When people talk about the “rainy season,” I though it might last a few weeks or so. We’re on week number four and it’s still pouring outside. Just as I wrote that, the thunder rumbled. There’s a 90% or better chance of rain for the next two days and still a chance over the weekend.

K and I are sun people. It’s where we’re from. Being in the rain or without the sun all the time is pretty tough on our psyche. Plus, we’re on vacation now, and it’s rained the whole time.

We’re trying not to let that stop us. So far on our vacation we’ve gone for a big hike, seen three palaces, visited a traditional village, gone to the zoo, had a picnic on the rooftop of our flat, and today we’re going to the 63 building — one of the iconic buildings in Seoul.

We’ll post some images soon.

We had a good time. It’s hard to believe that this is our second Christmas in Korea. This one is much better than last year, when we went shopping for groceries at E-Mart and Costco. Stuck in traffic on Christmas Day wasn’t anyone’s idea of a great time, but it was completely necessary. On the upside, K got to see her first white Christmas, something that eluded her in places like Chicago and Western Michigan.

This morning was a good old fashioned ex-pat Christmas. We have our little tree (a two-footer) and some gifts for the girls. After opening gifts, we had some coffee and breakfast. Then it was time to call our families back home and wish them a Merry Christmas. A whole day of hanging out together and talking to friends and family. It was really great.

K’s conclusion is that Christmas is much better with kids! Check it out for yourself.

Merry Christmas, everyone! I hope that your holiday is as wonderful as ours. We miss seeing your happy, bright, shining faces and hope that we can see you soon.

Christmas at the English Village is, well, village-like. We managed to get our own tree but the whole village decorated this tree (yes, it’s planted in the ground) and it even lights up at indiscriminate times of the day — mostly at night. It’s beautiful. With the couple of inches of snow we got last week, I thought it was a good time to take a picture. So here are K and I, freezi…er, I mean, basking in the blue light of our community tree.

Have a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year!

But that hasn’t stopped us from adding a little Christmas cheer to the English Village! We were at Toys ‘R’ Us for a little shopping for you-know-who and we picked up a  little Christmas tree. There is one outside that the whole English Village decorated, but it’s not inside and that’s a little bit of bummer. So we bought our second mini tree in four Christmases and wanted to give the Cherub her first shot at trimming the tree. Here is the play-by-play in the only way I know how to say it — in pictures.

One of the things we love to do is eat good food and it seems to reason that taking care of things in the kitchen would be a good place to start creating a home. We’ve made two purchases lately that do just that: an oven and a set of matching dishes. Maybe it’s lame to some people but trust me, when you’re in a totally different environment it can really help the psyche.

The oven is not what you’re thinking of, I’m sure. It’s a counter top convection oven that’s big enough to cook a whole chicken but not a turkey. That’ll give you an idea of the size. K loves to bake and it’s something we really miss in Korea as they don’t really bake in the home. You can go to a bakery but it costs us to get to town and isn’t typically worth the trip just for baked goods (though we’ve managed to get over that hurdle in our minds a few times). Sometimes you just want a part of home and bread, cookies, and muffins are that for us.

The second purchase was something K has been wanting for a while — a new set of dishes. The English Village provided some dishes but was completely inadequate for a family — two large plates, two dessert plates, two coffee mugs…you get the point. At one point we had to take some more spoons and forks from the cafeteria to borrow during our time here just so we don’t have to wash dishes every two hours.

We had managed to find some good, but flimsy, plastic dishes at Costco (yes, like in America) but as decent as they were they just weren’t cutting it for us. As we were just in survival mode, they worked fine but lately K has been keeping her eyes out for “real” dishes. So tonight, after I got off work, we went to Seoul and bought a set of good dishes. You can see pictures of them below. We’re all excited to use them tomorrow and have some proper dishware. We also bought a couple more mugs (not pictured) to go with two mugs we purchased last week.

Things are looking up here in Korea. We’re not totally sure about the future, but wherever that is we’ll have some beautiful plates to eat off of!

One of the real advantages of her size and coordination and speaking ability is that she’s really taken to potty training. We introducing it at 9 months and have been trying it with her since then. One or two weeks ago she walked right up to K and told her she needed to go to the bathroom. Just like that — out of the blue. She knew what she was asking and from that day on has come up to us when she needs to urinate.

It was like that for everything she’s done — walking, talking, crawling. She decided that she would do it and just started doing it. Since that first day she said she needed to go, she hasn’t urinated in her panties or pull-ups.

Today also marked another big day for potty training — the first poopies outside the diaper. My adult students were putting on their dramas this morning and I told K that it would be funny to watch, so they came down to see my group perform. While we were there the cherub said she needed to go to the bathroom and I told her that she would have to use the big potty. She was cool with it and off we went. Turns out that she passed the benchmark of pooping — and in a big toilet, no less! She was happy to do her potty dance and get a nice, sweet lollipop for her efforts.

As I was writing this, she woke up after being in bed for three hours and said she needed to go to the potty. So we went together and now she’s back in her bed. Woke up and said she needed to go potty…pretty unbelievable, we think. But she’s bound and determined to not go in her panties or trainers.

Thankfully, my mother had the foresight to send us some real cloth panties in our last package from home so we can use them now before she grows out of the size. Our little one never ceases to amaze us.

So we had another  family over for dinner and dessert. It was like a really long distance play date, as the cherub had an opportunity to play with someone her own age. They had a ball and were really great together. She enjoys being social and we hope that we can give her more opportunities to hang out with other kids.

We didn’t know this family beforehand — K had been emailing the wife/mother since before we came to Korea — but we had a good time getting to know them. Here are some images from our day off at the Village.