Jelly sandwich, a shower, some benadryl, and a nap - She made it to Seoul!

Just a quick update to let you know Calley made it to Seoul. Here are some of the comments from the note she sent from Tokyo and Seoul:

• My God I'm exhausted.
• We followed the sun all the way to Tokyo. It was 1 am our time and glaring sun.
• This place is HUGE and crazy drivers.
• Im going up for a jelly bread, some Benadryl, a hot shower and bed.
• I slept for about 3 hours the whole trip.
• I have a short meeting downstairs at9:50 and then our little Min Seong comes at 10:00 for about 45 minutes.

She is going to post some pictures and an update after the meeting. I'm guessing it will be ~10pm CST.

Things are going great here. Grandma M. has been a great distraction. Henry got some new Star Wars stuff, so he's in great shape. Charles has enjoyed cooking (for real) with Grandma.

Later, T.

Last USA post until February 5th!!

Greetings!! Well, tomorrow I'm off to Korea. My flight from Rochester leaves at 8:35 a.m. From Minneapolis at 1:10 pm with an arrival in Tokyo at 4:40 pm Wednesday (local time), the flight is actually 12 1/2 hours. I have a 3 hour flight to Seoul and get in at 9:10 pm. I'll try to update that night. I should get to meet Andrew the next morning. I leave Seoul on Monday the 5th 11:05 a.m and am scheduled to land in Minneapolis at 11:05 a.m. on Monday. Interesting, the plane will be a time vacuum. I'm hoping that I'll get in a little early just to say I went back in time.
The boys went to sleep well tonight, but Henry was a little sad today, and so was I. We marked the calendar with our return date so that he can check a day off everyday. That seemed to make him feel better. Thanks to all for the prayers and the offers of help. We really appreciate it!! What would we do without such great friends and family. The next entry will be from Korea. Pray that I will be able to run the computers so I can update regularly.
Calley

Pictures

This is Henry on is 5th Gotcha Day. Auntie, Uncle Rick, and Clay were here. Auntie bought him a cake. I think he had tried to eat the cake without hands.
The boys are sledding in the backyard.

Charles and his Thomas the Train set that he got from Santa.

Family Day

Greetings all! We had a family day today. A couple weeks ago, we made reservations to spend the night at a hotel and waterpark in Owatonna. We thought we'd have one last hurrah while it's still still one parent to one boy. Little did we know that I would be planning a trip to Korea. We cancelled the overnight, and just went over to the waterpark for the day. It was really a perfect day. We all had a great time. Unfortunately, I was charging the battery for my camera, and though I remembered the camera....Yep, I forgot the battery. So , no pictures from today. I'm a little anxious about leaving the boys. Henry has been telling me that he hates Tuesday : ( We're planning a little surprise gift to give him at the airport with the hope that that will distract him enough to not be TOO sad. Gramma Marsha leaves tonight on the train, and we will pick her up Monday morning. She leaves on Friday night for home, and my mom leaves Friday night for here. Trav and the boys will pick her up on Saturday morning. We had some other exciting news today. Our good friends, Steve and Kelly, are leaving on Wednesday for Guatemala to get their son, Zachary. They will return next Tuesday.

I am including some pictures of the boys, partly to practice downloading pictures so I will be good at it in Korea.

A special thanks for the prayers from Bethel Baptist, my home church in Powers Lake, ND, and from Grace and her husband.

I'm going to Korea!!!

Wow!! I actually got the call on Thursday the 26th of January. The boys and I were hanging out at home. Henry had spilled juice on the floor, and I was washing the kitchen floor when the phone rang at 8:30 a.m. I looked at the number, and thought...'That's odd. They must have a question about something.' But, no, it was Jill and she said that Andrew is ready to come home. I couldn't believe it. I told the boys and they were ecstatic. Henry called Travis at work, and he didn't believe or me....at first. It was the comment, 'call Jill and find out.' He couldn't believe it. Then, Henry called my mom at work and told her. She told everyone in the post office (she's the postmaster in our hometown). Henry called Ja Neal (our preschool teacher, surrogate grandma, daycare provider, great mentor....) and she cried. I spent the morning on the phone with the airline and finally got a pretty good deal on airline tickets. I'm leaving on January 30th and returning on February 5th. I'll post the details later. The boys insisted on going to Target to buy him a toy for the airplane. We went to the airport to pick up his paper ticket. This took quite awhile since in my distractible state I managed to leave the confirmation number at home. We got home, and then decided to go out for supper to celebrate. Thank goodness since I hadn't given a second thought to meals. Of course, going to Whistle Binkies with two wild boys because it's close to our house was not a good choice after an incredibly stressful day. But, the food was great!!

I'll keep you posted on the upcoming trip.
Calley

Pooping

Greetings all!!
I know..what could come from such an interesting title. Well, if you live with preschoolers you realize that pooping is a very big thing. I went to a Camp Moon-hwa meeting tonight, so Travis had put the boys to bed before I got home. I went up to say goodnight and lay with them for a few minutes talking about their day. The boys have bunkbeds so we usually lay in Charles bed on the bottom. As we lay looking up at the bottom of Henry's bed, Charles noted that it looked like a railroad track. (There are slats that go crosswise under the bed--the ties--and two strips that run the length--the tracks.) We talked about trains and why they couldn't go on the street. And, why they needed to have tracks. And, Charles said that there is poop on the tracks. And, I said that I guessed there could be. And Henry said that maybe a deer or a dog pooped on the tracks, and Charles said that maybe rabbits or birds poop on the tracks. Then, Charles said...'but, trains and tracks don't poop.' To which I said, 'no.' He responded with, 'only we poop.' And, then went on to list a multitude of people who probably poop. It was a great conversation, and...I managed not to laugh until I left the room. Just a day in the life of preschool boys.

On the other hand, I talked with Jill today. It seems as if things are continuing to move along in Korea. Only one October family is left to receive their child, and two families from November are already home with their kids. There are 3 families left from the November group...including us. I certainly hope we will be sending out the....We're going to Korea!!! announcement soon.

Pictures

Just adding a picture of the boys from the summer. They called the Mayo brothers, the 'grampa's.' We hope no one is offended. They thought they were great for climbing!

Getting started

I'm not really sure what I'm doing since I'm not a computer wizard, but I'm going to try out this blogging thing. We're hoping it will make it easier to pass on information to everyone when I'm in Korea. Friends who just returned from Korea said it was easier to access their blog and send pictures while they were there than to access their email. We'll see. Please bear with me as I get used to this.