Calling "Blake Family of Four!"

So, here it is...the family picture we took a week before I was placed on 24 hour bed rest in a Korean hospital for pre-term labor.  Yup, it happened again.  So, both of our little blessings are preemies!  One more so than the other, because the 18 days of 24 hour bed rest did what it was supposed to and kept our sweet A growing a little longer.  On day 20, she was born in an American hospital in Korea.  So, yup, we have two Asian born babies.  Kinda weird to think of it that way!!

Here she is, in all her beauty!

We are enjoying every minute of having her at home and love that she has completed our family of four!  God's plans are so perfect, and we can't imagine life without her now.

A Visit to Inchon-dong

Jackson wanted to play at the park.  We have 4 playgrounds right behind our house...literally.  We step out of our door, walk down the stairs turn a corner and can choose one of four parks to play at...all within a 30 second walk of each other.  But, I had to throw a kink in the plan.  I didn't want to sit at the SAME park we always do...I wanted to explore outside of the confines of the parks on the Army Post we live on.

Soooo...in comes Inchon-dong.  Come to find out, my friends who have lived here over a year didn't even realize there was an area of exploration where we went!  Jackson and I explored by ourselves today, which was good for us!  Took us both outside of our comfort zones.  One thing to note...it was stifling hot, so our adventure was a couple hours and then back home.

We took the Post Shuttle bus to right outside of Ichon Station, which is a huge subway station, we crossed under the street via the station and popped out at this wonderful playground.  Perfect!!

Jackson had so much fun playing at a NEW park!  Come to find out, there were about 8 parks along our walk that morning.  Great area for playing.

On our walk, we had a mission to find the craft store/stationary store as we needed some supplies for an art project we were planning to do.  We came upon 2 stores that suit our needs.  Along the way we discovered an EMart Everyday.  EMart here is kindof like Walmart...sortof.  But the EMart Everyday is like a very mini version of it.  I told Jackson he could pick out a snack but it couldn't have any English on the label.  He ended up with some yummy treats!!

We had a fun adventure in Ichon-dong, just the two of us, that day!!

A Trip to the Seoul Children's Museum

As one last hoorah before school started, Jackson and I hopped on the subway with our faithful adventurous traveling companions here and traveled about an hour northeast to the Seoul Children's Museum in Children's Grand Park.

Children's Grand Park encompasses a lot of fun things to do, and although doing all of them in one day sounds like a fabulous idea, there are only so many hours in a day.  That being said, we'll have to go back some day to do the other fun things there.  Today's adventure brought us to the Seoul Children's Museum.

We both love a good Children's Museum, and aside from aquariums, it is the other thing I like to experience in a new country or place.  It's just fun to me to see how different they all are.  Here are pictures from our visit.

Playing with magnetic shapes

 Covering all the holes in plexiglass with pom poms

 Feeling what it's like to be wheelchair bound

...or to be blind

Playing and experimenting with water, air and bubbles

Dressing up with traditional costumes from other countries

Pretending to be a veterinarian

We were there for hours!!  It was a another fun day with friends!

Han River Cruise and More!

The first few weeks we were here, we did so much out in Seoul.  Now that we're moved into a house, it's calmed down a bit, but we hope to pick up the pace come fall time.  WE've heard that the fall here is THE time to do Seoul activities because it is simply gorgeous...so I can't wait!!  Anyway, here's a recap of what we did on our second adventure out in Seoul!

We started our adventure with a Taxi Ride to the Han River to catch the cruise boat down the river.

Then we walked over to the 63 Building, which is supposed to be the tallest building in Seoul.  We had lunch there...which was truly an experience.  Among about 1000 people in the cafeteria area or food court, we were outnumbered by far...like 3 Americans to 997 Koreans.  I would venture to say, it was a true Korean Cultural Experience!

After that trip, we taxied over to the Korean War Memorial.  That was fascinating.  So full of history.  Something I needed to see early in our tour here, so it's good we did it early on!!

It was a great, busy adventure day for us!!

Reliving the Magical Moments!

Some of you may know our moving history...let's just say, it's always eventful!!  This time around, the "eventfulness" happened on the stateside of things (usually it happens on the overseas side...although maybe I shouldn't say anything yet; we're still waiting on our car and most of our stuff!).  Well, this time around, the military managed to wait until the last minute to provide us with orders; soooooo long that Cody, for the first time, had to get a letter "in lieu of orders" to begin scheduling our movers!  Even with that letter, the military scheduled 3 sets of movers for 3 separate weeks in June.

lovely.

fantastic.

soooo not cool.

But, we made it work!!  And, we even took some of that time (once our goods going to Korea were packed up and before our storage goods were taken), to go see Mickey Mouse at Disney World!  I'm so very glad it worked out that way, as this was the one thing we had talked about since we received our orders TO Alabama.  Nothing like the last minute!!

So, on June 18-June 23, we headed to Orlando to rest our heads at Disney's Pop Century Resort!

The night we arrived, we visited Downtown Disney and the Lego Store there.  We spent a little while in the very hot Lego Store (remember, we decided to visit Disney World in June =) ).

The next day found us at The Magic Kingdom...well that day and the third day!  We park hopped every day we were there and somehow managed to visit Epcot 3 out of the 4 days!

I begin our Disney World journey with a picture of Jackson looking at the map.  He had to have his own map in every park.

Anyway, Day 1 was Magic Kingdom and Epcot.

Here are Cody and Jackson watching the Opening Ceremony! 

(I will say, we were never at park opening for Disneyland.  Somehow, we managed it every day at Disney World!)

Main Street!

Then, onto Epcot and the Finding Nemo stuff...but only after the "Build your own race car" ride...I forget the real name.

The night show at Epcot.

Day 2 brought Epcot most of the day and then we went to Disney Quest in Downtown Disney.  Disney Quest was a HIT with Jackson.  In fact, when we asked him what his favorite thing about Disney was, he will say Disney Quest.  Good to know for next visit...we won't spent the money on the ACTUAL Disney World and just buy a day pass to Disney Quest!!  

Japan at Epcot...because Japan holds a special place in our hearts.

And then, the infamous Disney Quest!  For those of you that don't know, this is a HUGE arcade!!  FOUR FLOORS of arcade games!!  For our video gaming son, this was a little slice of heaven!

We spent something like 3 hours in that place!!  I have to admit, it was fun!  Cody and I got in on the playing too!

Day 3 found us at Hollywood Studios for a lot of the day and then back to Magic Kingdom!

The Stunts, Sounds and Lights Show was AWESOME and was Jackson's favorite thing at Disney...his and mine, and I think Cody's too.  

(Look below...it's Lightening McQueen!)

It was amazing to watch the stunts these cars did!

More Magic Kingdom...at night too!!

Then, Day 4, our last day, we started at Animal Kingdom where we had made reservations for a Character Lunch.  We weren't sure if Jackson would still be into the characters like he was at age 4, but it's safe to say, he was and was into making sure he got every autograph he could!  I loved it too!!  Nothing like seeing Mickey and Daisy give special attention to your kiddo.  Made my heart happy!!

We met up with Goofy again and Pluto later on in the day.  This picture is one of my favorite pictures from our trip.

Here are some more moments from our day at Animal Kingdom!

And then we were off to Epcot for our last meal at a wonderful little French Restaurant.  

We were sad our vacation was over but so very thrilled that we had the opportunity to go.  

(And, we were tired, so there's that too!)