting. haha!
 The view these days isn't so great.  I have a love hate relationship with winter in this country. I love the cooler weather, but I really hate the pollution.  This day wasn't one of the worst days, but you could feel it in the air...harder to breathe and your eyes burn.  Thankfully, the weather forecast was right and it rained for a week, so the air is really good right now.
 One day a year, they let the parents come to class to watch what the kids have learned.  It's the week right before they test.  So, Lauren is level 4 about to test into level 5 for ballet (I think there are only 8 levels)
 She loves it so much!


This is one of my favorites because of the smile on Lauren's face.
 Tippy Toe Shoes! Unfortunately, I only have a video of her pointe shoes exercises and dance.  It's quite impressive.
 We baby sat for our friends so they could go see Star Wars 8.  I was thinking that it would be a little extra work adding two more kids to the mix, but not at all.  Lauren was so glad that she was "old enough" to take care of the baby.  She held Phineahs for at leas on hour and then played with Naomi and read her books.
 Katherine was a huge help, too!  She played with Naomi (3yr) at the beginning and then she was on protection duty to make sure no one stepped on the baby ;)
 Anyone need a bike?  I think there are plenty! It's like this all over the city now.
 Jonathan was gone for a week and I got to do more errands than usual. One of those was buy meat. I really wanted some ground beef.  They didn't have any, so I asked if they would tomorrow. Nope. The next day? Nope. When? Because that's what I want.  He sent me to talk to the manager on duty and she said she would have it for me tomorrow and save it so that no one could buy my meat! YEAH! (This is really a big deal because beef is hard to come by here. It's mostly pork in the meat section.)
 This is the picture we sent to Jonathan so he knew that they were being fed ;)  They ate every bite.  The next day is when we fixed vegetable soup.  Lauren said, "Poor Daddy.  He's missing all the good food." Score for Mommy! :)  (The kids all think that only Daddy can cook good food)
 It was pretty windy so Katherine asked for a break to go fly a kite.
 Hudson started taekwondo with his sister!  He loves it. Regan loves taking him. And the coaches love Hudson, too!
 These are the kinds of pictures I love finding on Regan's iPad :)  Sisters. They are so much fun!
 Here is Regan's black belt!!! I know. It doesn't look like a black belt, but it's the real deal! Kukkiwon rules (in Korea) state that if the black belt is earned before the age of 15 that it looks like this.  The gold letters with her name and the Chinese characters on the other side of the belt and the one gold stripe showing that she is a first degree black belt.  When she turns 15, they will automatically send her the solid black one with the same gold lettering.
We had some girls come over.  Hudson made them all a card (and apparently gave them all money...which I didn't find out until later) They all thought it was so sweet. He even wrote the time down on the cards so that they knew exactly when he finished it.  He's a giver.  Sweet boy.