Yellow Belt

Cade has been doing Tae Kwon Do since late August. He learned his first set of moves and tested for his yellow belt Wednesday and passed! Master Kim (his teacher) said he was the first 5 year old to do all 18 steps for his yellow belt, that usually they only learn the first 10. The first video is of the belt presentation (which i didn't know there'd be one and I should've had my camera), and the second video is of his 18 moves! So proud of you Cade! I think the smile on his face says it all.  (sorry i'm such a bad videographer)

And here's his fancy little certificate!

Namhamsan Fortress

This weekend is the Korean holiday Chuseok. It a major holiday for them, similar to our Thanksgiving. Since a lot of the workers on base are Korean, Monday was a day off of school and work! Dan went on a bike ride in the morning and rode up the Namhamsan mountain and thought the boys would love doing a little hiking in the afternoon! We found directions and went off on an adventure!

Right at the entrance there is a Korean rock garden. I just think these are so cool to look at!

Cade found the perfect walking stick!

 Looking for bugs

 Looking through the holes in the fortified wall.

 We found this little door, but unfortunately it was locked.

 I loved how the trees were all slanted, not sure if the picture captures it

Most of the time we were hiking along the wall and then it opened up to this area called a Battlement. The mountain is full of hiking trails and we could never accomplish it all in a day. I'd love to go back and find one of the Buddhist temples that are settled deep in the mountain valley.

 Taking a break.

It feels like you're so far from the city, but once we were up high you could see the sea of highrises just below us.

The boys did a great job hiking, much better than I anticipated! We'll be going back here for sure.

Boramae Park

For this episode of Seoul Searchers we went to Boramae Park. It has this great area with ROK airplanes and helicopters on display.

The park also has some fountains for the kids to play in

After playing in the fountains for a bit one of the ladies knew of a stream that the kids could play in and avoid some of the crowd. I saw these beautiful flowers on our way over to the stream.

Oh, and pardon the whiteness of my kids. They've been wearing swim shirts all summer, but I didn't bring them that day.

This Korean gentleman was playing with Alex. They sure do love kids.

A few of my friends from the group, Mary and Shennie. Mary's kids are the same age as mine, plus another little one, all boys. Shennie's kids are one year older than mine plus another little one, all boys again. There are so many boys in our primary!

If you're curious about going you can ask me for directions, it was pretty close!

Glowing

Awhile ago my mom got this Glow in the Dark paint kit for Cade. Well, the sun wasn't setting here until like 8:30 and my kids were always in bed well before that so I kept putting it off. Finally the other night while Dan was working I let Cade stay up late (and the sun is setting earlier now) and we painted! It was lots of fun and he did a GREAT job manipulating this different kind of paint (very gel-ly) to make it look good!

Sorry that some of the shots are blurry, i was using a night setting which keeps the shutter open for awhile. 

 

 The eyes and the tiger are mine

Cool, huh?