two small fish

costumes and cupcakes

2009-11-01T18:56:00.007+01:00

they don't celebrate halloween here in poland. but my friend julie and i couldn't resist the idea of having some kind of a dress-up party. so julie being a semi-professional baker, we decided to throw costumes and cupcakes party for some of makayla's girlfriends. it was so fun and kids did amazingly well with decorating the cupcakes! i personally enjoyed it so much myself, i must make it a tradition :)

julie's sample cupcakes - so cute - myfavorite was the mummy. though the green alien and the pumpkin was the most popular with the kids.julie giving instructions on how to make each of the cupcakes

makayla is very satisfied with her werewolf! can you believe she made it??

ethan too is happy with his spider. he was the only boy at the party - we figured keeping it all girls would keep the chaos level down. . . . we were right.

we played some games as well - everyone went home happy with many candies and prizes

group shot - impossible to get a decent shot of everyone at this age. . . .

look who performed!

2009-10-28T12:09:00.006+01:00

many probably remember ethan's performance from last year's winternational. he refused to participate and just stood there. . . . this time, he promised that he would perform if i sat in the front row. as soon as i arrived, i knew he was going to do it, he just looked more confident and sure of himself :) he did great and all the teachers were amazed at his transformation into a big boy!

Recipe for "Mexican Wedding Cake" (this is how we do it)

2009-10-04T20:16:00.005+02:00

This is an easy eleven step recipe that you can follow at home.

1. you go hunt for a walnut tree that's not owned by anyone, preferably right off a busy street so everyone can admire a random Asian family picking walnuts in the middle of Krakow. you then pick as many walnuts as possible because one of your family member believes that living off the land is the best thing ever.

2. you re-use your bag that had your breakfast pastry to collect your loot, because that's how environmentally conscious you are. or you are just simply ghetto fabulous.

3. you realize that you don't own a nut cracker so you use your hammer to smash open all your walnuts.

4. you believe in multi-tasking so you feed your neighbor's cat while you are at it.

5. you are ambitious and goal oriented so you put a ridiculous amount of work ahead of you to create a sense of urgency.

6. you admire the fruit of your labor as you take a breather and look pretty.

7. you sift flour as a family because God forbid you get left out.

8. you take a VERY crumbly dough and make them into balls.

9. you make a mental note to never do this crumbly cookie with your children ever again. bad bad choice.

10. enjoy your cookie after a shower.

11. voila! duration: 4 hours. ingredients: flour, off the street walnuts, powder sugar and mutterings under your breath. it was all worth it.

fire hazard and the police

2009-10-01T13:59:00.004+02:00

the week ethan stayed home due to his chicken pox was quite eventful. it involved house being almost burnt down as well as visit from the police.

it all started out rather innocently. ethan wanted to take a nap, i went up with him, and fell asleep. one hour later - as soon as i woke up, i remembered that i had put corn on the stove for ethan's snack. ahhhhhhh - thankfully we were not covered in smoke so i rushed downstairs to discover crispy black corn. i couldn't believe that i did that and was so so grateful that it didn't turn into anything more serious. i think in another 30 minutes, the corn would have caught on fire. phew. thank the Lord.

ethan modeling the burnt corn and wok

as if that wasn't disorienting enough, we later had a visit from the local police the same day. they looked a bit dismayed that i didn't speak Polish, but after my several attempts to call a friend to translate failed, they told me in their broken english - "you put gas, no pay."

well, i haven't been driving since my driver's license expired in the summer so the only person who could have done it was my darling husband. i called him immediately and asked if he pumped gas 4 days ago and forgot to pay. his reply- "oh, yea~ i guess i could have done that." here in poland, you pump gas and then pay the cashier inside the building afterwards. i asked the police "we go pay now? ok?" police replied, "no, not ok. crime." ah-huh. ofcourse, though it was an honest mistake, it is considered shoplifiting. ok, then.

one hour later, with joe, joe's co-worker and police official translator arrival, the police informed us that if it's under 100$ it's usually just a fine, but since it's above that amount (that darn SUV!!), it is now a criminal case. great. the police advised joe to hire a lawyer and come to the station tomorrow to give a testimony. ok.

oh, one more thing before they left, they needed to search the house to make sure that we didn't steal anything else. how they would figure out if i have stolen the box of kit kats or bought them is beyond me. the police officers were perfectly nice and seemed almost apologetic that they had to do that, but regardless, it's a routine they must do. the kicker is that i asked them to take off their shoes to go upstairs in the kids room and they replied, "it's not possible." i'm sorry but at that point, i started to chuckle a bit because i've heard that phrase way too many times since i've been in this country.

"could you slice the beef thinner?" "that's not possible."

"could i have my chicken with rice instead of fries?" "that's impossible".

you get the drift. so i replied, "oh, ok, it's impossible for you to take your shoes off." the tranlator then tells me that while they are on duty, they are not allowed to "undress" just in case they get attacked - they have to be ready to fight. i understand, because we're asian so we can kick butt. i would be worried too, if i met me in the dark alley. all kidding aside, they were just trying to do their job, what can i say? anyhow, joe went to the station next day with a lawyer and they concluded that they "think" joe didn't have criminal intent so we're just awaiting verdict as to what happens next.

after i told this story to a friend of mine, she told me that she did that once and just received a letter 6 months later. when she returned to the station to pay, the manager told her that it happens TWICE a day. they really need to come up with a better system. seriously.

makayla in her 1st grade classroom

chicken pox weekend

2009-09-13T22:15:00.004+02:00

It started out with few spots on his face. We ofcourse thought they were bug bites. We put some cortisone and that was the end of that. Next morning, Ethan woke up covered in spots and I was so distressed that we might have some kind of bugs or something! The idea of chicken pox didn't even cross my mind at first b/c being good American parents we are, both our kids are immunized against it. Well, it turns out that American kids are the only kids on this planet who are vaccinated against it and Europe is filled with children who have chicken pox. Also, there's 22% chance that immunization won't protect your children. Ethan fell in the 22% and Makayla in the 78%.

So my poor baby had to spend the whole weekend at home - and ofcourse, he had to pick a weekend full of fun for him to be homebound. . . . What a weekend for Makayla - full attention from mommy and friends without anyone to steal her thunder. It started with her usual swimming lessons on Sat morning, then walk in the park to discover there's a circus in town. Bought tickets to the circus, off to her tennis lesson and to the circus with mommy and some friends. (this Polish circus lasted 2 1/2 hours and it cost us $15 for the both of us - can't beat that!) Then Sunday was a big joint birthday party for her and her friend Cora at the pool. Boy, whoever thought that having 15 kids in a public pool was a good idea for a party (me and my friend Elysa, obviously) wasn't listening to the inner voice whispering "crazy... you're crazy..." Anyhow, despite the initial chaos, it was a great party overall - Makayla told me that she wants to do that again for next year! After the party, we stopped by our friend's house who was hosting a church picnic and joined in all the fun there. All this for Makayla and mommy while Ethan was sitting at home with daddy, watching endless episodes of Scooby-Doo. Ethan was good sport and didn't complain once, he just wanted a piece of cake and some cookies. . . .

look - a circus!

inside the tent - small but they had everything you think of in a circus - clowns, acrobats, dishspinning, elephants, horses, dogs, and camels?

makayla enjoying her HUGE cotton candy (which was basically shared by 4 other kids - it was that big. . . .)

makayla and her mermaid cake - hair color to match the birthday girls - love it!

. . . . and there's my poor baby. . . .

unbelievable. . .

2009-09-04T14:39:00.004+02:00

really? i haven't blogged for exactly 6 months? unbelievable. well, here i am, trying to get back on the wagon. i guess after 2 years in Krakow, our family has fully adjusted to the change here and life continues - so my blog about adventures in Krakow will now be about our non-adventures in Krakow. i'll be posting mostly pictures and stories about the kids since it seems to be only family members who drops in once in a while to see updated pictures of the kids. those family members, namely my mom, has not caught up with facebook, obviously.

anyhow, since the last post, we have traveled around the world. korea-china-amsterdam-paris-prague-ireland. phew. kids did super well in all our travels and they especially enjoyed their asia trip. we have to plan another one soon!

makayla is now 6 - entered 1st grade and ethan is 4!!! their exchanges have been endlessly entertaining. here are some sample dialogues.

Mak embracing the mickey spirit

Mak: You know, what the most important part of the body is?
Mom: What?
Mak: It's the brain.
E: Yeah, because it stinks.
Mak: No! Because it THinks - TH, TH, Thinks.
E: Yeah, because it stinks.
Mak: . . . . .

ethan was a bit camera shy during our disney trip for some reason

Mom: What do you want to be when you grow up?
E: Ummmm... a monkey!
Mom: o...k....
E: And a doctor.
Mom: I think you can be a doctor but not a monkey.
E: Why? Makayla is going to be a teacher.
Mom: Well, you're a person.
E: Monkey is an animal.
Mom: Yeah, so it's hard for a person to be an animal. (it's hard? should I have said impossible?)
E: Ok. Then i want to be a dragon.
Mom: A dragon?
E: Yeah, but i don't want fire in my mouth. . . then i'll eat a monkey!!! kkkkkkk. That's silly! We don't eat monkeys. . . . . only fish, right mommy?
Mom: I guess so.

makayla loved posing with disney characters

Mak: (after looking at the messy playroom): Ethan, do you want to help the earth and live, then pick up the toys.
E: I want to live.
Mak: then pick up the toys.
E: (as he picks up some toys off the floor) Am I living now?
Mak: If you pick up the toys, you will live.

shuttle ride to disney!

making wontons with grandpa in holland

how do you sing "happy birthday" in chinese?

2009-03-03T20:08:00.002+01:00

Makayla had a birthday party for one of her classmates - Alex, this past weekend. Joe happened to be there when they were getting ready for the cake.

Antonia (one of Mak's classmate): "we can sing happy birthday in English, Polish, Chinese, French...."
Joe: "Really? Chinese???? How?"

Then the kids in unison, as if they practiced - started to sing Happy Birthday in Chinese. . . .

or so they thought.

To Joe's great amazement and amusement, they were not at all singing in Chinese.

This is what they were singing:

"Chin chin nay nay quai nai~ Chin chin nay nay quai nai ~"

Joe just started to crack up and Alex's dad was like "are they singing in Chinese?" and Joe answered, "I don't know what language they are signing in." but Joe knew that this was the song Makayla made up in her jibberish period.

It was just amazing to see 12 kids sing this jibberish song in unison. It's too embarrassing at this point to tell the children that what they are singing is in fact not only NOT chinese but NOT a language at all!

Since I missed the whole thing, I asked Makayla when she came back from the party.

Me: "I heard that you guys sang in Chinese - how did all the kids know to sing it?"
Mak: (confidently) "Because Antonia and I taught them!"
Me: (not having the heart to tell her that it's not Chinese) "Rrrrrriiiiigggghhhhtttt. Okay...okay..."

Oh, the kicker was that Ethan chimed in with already memorized and well-practiced "chin-chin-nay-nay-quai-nai". oh brother.

skiing

2009-02-17T14:16:00.005+01:00

We finally got a chance to go skiing couple of times over kid's week break in February. We had a visit from Joe's sister and her boyfriend so off we went to a ski resort in Zakopane.

This is Makayla's swimming teacher - she also teaches and runs ski camp during the winter - she's a super athlete! She is so good with kids and patient with them. No one can pay me enough money to teach bunch of kids to ski - nor adults!! It takes special skills to be a teacher. I respect them :)

Ethan didn't ski but was dragged around in his little sled. He insisted on wearing a helmet and goggles - though there was no danger around him at all. He didn't even want to take them off in the lodge. It's always so puzzling what kids get fixated on.

This was the second lesson Makayla had. I took her to a local slope to just get a lesson. I thought she would go about 2 hours. Monica did one lesson and was waving for me to come. I thought they were done but she said that Makayla wants to keep going so they will take a break and do another session. I was amazed at her endurance and desire to keep going. All I remember from my childhood skiing days is me wailing over the fact that I had to carry my own skis from the parking lot to the lodge. So she had another session and by end of the day, Makayla was able to come down from the little hill - top to bottom on her own! It was a great day!

Makayla and Ethan playing air hockey at the lodge.

Drakken Siu

2009-01-30T16:03:00.001+01:00

I'm not sure if it's every boy - but my boy sure seems be drawn to "bad" guys in whatever he sees. He has only seen the cover of Star Wars DVD's and immediately, he likes Darth Vader the most.

One morning, I wake Ethan up to go to school and say"It's time to get up, Ethan Siu." and he goes "I'm not Ethan Siu! I'm Drakken Siu." Those who are not well versed in all things Disney, he is the villain from Kim Possible. And mind you, he's not even a cool villain. He's kind of absent minded and gets bossed around by his supposed employee/side-kick, She-go. In fact, She-go is a much better villain when it comes to actual execution of trying to conquer the world. The picture below portrays the typical dynamics between the two. . . .

this is Monkey Fist, another villain he is partial to. Ethan likes to quote from him. When we were eating snacks one day, out of nowhere, he pumped his fist and declared "You WILL bow down to my POWER!!!" I was like "?????" and he said it again with a serious face "YOU WILL bown down to MY POWER!!!" ooooo-kay. then he just chuckles to himself. . . . My question is: should I be concerned or research ways to channel his "hungry for power" desires for good, and not evil?

how can this sweet face be plotting evil? though he is holding a fire-breathing dragon. . . . if not a weapon. . . or a karate chop. . . .

London trip

2009-01-28T08:42:00.004+01:00

We had another quick trip to London. I had alot on my agenda though Joe was the one going for a business trip. First off, I had to get a haircut at a Japanese salon, which turned out well :) All my friends here thought it was so funny that I had to go all the way to London to get a cut but I'm sure my fellow owners of thick, straight, voluminous Asian hair can attest to the importance of an Asian stylist!
next stop is ofcourse to get some sushi. it was sooooooo good. melt in your mouth - and joe got to try shabu shabu for the first time. it made me think about my dad who used to LOVE shabu shabu - the perfect health food - meat and veggies boiled.

we stayed at the sheraton near sloan street where all the fancy stores were. and look at this. this is a dry cleaner - all the dress shirts were marked and lined up like some fancy shirt store. it really looked like a boutique. i should have found out how much shirt cleaning was.

we went to the V & A museum which is now my favoritest museum!!! before this visit, it used to be the Uffizi gallery in Florence. it was such a fun experience at the V & A! Even Joe really liked it and he was poo pooing it initially because it's more of applied art muesum rather than fine arts. but the way everything was displayed and layed out, it was the most interesting and innovative museum i've been too. I highly recommend it if you are in London. In fact, all the museums in London have been super enjoyable.

they have this Asian exhibition, and we thought this was really funny. it's a "life-sized automaton" - the crank handle operates the mechanisms to make the man's arm flair and make groaning sounds. Is it suppose to be a toy? i personally wouldn't buy it for my kids.

the main hall of the V&A.

we had a meal at the harrod's food court which was the fanciest food court i've ever been to. we had to have fish and chips being in England :)

then my first trip to see Les Mis - Joe's fourth.

Kids were sick when we left so I had to call home like 3x a day. They were okay and just wanted to make sure that we were brining back some goodies for them! What a great trip it was, can't wait to go back - maybe next time with the kids :P

year end countdown 2008

2008-12-31T09:39:00.010+01:00

10. Holland trip - Ethan's hair gets caught on fire. When we were visiting back in January, the kids were waiting for me while I shopped. When I came back, I immediately smelled something burning. When asked, Joe's sister was like "ummmm. . . . ethan's hair got caught on fire. . . ." ethan was reaching out to grab something and his hair touched the kerosene lamp that was on the table. this picture is of the aftermath.

9. Ethan sleeps through most meals - seriously, I would say he missed about almost all lunch outings on the weekends. He would fall asleep as we near the restaurant and sleeps through the meal - then he would wake up and we'd give him the left over or buy him a bagel. It's nice and quiet meals though.

8. Siu's in nature - Ethan getting dragged as we go into the woods to go berry hunting. It's crazy how one with the nature we are becoming being in Poland. I'm a big fan of manicured landscaping, none of that here, thank you very much. just wild and crazy.

7. Learning Chinese - My lessons are going well!!! I'm so much more motivated and actually study during the week! My teacher and I had a funny conversation about the need of Chinese people to have Chinese food. She herself has been in Poland for 7 years to get her PhD. She was telling me that many Chinese men have come to study here but couldn't last more than 5 months because they couldn't eat Chinese food everyday. Puahhahahah. It reminded me of the time when Joe and I went on the Chinese tour of Italy and they would bus us to Chinese restaurants instead of Italian - we ofcoursed escaped to get local fare.

6. Having visitors - this year, we had visits from Joe's parents and Joe's sister :) It was great to show them the town and enjoy their company.
5. Home Leave - crazy but enjoyable. non-stop shopping (for such essentials like ziploc and cold-eeze - not shopping like bags and shoes. . . . unfortunately) and visiting friends :) here, a picutre of ethan making turtle shell sculpture in Cape May and Makayla's birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese.

4. Barcelona Trip - LOVE LOVE LOVE Barcelona. Good friends, good food, good art, friendly people - can't get any better than that.

3. Mallorca Trip - this was a year of all things Spain. I loved every minute of it. Here, every house in this town (Valldemossa) had a plaque of St. Catherine who is Mallorca's patron saint. Joe and I went around town to hunt for different kinds of plaques and gave up after finding out that there were too many varieties. (we have about 10 pictures of me/joe posing with different ones - silly, i know - but that's what we do.)

2. Mak swims! Mak performs! - monumental year of growth for Makayla - oh yeah, she is aslo starting to read and does math but that seems to matter more to Joe than me. Different priorities for different parents.

1. Ethan enters school!! - I was tempted to post a video clip of Ethan kicking and screaming while we forced him into the school bus. But I'd rather leave you with this happy picture a minute before the bus arrived.

PICTURE OF THE YEAR

Makayla chillaxing as she surfs the net sucking on candy. We fear the years to come.

Christmas 2008

2008-12-28T23:49:00.008+01:00

We started our 10 days of Christmas with a quick visit from Joe's parents. First stop was to the pool to witness Makayla's swimming progress. Can you believe she was scared to put her face in the water just 3 months ago???

then off to the market square for the annual Christmas market where kids for some reason end up with lollipops.

on christmas day, kids got to open their presents, little did they know that some of them were gifts from our friends back home from their birthdays in the summer. (like the lightsabre that ethan liked so much - thanks grace!!!) we're not cheap, we're just wise. . . .

also on christmas day, we were invited to one of the american family whose been in Poland for now 20 years! they have 3 lovely daughters who love our children and our kids adore. in fact, ethan has said to the oldest daughter, "i will be with you forever. . . ." we had a great time and had american pecan pie that i've been craving!!!! yummmm.

during this visit, i forgot why, but i started to tell them about the first couple of days in Poland which was the roughest for me. i told them with my dramatic flair about how i had to suffer using a traditional mop and a bucket to clean the floor of our house since poland doesn't have wet swiffer nor steam vac. then they told us their story about when they first came here - how you couldn't buy anything. a truck will come periodically with supply of toilet paper - they would announce that they had toilet paper and people would rush out to get their ration. they also said that you can still read prints off the toilet paper and basically fell apart whenever you used them. i quickly cowered and said "times were different then. . . . ." hee hee.

the day after the christmas, we headed off the the market square - it was way more crowded than last year for some reason. there was a nativity set up at a church (with real mary and joseph!!) and monk band playing. joe loved it for some reason and was rocking it out with them. it was hilarious. what do you guys think??

winternational '08

2008-12-22T22:40:00.006+01:00

kid's school had their winter performance. the theme was around the world and each class was assigned a country to represent. ethan's class represented all the world and we were told to dress the kids in traditional clothing. only thing i had in hand was makayla's purple chinese clothes and a cowboy outfit from halloween. i tried the chinese shirt and pants on him and i thought it looked pretty good. but joe ofcourse was adamantly against ethan wearing girl's clothes and for some reason ethan said "i don't like chhhhiiinneeeseee." so we settled for the cowboy outfit which he didn't even wear - just the vest. as you can see, only the Polish kids dressed up in their nice outfits and kids from bland countries like the States or Sweden ended up wearing good ol' blue jeans.

ethan's performance didn't disappoint. to my surprise, he refused to participate. it was like deja vu of makayla's past 3 performances. now my dream of ethan becoming the next matt lauer has been shattered. he is stage shy and he can't be forced to participate. though there's a glimmer of hope when he gave into peer pressure and came back to the performance - though he didn't dance in circles.

makayla on the other hand participated fully! it took 3 winter performances but she has overcome her fear! her class represented australia so they dressed up in summer clothes. they sang "kookabarre sits in the old gum tree..." it was really cute. makayla hung out with other kids the whole time during the show. . . . she is already entering the stage where friends are cooler than her parents. . . . sniff, sniff. . . .

goggles

2008-11-26T19:16:00.004+01:00

makayla's been taking swimming lessons for the past couple of months. she is now at a stage where she can use goggles. makayla insists on wearing them every day when she showers so she can show off how she can have her eyes open in the water. so naturally ethan wants to wear them as well.

i love how they try to pose without knowing what they really look like.

living off the land part 1

2008-11-17T15:13:00.004+01:00

joe's dream is to "live off the land". he doesn't really want to be a farmer - just have magical trees and land that produce fruit so that he can reap the harvest. he gets really excited whenever we pass some kind of a farm and screams "i want that!!!!"

so when we saw that there are gazillion chestnut trees here in krakow, he got a bit excited. he will drive around looking for a chestnut tree and try to pull over every time he discovers one. which got to be a bit dangerous. one rainy sunday, he was determined to collect some. he went out with a broom in one hand and returned with some of his finds. when he got to the tree, there was an old lady who was also collecting them as well- the competition was on! unfortunately, old Polish grandma's are faster and better at collecting chestnuts than a city boy from new york. anyhow, he was able to return with handful of them.

we were convinced at that point that the chestnuts joe picked up were edible. why else would an old lady be picking them up in the rain??? so without thinking too much, we popped them in the oven and baked them. when it came out, joe handed them over to me and i opened one and popped it in my mouth.

i ran straight to the sink and spit it out.

me: "ummmmm.... i don't think we're suppose to be eating them."
joe: "is it not ripe? or is it not cooked enough?"
me: "i don't know but it just doesn't taste right. my mouth tastes so bitter now. gross."
joe: "hmmm. maybe we should look it up online."

few minutes later.

joe: "yeah, you're not suppose to eat them. it's called horse chestnut or buck eye and it's toxic - it apparently thins or kills red blood cells. . . .. sooorrryyy."
me: "**%$#@!!! thanks alot!"

so much for living off the land. this is what happens when you have cityslickers trying to be one with the nature.

after much research, we were able to locate "real" chestnuts here - hidden inside the zoo. joe is now preparing for next year so that he can go to the zoo during the peak time to pick up more "real" chestnuts.
can you tell the difference? one is the toxic buck eye and the other, yummy chestnut.

oh yeah, and you are probably wondering why in the world the old lady was picking up the toxic chestnuts in the rain. apparently, it's every Polish child's duty to create an animal using these things as a craft project. though my love for crafts run deep, i will not be utilizing any material that almost killed me.

i have no doubt in my mind that if i'm lost in the wilderness, no amount of watching "man vs. wild" will save me. or joe for that matter. sad, but true.

the most random thing

2008-10-16T10:49:00.002+02:00

i gave up Polish completely. it's difficult and there's no motivation - other than the fact that i look like an idiot using all kinds of body language to communicate that i want my beef cut thinner. and you know me, i can live with that. i have no shame.

so i turned my attention to wanting to learn mandarin. mostly because i want the kids to learn. i'm ashamed that my children speak only 1 language when between the two of us we speak 4 languages fluently. now, that's a shame. so if i had to pick a lanugage, it would be chinese. but not cantonese which joe speaks - hong kong - i highly doubt will become up and coming city, it has seen it's glory days and it just is getting more crowded and polluted. so off to the rest of china we go!

do you know how random it is to find a class or teacher to teach mandarin in poland (and mind you, teach mandarin in english NOT polish)? do you see the sheer madness of it all? well, i may have found that one random person! my friend stumbled upon an ad and hearing me whine about wanting to learn mandarin - she wrote down the info. and you know what? she is a native mandarin speaker here doing her ph.d. how crazy is that? so i'll meet her next week to make sure she is not a psychopath and make sure that she speaks decent english and start lessons in november. whoo-hoo! now, joe is doubtful that he will get a decent return on this investment. yes, i'm generally a quitter. i'm not afraid to admit it. and i keep having to remind him that i have to try 10 million things before i find what i really like and enjoy :P and really, the way i see it, i never quit on what's important (relationships) and i just know when to stop - very wise indeed.

i will end with a video of the kids' favorite activity lately. makayla wants to be a teacher and a mommy when she grows up. i bought this whiteboard to foster that dream and they've been playing with it non-stop. though it means i have to be a student and copy down whatever they write on the board (10 times!) - that's the downside. neither of them want to be a student - only a teacher. in one scene, ethan cracks himself up and holds his tummy - i think it's so funny! where do kids learn that kind of gestures? it's hilarious. makayla also scored that lanyard around her neck from a supermarket which makes her look more teacher-y. nice.

conjoined banana

2008-09-29T15:26:00.002+02:00

so how do you tell someone who is excited about something that what they have discovered is no big deal? well, i had to be the bad guy. joe came hoem from a supermarket with this "special" banana. he thought it was the most unusual thing and just kept going on and on about it. i was like "i hate to say it but if it was that unusual, don't you think that the farmer or the store keeper would have kept it instead of selling it?" well, he didn't believe me. he said "they worship this stuff in India!!" ofcourse, i can't just let it go so i needed to delve more into it.

and guess what? there's bunch of blogs and youtube video dedicated to conjoined bananas. it was so funny. in fact, one of the blog was someone who lives in India ~ ahhahahahhahh. so obviously they don't worship this stuff. we were cracking up as i kept giving joe the eyes of "i told you so."

bedtime ritual

2008-09-16T20:10:00.001+02:00

as a stalling tactic, our children have developed this ridiculous ritual of putting their stuffed animals to bed. they change the configuration EVERY night and then decide where they are going to sleep.

for example, below, you see that ethan has given the top portion of the bed to the animals, thus squeezing himself on the bottom portion of the bed almost about to fall off. and if it's not done the way they wanted to, they freak out.

ethan was obsessed about blankets being completely flat for a while and drove us totally crazy. while we were putting him down, he would demand the blanket to be "fwatter, fwatter!!!! fwatter, fwatter!!!!" the person who was putting him down for the night usually gets so annoyed that the other person has to intervene and continue with flattening the blanket. thank goodness that phase is over - he would come out middle of the night screaming - "the blanket is not FWAT!!!! it's all wrinkleddddddddd!!!!" and one of us has to go fix it and remind him that the blanket cannot be flat when he is in it. kraygee.

ethan is happy with tonight's configuration with snoopy and bear tucked inside the pillow
makayla putting the baby blanket over her koala before she slides into her blanket. makayla's ritual is much tamer though for a while she was collecting all kinds of toys under her bed like a bag lady. that drove our cleaning lady batty. today she only has a colored picture of hello kitty by the foot of the bed - progress, i tell you.

summer highlights: one

2008-09-15T14:13:00.006+02:00

It turned really cold all of a sudden this past weekend. it's now in it's 40's - brrrrrr. to look over these pictures from the summer is a bit torturous thinking about what is to come. . . .

disclaimer: makayla doesn't like to be photographed - ethan on the other hand loves it.

chinatown: philly - oh how we miss you salt baked squid!
natural history museum: ny - not as big of a hit as we expected with the kids
bike tour (or rather a quick hop from the museum to the park) : ny - note: never let kids have popsicles on a bike, it melts at ridiculous speed and splatters everywhere . . . .
central park: ny
pinkberry: ny - note: you're not allowed to take pictures inside pinkberry - give me a break.

visiting friends: ny

the apple store: ny - joe little too happy to stumble upon the shop while going for a walk at 10pm

FAO schwartz: ny - my goodness! the best toy store EVER. haven't been there in ages - you can spend good 3 hours in there!

ethan in 15 years

2008-09-10T19:39:00.000+02:00

recently, i've been obsessing about this korean hip hop boy band - "big bang". they seem to be really popular and i like their songs too. but the reason i'm obsessing is not because i like them necessarily - but because one of the member reminds me of ethan so much. i keep looking at him and say to myself "that's what ethan is going to look like in 15 years!!" okay, okay, i hope that no fans of "g-dragon" randomly finds this blog and send me hate mails. . . .

joe thinks i'm so weird because i would look up "g-dragon" on youtube and make him watch it with me and confirm the fact that they kind of look alike. is that so weird? as a parent, don't you imagine what your child will look like when they are older?- and if you find someone who kind of look like they could be the grown up version of your child - wouldn't you obsess about it??? now, i would like to see someone who looks like makayla!!

i obviously think ethan is going to be better looking :P (i guess this is where i get the hate mails....) but they seem to have some similar aura and expressions. dont' you think??

blonde makayla

2008-09-09T19:31:00.000+02:00

makayla has a classmate who is swedish. our families have become very close and hang out together often. the funny thing is that both families think that makayla and ester look extremely alike. they are the same height, same shape, has similar expressions. it's very cute. now i know what makayla would look like if she was blonde. . . .

just imagine makayla with blonde hair and light eyebrows - they'll look like twins!

kungfu panda

2008-09-08T19:21:00.001+02:00

while we were in the states, makayla and ethan got to see their first movie in the theater. kungfu panda. ever since then, ethan is a little obssessed with kungfu moves. the other day, we were in the supermarket when ethan started to do all kinds of kungfu moves screaming "hi-ya!!!" though it was extremely hilarious, i was worried that we were feeding into asian stereotype. i mean, come on, how many asian boys are in Polish supermarkets? they MUST think that all asian boys learn to do martial arts at an early age. . . . would they think that all asian boys aspire to be bruce lee??? i guess better that than thinking all asian boys are geeky math wiz. . . . though joe might differ in that opinion.

"snake"

"tigress"

"panda"

first day of school

2008-09-01T18:02:00.002+02:00

welcome back everyone!!

no labor day here - which means that the first day of school was today! and my baby boy's first time in school - sniff, sniff. i couldn't even believe myself at how sad i got thinking about having ethan in school full time. when makayla started school part-time when she was two, i felt like she was ready and i was ready. no tears on either of our part, and off she went. ethan is three and i had such hard time letting go. i realized that without me knowing, i totally babied him! so, i know it's good for both us - but it's a big jump from being home full time to going to school 8-4 EVERY day!!!

As I suspected, he went into the school bus kicking and screaming. I called the driver 15 minutes later and he said that ethan was looking out the window after about 10 minutes of crying. though makayla reported that ethan cried all the way to school (35 min. drive), i will choose to believe the driver for my sake, even though makayla is an accurate reporter and the driver could be just saying that to ease my mind. people must have known how anxious i was, one of the mom kindly texted me that ethan was all smiles at school. they both came back happy from their first day and the driver told me that ethan said that he will be braver tomorrow. we shall see.

all ready with their backpacks - it's really chilly in the morning here so they both have their jackets on.

my baby!!! all grown up..... off to school!

i was highly debating whether i should pick them up at school but i decided not to. more time on the bus, faster the adjustment. so to ease my guilt, i made them cupcakes (from scratch!!!) and frosting (from scratch!!!) for them to decorate with sprinkles. i know, i know, the colors of frosting are little weird - i bought food coloring (can't find them here) in the states and i picked these "true to nature" colorings rather than neon pink or yellow. so here you have it, muted green and slate grey. not the most appetizing colors, but once they tasted the sugar, it's all the same to them.

makayla decorating her cupcakeyum.... concrete frosting

all the better with more sugary sprinkles.....

i hope to post some updates about this summer - now that i have all this time!

off for the summer

2008-06-21T23:08:00.002+02:00

we're off to the states this coming tuesday! i have so much to do when i'm there so i won't be blogging at all for the month of july (nor june it seems like :P)

i'm back in poland in august so i'll be back then. have a great summer everyone!

Miss Little Manners

2008-05-21T12:57:00.003+02:00

I have to brag on my daughter for a second. Joe and I had a parent teacher conference the other day and as you expect from a preschool, she got raving reviews. Does preschool teacher ever say anything negative about your child? anyhow, she interrupted the meeting and said, "I have to say before I forget that when my daughter gets older (she is now like 5 months old), I want her to be just like Makayla when it comes to manners. Makayla is has the best manners I have seen in a child. Everytime she asks for something, it's always 'please' and then 'thank you'. It must be something you are doing at home, can you tell me what you do?" She was just gushing about Mak's manners.

Joe and I looked at each other dumbfounded and started laughing. That kind of gave away the opportunity to publish a book titled "how to raise a well-mannerd child". we were both like "we try to teach her to say thank you just like any other parents but we don't do anything special...." she looked disappointed that i didn't have a list of "how-to's" for her but i wasn't quick witted enough to come up with something.

I have to admit, i was very proud of her but knew that it wasn't any of our doing - since she is plenty rude at our home. but i was truly thankful. ever since i took a parenting class at COS, i realized that kids these days are becoming ruder and more spoiled. i remember thinking, "if i can even get my kids to have some manners, teach them to greet people well, they'll be like a beacon of light in midst of darkness!" so on with my little mission to teach my kids to have manners that should have been common courtesy 20 years ago! and i bet when ethan starts school next year, this teacher will NOT ask what we're doing right in our house :) God makes each child truly unique and God bless them all!

makaya in her school play

emergency room

2008-05-21T09:18:00.002+02:00

while chilling after church on sunday, makayla and ethan were playing rough as usual. it is always in matter of a split second that fun enters disaster zone. ethan was sitting on a blanket when makayla decided to pull it out under him. he then fell and hit his face on the couch.

he then cried this cry that all mothers know that he's seriously hurt so i jump out of my seat to see what happened. sure enough, ethan was spewing blood. when he hit his face, he bit his lower lip so hard that it made a significant cut - not one of those little thing that happens when you chew your food funky.

i called the pediatrician here (you can call your dr. direcly on his cell phone - how crazy is that??) and he thought that i should take him to the ER to make sure there's nothing serious.

so off to our adventure in Krakow hospital for the first time.

we drove 25 min to the Polish American Children's Hospital - though there was nothing American about it - no signs in English or anything. It must have been started by an american, but that's about it. anyhow, i enter with ethan while joe parked. do i know the word "emergency room"? ofcourse not. but figured that some of those long words are similar in polish, i walked over to the store owner and say "gdzie jest emergencia?" - "where is emergencia?" - WRONG! they looked at me like what are you talking about?? - so I try different versions of it. "emergencianem?" "emergenski?" one of the lady looked at ethan and said "osatearejh lakhlkh?" and i was like "uh-huh." then pointed me to the right direction :)

we then managed registration and waited in the waiting room. we were seen by a nurse and then a doctor who decided ethan would need just one stitch. it was painful to watch the needle go in his mouth but ethan was brave and strong :) yay for ethan!

overall, it was a pleasant experience, though i was acting all freaky b/c all the trash cans with all kinds of contagious looking things didn't even have lids on it. i was screaming "DON'T TOUCH ANYTHING!!!!!" to ethan and mak. joe was like "it's cleaner than i thought." i was like "it's exactly what i imagined - tolerably clean but gloomy. " so now i know where to go when emergency strikes again - and ethan is already registered in the computer so that's good news. or is it?

Day 2-3

2008-05-18T17:57:00.001+02:00

having pretty brutal past couple of weeks. this post has been sitting on my draft for days - so here it is.

Day 2 was a sunday, so we started off with sunday service. then wing kiu and her boyfriend went on a 3 hour walking tour of the old Jewish neighborhood. they said that it was super informative and really interesting. we stayed home and gave the kids a nap and prepared a yummy tempura dinner.

Day 3

Entrance to the Wawel Castle

inside the castle's courtyard

there are only limited number of tickets to enter inside so we had to kill some time while we were waiting for our turn. We were just jumping around and taking action shots.

ethan looks like he's walking on air!taking some family portraits - and unfortunately, they won't let you take pictures of inside the castle. . . .then off to the market square for lunch - we stopped by this counter of this fancy food store we picked out a pig neck meat sandwich in fresh roll with mustartd. so yummy! it was so good we went back and got another one.

head statue in middle of the market square

makayla downing two ice cream cones

in the evening, we went to this carnival (traveling through different cities in europe) and rode this super unsafe looking ferris wheel that moved at inappropriately fast speed. i'm seriously faking ease and smile here - my one arm holding on to the rail and other arm holding on to makayla - for my safety, not hers :P then joe and his siter decided to ride this even more ridiculously fast spinning thing. (no litigation, no fear) they said that they couldn't breath when it was spinning at top speed. needless to say, this was the last ride. fun.

When visiting krakow. . . . Day 1

2008-04-28T17:06:00.004+02:00

It's been GORGEOUS weather here in Krakow. and Joe's sister and her boyfriends has picked the perfect long weekend to come visit us. So here we are doing some touristsy things we were waiting to do until we had visitors. If you ever come to visit, this is pretty much the itinerary we will follow so you know :)

carriage ride around the Old Town.
Ethan under the impression that he is some kind of a royal, waving to the common folks.
coffee at our favorite spot in the market square.
munching on cotton candy.
watching the breakdancers. . . . yet again. . . . the same routine. . . . old for us, new for you. though kids doesn't seem to get sick of them. they do change their t-shirt colors to red and blue here and there.

chase big bubbles and relive your childhood.

spring '08

2008-04-21T09:40:00.004+02:00

man, where does the time go??? already mid-april. i've been quite stressed about renting our house back in the states. praise God - we found a renter and it seems like it'll work out really well. we're finalizing our summer schedule and we will be back in the states end of june! whoo-hoo. i've also been busy sewing and jewelry making. after making some necklaces, i realized that i enjoy making daintier jewelry rather than chunky funky ones. it's weird, i know, because i'm not a dainty person.

check out rest of the collection (earrings and kid's earrings) on flickr.

these are two necklaces in one - did you guys see "27 dresses"? in it, the actress wears two or three small necklaces at once which i really really liked. i need to get my hands on silver sheets to cut out shapes to make it the way i really want. . . .

Spring Break

2008-04-09T16:32:00.002+02:00

Makayla is on spring break this week and early next week. we initially wanted to take a trip to cinque terra, italy but after some simple math with euros and dollars, we decided to postpone the trip until the dollar comes back a bit. (which to my swedish friend replied - "oh, you mean in 15 years?" - nice.) so we have many activities scheduled to keep ourselves from going crazy from boredom. today was a first real spring weather, we decided to plant some flowers in the garden. though apparently, you shouldn't plant anything until may since the weather in april is super unpredictable. . . . we'll see if it'll last.

makayla picking out flowers

ofcourse she picked purple and pink flowers - her favorite colors at the moment. i now realize why it's so hard to find non-pink clothes for girls. mak is starting to be picky with what she wears and refuses to wear all the classy browns and blacks i have for her - and only demands pink, hot pink, pale pink and occasionally purple. yikes. what to do with all her fabulous neutrals? if there's a girl who's only into neutrals, i'd like to meet her and give her half of mak's wardrobe. . . .

ethan carrying the tray of flowers - doesn't he look so grown-up here?

watering the fruit of our labor

Boleslawiec Trip

2008-04-08T13:32:00.004+02:00

Happy 6th Anniversary!! (joe looks litle too tanned - doesn't he??)

So for our anniversary gift, joe sent me along with couple of the ladies to go to the Polish pottery factory to purchase some dishes. Apparently, it's really famous but ofcourse I didn't know - though my Polish friends don't seem to have them - but all the foreigners do :) I just went to buy some bakeware since they told me that it's really easy to clean and bakes well. But once i stepped inside to see all the different patterns, i was mesmorized. i usually like my dishes super clean and simple but i really liked some of them (though some are not at all appealing...) and how it felt in my hands - especially the mugs! i think i'll be going back to pick some more pieces before i go back to the states permanently - especially if the dollar comes back!!!

Boleslawiec pottery - read more about it here

my favorite purchase - huge platter with handles.

obviously, i bought way more than i planned. . . . but those polka dotted mugs make me smile everytime i look at it :)

chronicles of makayla

2008-03-26T09:59:00.012+01:00

i realized that both of my children could be poster children for sibiling order. ethan as described before is a charmer, manipulater, irresponsible and fun. makayla on the other hand is a typical older sister - responsible and sympathetic. other than that, i feel like she's a mini-me.

point 1: loves crafts

makayla is a prolific crafter - the amount of paper we go through in drawing and making will make al gore cry. she loves it. she put on a paper puppet show the other day. she drew and cut out different people and went behind the cabinet. using two puppets, she said "hi mommy, this is ethan and this is 'kray-gee'" i was like "excuse me?" what is the other puppet's name? " "kkkkrrraaaayyyy-geeeeee." i started to crack up - she even talks like me - whenever i see something strange - i say 'that's kray-gee.' i guess she couldn't help but pick that up.....

point 2: language inclined

i'm not joking when i say that her polish is better than mine - and we both take a class once a week. she can count in polish, french, italian and chinese and sing happy birthday in english, polish and french.

after one lesson in sunday school, makayla comes to me and tells me "mommy, do you know what corn flakes in polish is?" "i don't know" "it's MANNA!" apparently, they were doing a lesson on moses and wandering in the desert - the teacher (obviously teaching in polish) sprinkled cereal shouting "manna, manna!" how can i confuse her further and tell her that it's Hebrew and that was the language used during the Bible times - too much info for even my fully developed brain. so we just left it at that. we'll most likely have more trouble when we go back to the states and she has another bible lesson about manna. she'll REALLY be confused as to why people are speaking Polish!

point 3: empathyetic

makayla is a bundle of empathy and sensitivity. though i'm empathetic, i'm not so sensitive so it's difficult for me to understand when makayla can't watch any of the disney movies b/c she's crying at every remotely sad scenes. i.e. when belle is separated from her father in beauty and the beast "wahhhhhh, belle is not going to see her father again.....wahhhhhh." or when nemo is taken away "wahhhhhh, nemo is separated from his father.....wahhhhhh." she'll start bawling that it's not worth watching it with her. so we usually settle for miss pattycake or leapfrog word factory.

point 4: can't let things go

this is another similarity between mak and i. we can't simply let go of conflicts until we're truly reconciled. the other day, makayla got reprimanded for disobeying. she immediately said "i'm sorry" and i thought we were over it. but she continued to sit there, thinking about it and when i finally approached her, she started to tear and said "but you hurt my feelings when you said ....." so i had to apologize that i sounded harsh and we hugged and made up.

point 5: she's a great sister

since only my brother can deny this fact and i don't think that he would be posting any rebuttals here so here it goes.

makayla takes great care of ethan - i couldn't have asked for a better helper. she puts on his coat and shoes and feeds him when he's being lazy. when i gave pasta salad to them today, she started to feed ethan. i said to her "you should eat yours, let ethan eat his." she replied, "it's okay, i'll feed ethan first, i think he's hungry."

it's also funny to see her future parenting style - which is a replica of ours, obviously. she would say something like "ethan, eat your pasta. do you want a cookie? then you have to eat your pasta. if you dont' eat your pasta, you can't have any cookies!" - just like joe - reward and threat - only ammos in joe's parenting bag. me on the other hand, is much more sophisticated, i also have manipulation and coersion!

it would be nicer if ethan appreciated all his sister's efforts and didn't try to swipe everything mak plays with and end up wrestling which inevitably ends with one of them wailing.....

Easter weekend

2008-03-23T09:17:00.004+01:00

Hope everyone had a great easter!

On saturday, we went over to one of the missionary's house for an egghunt. It was really nice becuase they have 3 older daughters who took care of all the little ones! whoo-hoo! kids had a great time that we had to hide the eggs twice and makayla managed to zoom through the yard and collect 13 eggs and came out a winner! should i be proud or a bit scared of her greed?

ethan wanted me to pick up all the eggs... so typical. if you notice, they don't have those plastic eggs you fill with candy here - actually, they don't have the whole egghunt tradition.... so we just used boiled eggs - oh, and it was really hard to find white eggs so we had to stick with brown.
makayla claiming all the eggs
egghunt ended with ethan with crocodile tears - he was hit by a ball that boys were playing with.

After the egghunt, we headed over to the local Catholic church. There's a Polish Catholic tradition where you take a basket (filled with eggs, kielbasa, horseradish, bread, orange) to the church and get it blessed with holy water. Kids got super excited about filling the basket and ethan kept sneaking a bite of the bread - i wonder if Polish people will be horrified about that??? I was told by my Polish friend that during the communist time, she hated going to the church for this tradition since it was kind of a show of who can bring the best kielbasa or best hand embroidered doilies - something like that. i guess kind of like fashion shows you can have at some American churches.....

i actually went to get a picture of this! the head is cut off because i had my camera on my waist trying to be inconspicuous as possible :P Polish people clean their house from top to bottom a month before Easter in preparation. So often times, mothers are still busy cleaning the house so they send their sons or grandsons to get the basket blessed. So you see these punks who you usually don't see at churches carrying these dainty baskets to get holy water sprinkled on them. really funny. we, too, were successful in getting some holy water on our basket - hope we have a fruitful year!

we rounded up our Easter weekend with some egg dyeing. note to self: brown eggs don't dye as well as white ones.

barcelona

2008-03-16T13:15:00.005+01:00

Originally, several of my friends were suppose to visit me here in Krakow. but after much heated debate (not really), we settled for meeting up in Barcelona. Obviously, i wasn't complaining since i've always wanted to visit all the amazing architecture in the city and it certainly didn't disappoint! here are some (well, lots) of pics.

Day 1: eating and walking down La Rambla.

Day 2: Gaudi Day - super inspiring and amazing!!!

La Casa Mila
La Sagrada Familia
amazing unfinished interiors of sagrada familia

Parc Guell: MAGICAL - and if you know me, i dont' use that kind of language, but it felt more like being in a fairy tale than disneyland!!

Day 3: Montserrat - almost man-made looking rock formation of a mountain. strange but awe-inspiring.

monastery nestled in middle of the mountain. it really blends in. too many tourists, no monks to be seen :( riding the furnicular (never heard of that word before) going up the mountain hermitage - we can barely survive 10 minutes, let alone days/weeks/months in these holes.
jamie trying to rock-climb in her burberry coat. (she's just lying down, actually)

Day 1, 2, 3 and 4: FOOD, FOOD, FOOD!!!

our first stop was the famous La Boqueria market's lunch counter. intimidating because nothing is written in English but my super spanish speaking Jamie ordered fabulously as she pointed what everyone else was eating shouting "uno, dos, tres!!!" this one is little fishies (maybe anchovies) with fried eggs. yummy. too busy eating, little time to take pictures.

me and cava sangria.
array of tapas - look at those mussles!!
paella
tapas bar hopping - more like cavas (local sparkling wine) hopping for hyelee.
food was just SUPERB - couldn't have asked for more! oh, the company was alright, too :)

we found a perfect car suited for hyelee's size - the SMART car - she insisted that MINI that was parked right next to it was more her but we disagreed.

chronicles of ethan

2008-02-28T10:51:00.013+01:00

i've been busy spending quite some time with Ethan regarding his character development - and let me tell you, it ain't easy.

one time he crumbled crackers on the table and then spread it all over the floor. as i was cleaning, he could tell my temperature rising. he says "sowwy mommy" - i ask "why are you sorry?" he then answers "i don't know, i don't want mommy angwy." i then spent the next ten minutes about how it's selfish of him to make a mess and expect others to clean, blah, blah, blah. do you think any of them reigstered to my 2 year old - i think not.

i'm beginning to see that he places high value on "intent". he feels that if he didn't intend to break something, he shouldn't be punished for it - though i told him million times that he should not swing the swiffer. his favorite saying right now is "IT'S NOT TWUE!" one time, he ran to the TV and pushed it real hard with his hands. the TV shook and it almost toppled over. in shock, i screamed "Ethan!!! You almost broke the TV!" to which he replied with a serious frown and attitude "NO!!!!!!! IT'S NOT TWUE!!!!!" I guess in his world it wasn't true, since that was NOT his intention. the funniest thing was that Makayla then walked over to me and whispered in my ear "it's true, mommy."

in our household, the only time you don't share your food is when you are sick. one time i overheard....
mak: "ethan, can i have one strawberry?"
ethan: hiding the bowl... "i'm sick!!!" (he was completely healthy.... and he knew it.)

one sunday, he refused to change. when joe tried to force him to change, he screamed bloody murder - "i don't like you - go away!!!" usually, if we simply walk away, he concedes and runs after saying "sowwy, don't go away." but every so often, he doesn't budge. since makayla and i happen to be in the room as well, we all try to counsel him to put on his clothes - to no avail. he then continued to say, "i don't like mommy and daddy. go away." so we told him that it's our house that he should go away and kicked him out of the room. he then says "i like makayla, come on, kayla." makayla then clings to me and says "i want to stay with mommy and daddy." we think at this point, he'll just give in, but NO. he says "okeee." and walks out. we then hear the pitter patter of his feet for the next 10 minutes going up and down the stairs freely, without a care in the world. we were now stuck in our room waiting for Ethan to come back and change..... after some time, makayla goes "can i go get ethan now?" we say "ooooo-kay" makayla then yells "ethan!!!!" ethan runs back to the room and joe sheepishly asks "are you ready to change now?" ethan answers "yesh." now tell me, who's the boss of this house?

one morning, joe make kielbasa to take to work for lunch. he put it in the tupperware with cucumber. he then went upstairs to shower and left ethan downstairs - when he came back, he found this - some INSIDE the rice cooker, INSIDE the coffee pot and on the pan. obviously he got in big trouble - but it was hard to keep a straight face. and ofcouse we took some pictures ;)

another thing with ethan is that he hates kissing. this morning, he wanted a banana so i asked for a kiss - he goes "how about a hug?" when he really wants something, he reluctantly obliges and immediately wipes his mouth and says "dishgushting." nice.

these character issues combined with his charm and killer smile has to be a deadly combination of trouble. any wisdom, counsel or advise is welcome.

when in rome. . .

2008-02-21T18:07:00.000+01:00

oh my! it's already becoming end of february???? i gotta fill my quota for this month (not that anyone cares. . . .) so here's my latest list of discovery.

the picture is totally irrelevant - mustache is just "in" in our household right now.

you can tell when you and your kids are becoming european/polish when. . . .

1. your children demand cucumber, baguette and olive oil for snacks.

2. you start to prepare coins to use the restroom

3. you start to think walking with a baby in stroller in freezing weather is a good idea.

4. ordering french fries instead of rice with chinese food becomes normal.

5. when your bread doesn't go moldy in 3 days, you wonder what is going on. (they don't use preservatives here!)

6. you declare charmin toilet paper to be the softest thing on earth and save it only to blow your children's nose.

7. you think lukewarm coke in restaurants is acceptable. what's ice?

8. you automatically think that 11.02.08 means february 11th instead of november.

9. you think 10% tip is MORE than enough for dinners

10. having no leg room in the bathroom doesn't bother you anymore.

many are bathroom or food related, i realized - those are the biggest adjustment issues, right???

valentine's day

2008-02-14T23:16:00.004+01:00

hope everyone had a great valentine's day! apparently, it's only recently that people started to celebrate valentine's day here - in fact, i got no notice from mak's school to prepare treats for her class. but being that it's one of her favorite holiday, we couldn't just let it pass. so here is what we made. it's chupa chups attached to a big mustache for boys and big red lips for girls. credit due here.

ethan modeling the mustache. he knew that we were preparing them so as soon as he woke up, he goes "happy valentine's day! where's my wowwipop?" thus lollipop in his pj's and blurry picture.

btw, i KNEW i had to put a disclaimer for the stockings picture in the last post!!! thank you all for commenting on how good my legs looked. i'll make sure never to expose them again in fear of incurring your envy and jealousy. anyhow, poor jin, ms. poor circulation, i will try to find a pair for you, my friend, though the winter is almost over. . . .

also, i wanted to include a shoutout to GOOGLE READER for things i'm loving these days. you guys all need to sign up! you can basically get updates from every website you visit on a regular basis. it made my life so much easier now that i don't have to track all my craft blogs by visiting each sites - but it doesn't work for blogs that are locked or private. enjoy!

loving. . . .

2008-02-07T21:42:00.000+01:00

currently loving. . . .

sipahh straws - i first encountered them when we went to McDonald's here. when we ordered chocolate milk, we were given regular milk and this straw that magically (not magic) transforms regular milk into - chocolate, strawberry, banana, caramel milk!!! how great is that??? the thing is, it's not as sweet as the ready made ones so it's popular with me, not so popular with the kids.

ok, milka chocolate. the best thing that has happened to cheap chocolate. believe me, i've tried my share of gourmet and handmade chocolates but i was still hershey's kisses girl. i don't like anything added to my chocolate, no nuts, no rice thingies, no fruit, no alcohol, no thank you. i just like smooth milk chocolate - so i've stuck with my hersheys until i met this guy. wow, this is the BEST cheap milk chocolate around. i think it's only available in europe, so i will have to bring a stash to prove it to my fellow cheap chocoholic - namely, sooj.

this winter hasn't been all that bad but there was one important discovery here in poland. fleece lined tights! when i went to the market across from joe's work to buy some black stockings, i discovered this gem. it's super elastic like regular tights but has super warm fleece linings! perfect for winter! no need for ugly long john's - just cleverly hidden stylish tights! if you want a pair, i'll be taking orders via email. (just kidding, please don't email me.)

oh, and not so currently loving. . . . pain of setting up shop. i've been looking into developing my children's jewelry line and the reason that there's a lack of handmade children's jewelry is fear of liability! i should've guessed. the realities of doing business in the States sucks. i'm hoping that my lawyer friends, especially the one who is folding laundry with her law degree framed in her laundry room will help me out when it comes time :P

anyways, girls earrings are all packaged and ready to be sent out to my pierced little friends! hope they like them!

amsterdam

2008-02-07T18:03:00.001+01:00

amsterdam was a week long play for the kids and no vacation for me and joe at all. when you have two little kids, forget doing anything really interesting. forget museums. forget nice restaurants. forget walking around just browsing. everyone also came home with a cold and makayla's been out of school for the last two days because of a high fever. nice. anyways, here's some pictures to recap fun our kids had.

fun #1: while i was out doing quick shopping, ethan managed to burn his hair in the kerosene lamp you see in the middle. i came back to the restaurant to smell the burn and look at his singed hair. thank the Lord nothing serious happened. he was apparently trying to reach for something on Makayla's plate when joe's sister noticed funny smell. poor auntie was all frazzled - trying to put out the fire by hitting on ethan's head. thank you!

fun#2: gigantic underground play area in amsterdam. we went to this place twice in one week. kids loved it so much, they were sweating in middle of the winter.

fun #3: rotterdam zoo. there was a rainstorm on that day - the parking lot was EMPTY! we got the closest parking space in the whole lot. okay, i guess that doesn't mean anything when there was no one there. . . . but we RAN to the aquarium area and had fun nevertheless. we didn't get to see a single real animal - but lots of fish.

and apple pie and ice cream.

i'm not sure if it was before or after the zoo but ethan and makayla started to communicate each other with a growl. when they don't like something that each other are doing, they immediately break into some kind of a bark or a growl. it's very alarming and quite frankly disturbing. as you guys know, makayla and ethan can squeak pretty loudly so it's no pretty sight.

here he is again, growling. my lionboy.

these are shark eggs - neat, huh?

fun #4: another big indoor playground near joe's parents place. it had this HUGE slide. it was even scary for me to go up and come down. it was four stories high. they loved it.

okay, enough about the kids. fun #5: shopping and eating for me! got some new fabric and browsed through my favorite street in amsterdam - lots of cool design stores! cheese from the market - brought back a bunch and managed to stink up the whole suitcase. yum.
decadent chocolates.fun #6: chinese food - it deserves it's own catergory b/c it was just too good. the first dim sum and dinner we had, i was in heaven. i don't have a picture of it b/c i was too busy eating. so much fresh seafood! this picture is the lobster we had in amsterdam. makayla wouldn't stop eating peking duck and demanded more pancakes. in fact, joe's parents had to take her out last night of our stay to get more peking duck since she wouldn't stop talking about it.
thank you mama and yeye! (ethan is clutching his lucky money envelope that he just got from them) makayla also insisted on carrying her own money and asked even at the airport where her money was. she doesn't seem to trust that we'll put it in her college fund. . . . i guess we can no longer spend it on new gadgets for ourselves- she is too aware.

yogo

2008-01-27T19:50:00.000+01:00

it's been very gloomy and cold here lately. my friend told me about this yoga instructor who can come to your house for a lesson. i was all over it since the only muscle that's been challenged in any way since our arrival here has been my aging brain trying to discern 9 from 10 in polish. my friend told me that it's pretty rigorous so i thought i needed to practice a bit before i dive into an hour class. good thing i did. i can barely do 15 minutes without feeling nauseous. so i've been trying to regularly do yoga as soon as i wake up (since having any food or even water makes me queezy) i also realized that having a hairy old male instructor doesn't really motivate me (i.e. dvd borrowed from a friend) so i've been doing it with this attractive model on youtube - yay for youtube. so since i kick everyone out of the computer room while i do it, it ofcourse peaked my kids curiousity. ever since then, they've been into "yogo" as they call it. they insist on using my mat as well watch the video while they do it. so here are some moves they did on their own without any coaching. i think that yogo is a way to go for mak, not ballet!

p.s. we're off to amsterdam on tuesday!

warm up

there's got a be name for this pose!

ethan downward dog with one leg up

children's jewelry

2008-01-19T15:53:00.000+01:00

time to reveal my children's jewelry line!

yanghwa, since you're the only one with kids with piercing, let me know which one jana and anna likes and i'll send them over.

i really want to develop my kid's jewelry more so than the adults - it looks like it's hard to find quality jewelry for kids - it's either made out of plastic, too loud, too childish or too expensive. each one measures to be about 2cm - perfect for little ears. i tried it on myself but it's way too small for adults. . . . they are all made with sterling silver, freshwater pearls, swarovski crystals, czech glass beads and bali silver beads. named after some of the girls of my readers :)

laura

natalie elliearwen

maddie abbychloe
jana makayla

Christmas in January

2008-01-17T22:01:00.000+01:00

Well, yesterday was another Christmas in our household. The package that halmi and uncle Jay sent took a whole month to get here. Thank you :) Kids are in snack heaven - we had to hide the box from the kids in my craft room. Guess who gets to eat most of them? Puahhahahahhah, not the kids.

Thank you Halmi!

Makayla has moved on to the package from her uncle but ethan is still trying to open a snack.

The lure of books have pulled ethan away from his chocolate but as you can see, he is reading it upside down.

Thank you uncle Jay!

super talents

2008-01-15T12:45:00.000+01:00

since i shared a video of my super talented daughter, i must post one of ethan. after watching breakdancers on the market square, this is what he started to do at home. i know it's mind bogglingly amazing but please don't post it on youtube or anything. i don't think i can bare my children getting bombarded with requests to appear on various morning shows. the background music is provided by my paparazzi avoiding singer who is so talented that she writes her own lyrics and music - in a language all her own. don't try to decipher what she's saying, it's so profound, it can't be translated.

p.s. i hope you guys are familiar with my sarcastic ways and not taking this seriously. . . .

nothing to report :P

2008-01-13T22:06:00.001+01:00

i've been away from this blog for a week - my goal is to post 6 a month - if you look at my archives, i've been very faithful to that goal. but anyways, my new venture has kept me away this week. what's the new venture, you ask? i think i need another couple of months before i unveil it - and seriously, it's nothing exciting, just something that'll keep me busy and entertained.

on craft note, i've been working on children's jewerly. will post pictures later but i've realized that i don't know anyone's children with pierced ears. so if your kids have pierced ears, let me know, since you'll be my target audience. i guess most of my friends' kids are too young. . . . and i hit a jackpot at ikea the other day on clearance fabric so i'll be turning some of them into capes. no silly, not for me, but for the kids :P

other than that, nothing too exciting - oh yeah, we're going to holland at the end of january. we got this crazy cheap tickets - $250 for the FOUR of us!!! can you believe it? actually, i'm kind of scared - and i keep telling joe, "oh well, if something happens, we'll all be together." it should be okay, right??????? i can't wait to go and have some decent seafood - i'm craving fresh fish so much!

hard earned license plate

2008-01-06T19:36:00.001+01:00

Behold, our new Polish license plate.

It was 6 months of grueling process, i tell ya. This is another painful part of being in a developing ex-communist country. Many growing pains, but it's only in the recent years that DMV has gotten their act together a bit in the States so what can we say about the equivalent of it here?

Here's a step by step.

1. First, we had to register our address - this was done in the first two months we were here - and had a nice little visit from the police who asked me where my husband worked, where his work building was, etc. i just get nervous of police asking questions, what can i say, it's a side effect of being harassed as a second class citizen in the U.S. with a student/working visa. (apparently, every time you move, you get a visit from the police, nice.)

2. Next visit was to register our car, but we got REJECTED in the first window - where they check the documents. even though we had ALL the papers mentioned in the list, they told us that we needed our residency papers, not just the address registration. I was told from the person helping us, that the requirements often change depending on who you're talking to (not surprising, i grew up in korea after all) and sure enough, we ended up with a mean lady.

3. On our third visit, i went with everything i needed. then you know what happened? they told me that my address registration was in my old name and that residency paper was in my new name - so we had to change the address registration. i kinda figured that would happen so we went upstairs, waited another 30 minutes in line to talk to the lady to fix the address registration.

we were standing in that window for over TWO HOURS negotiating to change my name. there were tears and screams involved - no kidding. all i heard the lady say was: "asdasjdfjsldf.....KOREANSKI.....asd;lkfajsdlfj;sljfalsdj.....AMERICANSKI.....adflkjsljf;lasjdl.....KOREANSKI, AMERICANSKI....." I got the gist that she was confused as to what happened to my status. I explained that in the short time we were here, I went back to the states to become U.S. citizen with a whole NEW name. Mind you, I had total sympathy for that woman - I mean, who the heck comes back in 3 months with a new country and a name??? but my patience was wearing thin, she just kept pointing out the problem and offered no solution at all. I was ready to say, "let me meet with whoever is highest up here and if s/he can't figure it out, i'll leave the county!!!" yes, little dramatic i know but i was so tired of it.

my poor translator was trying to keep composed. and then the lady who was doing the car thing earlier must have heard that there was a crying, yelling, asian lunatic demanding to change her name - she came upstairs to see what was going on. she then said that she would register the car under my old name and i would have to carry both passports. when we decided that that would be the worst case scenario - a phone call from Warsaw. 2 minutes later, i had my new name on my address registration. Praise the Lord.

It was already almost 5pm when i got the license plate - as i was handed the plates, she told me "you have to get new car insurance dated TODAY" - huh? i already had car insurance but they told me that i had to get a new one under the new plate - TODAY!! so conveniently, there's a insurance place across the street and i ended up purchasing car insurance for a year with who knows what. i felt like the time i had to choose my name with the INS guy, i had to decide something important in a matter of minutes. initially, i thought i can just purchase for a month and change it after some research - no such luck, the first insurance has to be for a full year. I'm just not sure what the heck is going on. oh well, you have to go with the flow and get ripped off when you're in a foreign country, that's part of the charm.

I didn't mean to spend the whole entry talking about the license plate. Actually, I wanted to talk about the translator who went with me. He was such an interesting guy. There was alot of waiting time so we got to talk quite a bit. We were talking about skiing and stuff when he mentioned that he's a "caver" - what the heck is that?

I was like "ummm, you go to caves to discover new species of bats?"
M: "no"

J: "why do you go into caves?"
M: "just to explore"

J: (still confused) "you just go in and out of caves?"
M: "uh-huh"

J: "why?"
M: "that's what we do. some people like to do mountain climbing, we like to go underground."

J: (lightbulb moment) "Oh, okay, that makes sense" (not really, b/c i don't understand the appeal of mountain climbing either.)
M: "what do you like to do?"

J: "ummmm, i like to sew and make jewerly. (feeling like a total loser)"
M: "that's cool" (yeah right, the way i think caving is cool - actually, i do think it's kind of cool - darn, i'm the only loser here.)

don't worry, the story doesn't end here, i know it's too much excitement in one entry. . . .i'll do a part II since i have to go back to the office next week to get my PERMANENT registration card versus my TEMPORARY one. Fun.

Mysteries in Krakow

2008-01-03T19:14:00.000+01:00

The first day of 2008 started off interesting.

Joe and I decided that we need to be more intentional about teaching our children Korean and Chinese. So we started the day with a good intention of expanding our kids' language skills. Whenever I spoke to them, I tried to speak in Korean and English. and then Joe would talk to them in Chinese. After about an hour of this madness, Makayla broke down and all of a sudden started to sing really loudly in Polish. This was our cue to stop overloading their brains. She then proceeded to tell us that she is Polish American, mommy Korean American, daddy Chinese American and ethan just American. talk about identity crisis. this should deter us from moving to another random country but we shall see.

There are many mysteries when you live in a foreign country. Partly b/c of language barrier, partly b/c of our ignorance but some things are just plain mysterious.

Oh, before i talk about that, i wanted to ask - is it totally rude not to accept those little things people give and throw at you on facebook? i just don't want to have gazillion applications on my page so i end up not opening it or whatever you have to do. for those who send me thing, it's appreciate it but never gets on my profile page :P but do give me things, i just know that you thought of me. . . . oh, and does it totally drive you nuts that i weave in and out of using capital letters?

Mystery #1 Balloons shrink at ridiculously slow pace here. When we use to get trader joe's balloon in the states, it shriveled by 2nd or 3rd day, if not popped on the way home by Ethan. However, the balloons we got here from McDonald's lasted, no joke, 2 months. It was kept in the kids' playroom indefinitely so we had to actually pop it. hmmmmmmm.

Mystery #2 Eggs are sold unrefrigerated here. This freaked out one of my American friend here to no end. She would talk about it every time we got together - she would joyously share that she discovered a supermarket who would sell them refrigerated. It didn't freak me out so much but it did make me concerned to see stacks of eggs 5 feet high - "how long has this been here?"

Mystery #3 We received this mysterious letter one day. Full of dates and different street addresses. We obviously couldn't figure it out so we thought it was some kind of road construction schedule. That was our guess. When we finally asked Joe's co-worker, this was the answer we got. "The mail tells when the neighborhood priest will visit to bless your home. Jesionowa is Monday, January 7th, starting from 15.00. "Gather your whole family if possible ... prepare a cross, candles, [kropidlo], and holy water. If you don't have holy water, tell the minister who precedes the priest. Shut off your tv and radio. Children should prepare their catechism worksheets." Joe's co-worker is quite a jokester so we were both like "he's kidding, right?" but it was confirmed by our babysitter asking us "so when's the priest coming to your house?" what is a catechism worksheets?????

To end, i would like to share why Mak will never enter the American Idol. WARNING - lower your volume, especially if you're at work!

Translation: "hey diddle diddle, the cat and the fiddle, the cow jumped over the moon..."

year end countdown

2007-12-30T21:24:00.000+01:00

it's been a crazy year. and everywhere, they are doing the best of or somekind of a countdown. so to commemorate this year, i will have to do a countdown of my own. in no particular order:

10. 5th anniversary trip to Kauai - so fun!

9. first meltdown in krakow - realization that i wasn't home. . . .

boo-hoo. remebering the dirty floors.

8. learning to make tofu and kimchi

7. being unable to recognize myself from cooking too much from scratch (bye bye trader joe's, hello fresh ingredients)me making spring rolls for some guests - are you kidding me????

6. receiving 2 LV bags - one from joe for 5th anniversary, one from mom for my b-day (apparently, i'm not allowed to ask for another bag for the next 10 years. . . .)

5. my surprise b-day party - i was leaving to krakow on my b-day and few of my girlfriends and my mom threw a impromptu party right before i left. . . . tears just thinking about it. . . . where's my pictures at, james?

4. preparing to leave to krakow - major blowouts with joe, many group therapy sessions with my girlfriends, making sure my mom was well taken care of.

3. makayla and my unexpected culture shock -this is what i got when i ordered shrimp tempura and yakisoba? huh? it didn't taste bad but it wasn't what i expected at all!!!

2. entering public blogsphere. thank the Lord for technology!
1. becoming a U.S. citizen!! - where's my pictures at, james?

PICTURE OF THE YEAR:

makes me laugh no matter what mood i'm in.

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!

Welcome to my Crib

2007-12-26T11:00:00.000+01:00

NOTE: Some of you had trouble loading these panoramas. We optimized the page. So now, you have to click on each picture to view the corresponding panorama.

When some of you asked for a tour of our house, i wanted to do MTV crib style tour - you know, stock up my fridge with fancy water and stuff. BUT that's too much work. Joe's been wanting to try this 3-D panorama technique he learned online so this was his chance - and it turned out pretty cool. You can use your mouse to navigate and 'look-around' the house - kind of like what you find on real estate websites. check it out.

Use the Ctrl to Zoom-Out
Use the Shift to Zoom-In

P.S. If the panorama doesn't show, you'll probably need quicktime from Apple.

First Floor

Master Bath

Outside

the winners are. . .

2007-12-25T13:31:00.000+01:00

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! Hope you all have a wonderful day with your family. Thank you everyone who commented, it was the boost i needed to enter into the new year of blogland. I'll be sure to update you on all the happening here in krakow and more narrowly, our household :)

We had to make this into a whole production with the kids since we're bored out of our minds here. . . . most everyone went home to their own countries and our Polish friends are busy having 12 course meal with their families.

Mak wrote all the names and cut the papers.

and the first winner is. . .

SOJIN!!

second winner. . . . ESTHER!!

Congrats! Since I don't think there's a chance of sojin getting pregnant anytime soon (unless there's something i don't know. . . ) , i will send the feminine product carrier to sojin and pencil holder to esther. Please send us your address via facebook :)

christmas giveaway and winternational day

2007-12-18T13:45:00.000+01:00

i was talking to sooj a while back and mentioned "i think you're the only person who reads my blog consistently." to that she replied, "just say that you're really lonely and people will comment." i said "no, that's too pathetic, i'm going to give something away, like a contest."

i'm not exactly sure if this is less pathetic than fishing for sympathetic comments but i did want to give something to my readers for christmas. so here it is. post a comment and on christmas day, i (mak or ethan) will randomly draw names and send this lovely pencil holder and practical personal holder to 2 lucky winners.

same as what i made for mak but cleaner - not perfect, but better :P
when closed, grey grosgrain ribbon and grey button

i found something like this when i was surfing on the web - thought it was hilarious - and actually practical - don't you agree, ladies? especially when we have to go to the restroom in public.
joe was like "do you have to post that? i don't think it's appropriate." please prove him wrong. oh, and you know what the smaller pockets are for, right?
and it has a flap for discreetness.

i wish i had more variety of fabrics - only source of fabric here that i know of is ikea.... so sad. but i guess it's good b/c if i was in the states, you know i would go crazy buying all kinds of fabric and thus face the wrath of joe. . . . this way, i use all i have and move onto the next pattern :)

enough of that, move on to kids' news. makayla's school had a christmas performance - lion, witch and the wardrobe. being in a small international school, for good or bad, they include every student to be a participant on the show (whether it's relevant to the story or not!) mak's class made girls into fairies and boys into random things.

mak has severe stage fright and she's debating whether she's going to be part of the show or not.

at this point, she decided that she's not going to be a part of it.

then she changed her mind since she was the only one in her class sitting with her mommy so she reluctantly moved backstage.

there's mak, standing in the back, not really paying attention.

that's aslan in the red cape. see how he's standing? that's how he was like the whole performance, he was the most angry, with attitude aslan i've ever seen in my life! it was an interesting interpretation. very cute production.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

christmas time in our household

2007-12-11T16:55:00.000+01:00

We put up our Christmas tree! We bought our tree from our neighbor who owns a nursery - the trees here aren't as full as ones in the states. when i was looking through them, he was like, "people want a real tree but want it to look like a fake tree." so i guess there's a charm in the imperfections! it's kind of sad looking but still beautiful ;)

Makayla showcasing the little wood figurines we bought here.

it was an ordeal in itself to not let ethan break any of the ornaments. he was quite good i must say.

the finished product! i need to take a closer shot of the one branch that's sticking out - the star on top is touching the ceiling. i thought that it wasn't proportional at all so wanted to cut it but joe insisted that we need to keep it that way. don't ask me why.

Christmas also came a bit early in our house - we got a surprise package from our friends in the states. Ofcourse, none of us have the discipline to wait until Christmas so we just tore it open and enjoyed all the treats that night! Thank you Billy and Jin!
Makayla was crying literally two seconds before we opened the package - something about ethan hitting her with a bat - but she's all smiles now.
ta-da! her woodkins! isn't the bunching around the neck genius? if i had it my way, she would be on project runway - and me on the apprentice (actually only the first season - it's so gimmicky now - on second thought, bring back the martha apprentice and i'm there!!!) :Pethan and mak fighting over making the little figurines. why am i not pictured? ofcourse, because i'm devouring the magazines jin picked out for me!

christmas time in krakow

2007-12-08T20:13:00.000+01:00

joe was away for 3 days again in london this week. it went pretty fast and i didn't even have a babysitter at night! i'm just getting better and better at this mom thing :P anyhow, to give me a break, joe took them out today for an extended daddy time. they went out to the city and had an eating fest.

some school children in traditional costume and singing

kids with their lollipops (snack #1)

ethan at a chocolate cafe (snack #2) - that chocolate drink is not your typical hot cocoa, it's actually melted chocolate. joe couldn't bear to drink it, so he took the kid's ice cream and whip cream and ate the chocolate with a spoon.

pretty gross, i know but they did have a whole roasted pig in middle of the square.

kid's snack #3, snack #4, snack #5 is not pictured, roasted honey cashews, kielbasa and bagel (kids told joe that they wanted to feed the pigeons but they ended up eating it all. . . . .) this is all on top of regular lunch they had. unbelievable. this is what happens when the kids spend lengthy time with daddy. . . . they love it.

video of the market square - all the stalls are there for christmas, selling all kinds of goodies!

holiday market

2007-11-30T09:35:00.000+01:00

makayla's school has this thing called holiday market - where they get donation from the parents and kids gets to go shopping to buy something for their family. it's fun for them but basically it's a fund raising for the school - parents donate little stocking stuffers and give money for the kids to buy them. anyhow, i was determined to make something with my sewing machine. and these are stuff i came up with.

little tissue holders - perfect for this cold season with all the runny nose!

colored pencil or marker holder - this took way too much work so i only ended up making one :P

when opened. . . . .

Oh my goodness, makayla came back from school today with her purchase from the holiday market. i can not believe what she came back with! we gave her 50 zlotys which is about $20 and this is what she brought:

1. ONE dum dum lollipop

2. pack of pez refills (not even the dispenser!!!)

3. little plastic tiger thing for ethan

4. little Bratz notepad

ARE YOU KIDDING ME???? I know it's a fundraiser for the school, so i didn't mind giving the money but c'mon, REALLY? definitely, next year, i'm going to get involved!!! they can't be that desperate for money - they charge an arm and a leg for tuition!!!!

unto happier(?) topic.

i had a funny exchange with ethan. ethan wanted to fight so he grabbed himself a plastic bat and handed over an infant aspirator to mommy and said "here, sword, fight."

mommy: it's not fair, your sword is so much bigger.

ethan: (ignoring mommy's comment) fight, fight, fight!!!

we start to fight and ofcourse ethan ends up hitting my hand since my sword is the size of my hand!!

mommy: ethan, give me a bigger sword!

ethan: o....kkkkk..... (hands me over the little bigger fishing pole)

mommy: this is not that much bigger - give me the bigger one. (pointing to the bat)

ethan: here it is! (still handing over the fishing pole)

here's the recap of what happened - you can hear ethan say his most favorite phrase these days - "no way jose" - we have no clue where he picked that up but he now adds jose to everything including "go away jose" - and the typical exchange with daddy goes something like this :

ethan: "go away jose"

daddy: "i'm not jose - are you jose?"

ethan: "no, you are"

daddy: "no, you are jose."

ethan: "no way jose."

Thanksgiving

2007-11-26T09:37:00.000+01:00

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!

For us, couple of American families got together for a turkey and all that comes with it. It was nice to be able to celebrate it together with a real Butterball turkey! (one of the family is in the military so they have access to the commissary in the base in Germany) Everything was so good - though it was everyone's first time to make Thanksgiving dinner - they were used to being invited to a full meal at their parents/relatives' place- we were all like "how do you carve a turkey???" Well, there's first to everything! and it was done well!

andy scraping every bit of turkey meat he can find.

Thanks to his effort, kids were well fed!

Mak satisfied with her turkey - especially the spongebob mac and cheese!

craft time with daddies - they made bobble head turkey - it was followed by comments by dads "it's the hardest thing i've ever done" - these cheap craft kits are very complicated and the glue takes about a day to dry.

and some soccer to burn off some calories.

they really got into the foam letters

we finished the evening with ethan punishing daddy the letter head monster.

list with the mostest

2007-11-19T15:10:00.000+01:00

Disclaimer: obviously it's not really the "most" anything - there are many interesting things here and many pathetic things i do but it's just a list i came up with on a whim. . . . .

Most pathetic thing i do weekly - check online target weekly ads.

Most overpriced item i bought - $8 for yellow radish - takuan.

Most overpriced item joe bought - $160 oil change at the honda dealership - he and his co-worker didn't even ask for the price when they went - people there were probably like "rich americans - suckers!! will give them the most expensive racing car oil we have!!!"

Most underpriced item i bought - nothing!! everything is much more expensive than in the states!

Most surprising thing about Poland - young people here are very stylish - i've seen even young moms decked out in high heeled boots with tailored coats and full make up.

Most pleasant surprise of this house - the house is so dry, it dries our wet laundry in half a day.

Most unpleasant surprise of this house - the house is so dry, it makes ethan's nose bleed.

Most surprising thing about myself living in Poland - i'm a natural born cook. i would just whip up something out of nothing - now joe is afraid to cook anything b/c he might mess it up

Most unexpected thing about me living here - i have not bought a single thing for myself since i arrived here in july - only necessities. not even one nail polish!!!! i went to the mall today determined to buy a winter hat, couldn't find one that looked nice - either too trendy or utilitarian. when i tried on this trendy one at zara, ethan goes "not so cute, mommy" thanks alot, my angel.

Most confusing thing about grocery shopping here - creams are identified by percentage - so there's 33% smietlana, 18% smietlana, 15% smietlana and 12% smietlana - can you guess which one is sour cream?

Most difficult thing to adopt to here - lack of personal space, i think this has to do with something about being a developing country, i remember feeling that way in korean as well. they are all over you when you withdraw cash from ATM or standing in line for anyting.

Most easy thing to adopt here - beautiful summers! the temperature is perfect, outdoor cafes are awesome, eating out is cheap and architecture has character!

Most interesting thing i noticed - cashiers here don't hand back your change in your hand. even when i have my hand out, they put it down in this plastic dish they have by the cashier. then it takes me 3 minutes to slide each coin back into my hand. why is that?

Most backward thing here - music on the radio. everything here seem to have moved on with the western culture - but what's up with the tina turner and michael jackson on the radio???? i'm tired of listening to "private dancer" in taxi rides. if you don't know who sang "private dancer", you didn't grow up in the 80's i suppose.

London!

2007-11-14T23:38:00.000+01:00

My trip to London was a whirlwind! Arrived Wednesday at noon and left Thursday morning at 10! I couldn't leave the kids longer than one night with a babysitter - yeah, i'm such a good mom :)

Ofcourse, joe wouldn't just let me sip my latte in peace, we had to explore, maximize, maximize!! it was a full day - and i'm definitely coming back! London felt just like NY except the buildings are lower and more historical. i thoroughly enjoyed being in the city but at the same time came out grateful about Krakow as well! Man, London is soooo expensive, it's no joke. (especially with the falling dollar. . . .) Joe told me that his co-worker in the London office is married to this Ph.D. engineer and THEY can't even afford anything in the city. so they rent this one room in the apartment where they have to share a kitchen and a bathroom with 3 other people. oh, and the room barely fits queen size bed. can you imagine? that just won't fly with me, i'll be sure to take a picture of the lap of luxury we live in and remind myself that at least i'm not living in a matchbox though i don't understand what anyone is saying! As soon as i landed, i smiled to Joe and said "it's nice that i can read all the signs :)"

This was our itineray -
1. Arrived in London
2. Head straight to Chinatown for a meal and shopping. We brought our suitcase to the supermarket and filled it up with Asian goodies - no shame for this ajumma. We first went to this Japanese place and had sushi but it was totally not satisfying that i demanded to get some wonton noodle soup in a Chinese restaurant - which we did. that was good - but i miss Sang Kee ~ I miss your wonton roasted pork noodle soup. . .
3. Checked in to our hotel, washed up a bit.
4. Then off to the National Gallery. and this museum was FREE (donation highly recommended!) - and it really had a GREAT collection! We couldn't see most of it because some rooms were closed due to staff strike and we didn't have enough time but definitely worth a visit - it's right next to the National Portrait Gallery which had an exhibition on pop artist portraits - was tempted to veer that way but didn't have enough time and didn't want to pay $20 to just run through an exhbition!
5. We walked a bit to see some parts of the Parliament and Big Ben.
6. Then the plan was off to Harrod's for some shopping and Krispy Kremes. we followed our google map to our destination only to find that it was WRONG - damn you - google map!
7. This nice couple we asked for directions gave us a recommendation for an Italian place nearby the theatre. And it was really good! One of the best seafood pasta i've had.
8. We saw "Wicked" at 7:30pm - i'll review that show later. . . .
9. Went back to the hotel exhausted.
10. Got up at 6:45am to grab a full English breakfast - yum.
11. Me off to the airport and Joe off to his meetings.

BTW, my kids were totally fine. My babysitter laughed and said that Ethan didn't ask for us once. He didn't even answer the phone when I called. Makayla talked to me on the phone but as soon as I told her that there was ice cream in the freezer for them, she left the phone without saying good-bye. My babysitter picked up the phone chuckling and said bye. Oh, and thank you for those who's been praying for Mak and I - we're feeling much better and Makayla's been back to her old self for the past several days which is helping me feel better.

We didn't take many pictures since it's kind of boring to take them without the kids but here's a few to commemorate my first visit to London.
London underground - just like Seoul! and not stinky like NY.
Big Ben - quite beautiful at night.
My seafood pasta - yummmy. i can go for that right now!
My two cents on "Wicked" - thoroughly enjoyed it and i understand why people say this is their favorite musical on broadway. Amazing voice, clever storyline, interesting stage sets and fun songs. If you go see it, you definitely won't be disappointed.

All that said, I couldn't help feel a bit uncomfortable about the message. I think most of you know that it's about the wicked witch in wizard of Oz and how she really wasn't 'wicked' - just misunderstood or 'framed'. ofcourse, it's just a clever story and i have NOTHING against it but i feel like that's the kind of propaganda i've been exposed to heavily in the last decade. Identification of evil and good is blurred - nothing is ever good and nothing is ever evil - depending on your perspective. Everything is grey. I think that's how society interprets good and bad now. There's an explanation to everything - when someone does something evil, it's because of their upbringing (believe me, as a social worker and a person with lots of issues - i KNOW what that's about!) - however, then where's personal accountability and responsibility? Because everything is up to our interpretation, we can never have any absolutes - and THAT bothers me. Will we recognize 'good' and 'evil' when we see it? or does it all depend?

Golden Compass is coming out in the theaters soon. I didn't read the book but my literary expert, Hyelee has filled me in on what that book is about. And it sounds like the exact same propaganda - is what we consider 'good', actually 'good'? or have we been fooled and only enlightened minds will see that what we actually consider 'bad' is indeed 'good'. It wouldn't be as scary if this book wasn't targeted toward young minds - i think it's required reading in the public schools for 7th graders or so? anyhow, i don't really intend to discuss anything serious on this blog but just a thought or two triggered by the musical.

forecast and random thoughts

2007-11-11T17:07:00.000+01:00

first of many snow of the season.

our backyard

this is what i'm dealing with here - and everyone is quick to remind me, "it's only the beginning and this is not bad at all!"

Before it got too cold, the kids got to visit the zoo couple of times. Krakow zoo is five minutes from our house and it's actually a pretty nice zoo - and b/c the space is limited the animals are really close by. good for us but not too great for the animals. in this video you can hear ethan's latest favorite phrase repeated - "GO AWAY" as Mak is chuckling in the background.

Instead of saying "no", Ethan has resorted to saying "go away" in exchange. through out the day i hear "go away mommy" or "go away everybody" - and ofcourse, we don't go away.

also today while we were hanging out at the house, i noticed that ethan was bringing makayla a blanket, water and snacks. puzzled, i asked mak, "what's going on?" mak's reply - "we're playing 'servants' mommy. i'm the king and ethan is a servant - and he's going to put you and daddy in prison - just pretend, okay?" do i play along to foster imagination or reprimand her for manipulating her brother to do what she wants? apparently, i value imagination over kindness.

culture shock

2007-11-05T14:49:00.000+01:00

so i alluded previously that i've been kind of depressed lately. well, i've now decided that it's culture shock - which came as a total surprise to me. i thought that since i had a very realistic picture of what my life would be like and i'm quite adaptable, i wouldn't go through it - oh well, i'm going through it. i've been feeling quite blue and down - unmotivated and not wanting to go out and stuff. . . .

this past week has been particularly bad, i've been extremely fatigued and started to have constant headache. it didn't help that mak didn't have school and stayed home the whole week as well. the crazy and sad thing is that i think mak is going through culture shock as well. she's been extremely weepy and whiny this past week. and she would constantly talk about her friends back home. she would say things like :

"do you remember when we went on an egghunt with ellie and mr. billy? and mr. billy was so silly?"

"remember when you came to my school for a mother's day and i sang you 'happy mother's day to you?"

"i want to see halmi - when can we go to america?"

and she would refuse to talk about her friends at school. it's quite interesting. i guess mak and i are both extroverts and she misses all the interactions. (though i think she's getting enough here, i guess it's different...) she likes her friends at school but half of them speak french and don't speak english well. and some are russian and swedish. it's truly international :) i was totally annoyed at her whining and weepiness but after understanding that she might be feeling things which she can't express, i felt so bad for her. and the fact i'm kind of going through the same thing, poor girl :( please pray for us.

ethan and joe on the other hand are doing just fine. maybe ethan is introverted just like joe - NOT!!! anyhow, to get away from the mundaneness of things here, joe is taking me to london for a day! whoo-hoo! i'll get me some decent chinese food and krispy kreme!! it's almost sad that my depression seems to be intricately tied with food. . . .

another thing, i saw a doctor b/c of my headache, hoping they'll give me something better than motrin. well, i walked away with a prescription of ketonel (ketoprofen) - i went to joe's work to check on the internet what it was (since dr.'s english was limited) - then joe's polish co-worker was like "i can't believe the dr. prescribed that - that thing is sooooo strong!" apparently, she takes it (prob. for menstral cramps) but only when she's about to die. she said that it just knocks her out and she was told not to take it regularly since it can cause somekind of internal bleeding. yikes. i didn't fill the script. well, sarah sung, i hope you're reading this and can give me an insight into whether i should take it or not. i just have a chronice headache and muscle fatigue.

ahhhhh, adventure in no english land.

winter '07

2007-10-29T11:38:00.000+01:00

thanks all the nice compliments on my crafts! here's the rest of my jewelry collection so far. i'd appreciate any feedback :) i wished i was in the states so that i can buy beads that are more appropriate for my friends! for example, how can i make jamie's earrings when i don't have any navy stones!!! or something bolder and louder to make appropriate "hyelee" :P or something edgy and soft for "esther"? i only have limited variety of beads i can work with - boo hoo :(

also excuse the darkness of the pics - i was waiting for better weather but it hasn't come!! it's very rainy, cloudy and dreary. . . . just another thing to add to my depression (more on this later this week. . . )

"jane" - since she liked "jeremy" - thought to make something more her color scheme - classier :)

"danielle"

"donna"

"lola"

"jin""sooj"

"sharon"

"jenie jang"- i can never call jenie by her first name. i think when she becomes a citizen, her first name should be jenie jang.

"mona"

"hyelee"

craft projects

2007-10-24T20:39:00.000+02:00

one of my motivation to keep a blog was to start posting my craft projects - yawn - i heard that hyelee. anyhow, i know that some of you guys are more than happy to see and hear about what i'm up to in my craft world. so here's the latest. one of my goal for the next 3 years is to learn to use my sewing machine somewhat proficiently. joe loves (HATE) that goal because it doesn't really "define" my goal. he wants me to have like "i will have made 100 sewing projects" or something totally measurable. me on the other hand is quite satisfied with the vagueness of my goal. what is proficient for me maybe not be for you. i would have been a great relativist if i wasn't a Christian!

this is my first ever attempt at making anything with a sewing machine. good thing that the picture doesn't show seams b/c if it did, you guys would all be nodding in unison that this is my first project. anyhow, it's a library book cover. makayla's school requires that library books that they rent be covered in cloth - i guess american books are precious commodity here.

here it is in action - no velcro or snaps, just fold over to accomodate different book sizes. it's functional and that's all that matters.

next onto my jewerly making. here i have "jeremy" - i've been making stuff that's inspired by people i know. this one obviously named after me b/c it's my favorite color combination - green and purple! green swarovski briolette and tourmaline beads with sterling silver findings. when the weather gets better, i will take pictures of other finished products :)

family night #2

2007-10-22T20:19:00.000+02:00

this week: baking chocolate chip cookies. chocolate chips are precious commodity here. you have to make your own chocolate chunks if you want to make it - we had joe's co-worker visiting from the states to bring us a bag. since we were unsure of the recipe, we only used half a bag - good thing. it wasn't very good..... if anyone knows of a great chocolate chip recipe, please let us know...

ethan admiring the egg and vanilla extract that mak is about to pour.

ethan thinking, "this isn't worth the effort and the wait" - notice they took a shower in between mixing and baking.

makayla agrees - you can tell from her bite that the cookie is neither chewy nor tasty. . . . sorry guys.

p.s. - joe went to london today for a business trip for the whole week. i have my babysitter staying with me at night so i won't be alone. please pray that we'll all survive without much meltdowns.

gap model....maybe not.....

2007-10-14T22:59:00.000+02:00

i have a gap card. i love babygap and gapkids - not so much adult gap - oh, but gap body has great underwear - ask any ladies from my small group..... i digress, but anyhow, i got an email from the gap about a casting call. people submit pictures of their kids to be the next gap model. and most of people know that i'm not one to think that my kids is the cutest baby in the whole wide world. really, i'm NOT that person. BUT i happen to think that ethan comes quite close. okay, okay, you can throw up if you'd like but i'm going to continue. i also have alot of time in my hands. so i told joe that i'm thinking about entering ethan - and he goes "yeah, right. as if...." undeterred, i decided to snap some photos of him. after 15 minutes of trying to get a decent shot, i now decided that he won't be a model after all. he will have to settle for an ordinary life of a chinese-korean american child. . . . not so easy being a model.....oh, don't get me wrong, i didn't think he would win, apparently judges narrow it down to 20 kids and people vote on the cutest kid. hey, i'm a realist, though i think ethan is awfully cute, i know he doesn't stand a chance next to a blonde blue eye regular john doe. but maybe they are looking for a smiley asian boy....

either way, i just wanted to share the fruit (or the lack of) my labor.

joe just gave ethan a haircut and took the funniest picture of him..... again, he will not be a model......

family night

2007-10-11T11:54:00.000+02:00

tuesday was our official first family night. and you know what we did? we made the kids cut napa cabbage to make kimchi. alright, alright, you guys are tired of hearing about us making kimchi and tofu. but that's our life here!! anyhow, i'm not sure what the child labor law is like here in poland but trust me, they get good benefits and nice working environment. joe was like "can't we do something more meaningful - like do a lesson or talk about obedience, sharing, etc." my response? "are you kidding me?" to satisfy joe's need to do have deeper connection with the kids, after we were done with our project, we sat around in a circle to sing some songs and share prayer request and pray for each other. that lasted about 3 minutes since ethan couldn't stay seated longer than 10 seconds. after we were done, i looked at joe and said "this is why we're not doing a lesson on sharing or obedience." any ideas on running a succesful family night with a 2 and 4 year old, it'll be much appreciated!!!

mak working swiftly

ethan, somewhat concentrating but not too productive

after 15 mintues of vigorous cutting, it resulted in tears. why?

mak got a slight cut on her finger. boo hoo.

on a happier note:

makayla like atypical girl loves to get pedi/mani. but b/c of ethan, she never gets to. b/c he would insist on getting one himself and that doesn't make daddy too happy. lucky for her. ethan took a nap with daddy on saturday so she finally got to use the nail polish she got for her birthday (back in august!!!)

so happy with the result :)

say kim-cheee!

2007-10-06T21:36:00.000+02:00

Thanks to ellen for her kimchi recipe and poland for carrying napa cabbage, we gave our first attempt at making our own kimchi! well, joe did all the work. despite the fact that we didn't have any oysters or shimp marinade stuff, it turned out quite good :) we had our first kimchi with japanese curry. yum. yanghwa, we will be waiting for your pictures and how to's as well! next attempt will be cucumber kimchi and kkat tu gi.

btw, i met up with my fellow koreans. it was actually really good. they are both older and obviously first generation koreans but there was something comforting about speaking korean. very interesting. one of them is married to a French guy - fascinating, and i don't think she's a believer though open to going to a church. the other older woman was actually a tentmaker in uz.bek.istan for 8 years until they got kicked out. she does make her own kimchi so we may trade with my tofu and her kimchi. apparently, there's about 10 korean families here in Krakow but they all had some kind of falling out so they never get together - sounds like every other korean church. being that it's such a small community, it's pretty sad. . . .

joe squeezing the heck out of salted napa cabbage.

finished product.

it's random but we got a real digital camera for makayla for her birthday. she takes some mean pictures. check out this landscape portrait from her car window.

and this one titled "father and son with weird polish mural"

zakopane

2007-09-30T23:07:00.000+02:00

Yesterday we did a day trip to Zakopane. it's a famous mountain resort in Poland at the foot of the Tatras mountain. the other side of the mountain is Slovakia and alot of tourist come from everywhere to ski here. the town is quaint and what i exactly pictured european ski resort to look like.

Tatras mountain. you can see the snow still up on top.

the restaurant where we had lunch. traditional polish cuisine.

they served us bread with what looks like lard with bacon bits. i was too grossed out to try but ethan didn't hesitate to take a good lick from the spatula.

makayla enjoying her bread with lard while daddy looks like a poster boy for polish zywiec beer and invisible children.

our staple polish dish we order: potato pancakes with goulash.

the town is also known for wooden architecture like this one.

and like this one. quite charming.

there are alot of grilling stands like this with kebabs and kielbasas.

waffle standi'm not sure if this is just decorative or they just rip it out of the string and serve it to customers....our dessert. yum.
okay, so we know about 10 people in the whole country, right? we ran into 2 separate couples at zakopane - what are the odds?? one of them is a missionary couple we met a while back at church - she just had a baby in poland and that experience is a story in itself. and the other couple is magda and nick in this picture. magda is helping us to get our polish residency. it was so wild to hear "hey, joe? jeremy? don't we know you???" twice in a foreign country, in a strange city! it was a welcome surprise :)

finally, a routine.

2007-09-23T20:34:00.001+02:00

yes, danielle - there's definitely a viable business opportunity with my new tofu venture - the way that my japanese friend's eyes sparkled when i told her about it, man, it's a goldmine! now, don't you want to share in this million dollar opportunity? i know you do, come on over, baby.

anyhow, apart from slaving over the stovetop in making 50lbs of tofu everyday, i have settled into a pretty nice schedule here. did i mention that i have a cleaning lady and two regular babysitters? and I LOVE THEM! i actually found that people here are easier to trust for some reason. they are LOVELY. the cleaning lady doesn't speak english but we get by with various hand gestures and man, she cleans!!! she seems to love ethan as well. she always grabs him and says "super! super!"

one of the babysitter is an older lady who used to be a music teacher - she's a natural teacher - she seems to want to teach ethan about everything! one time, ethan wanted to get carrots out of the tupperware, i just handed it over to him. she then takes it away from him and says "wait, wait" and goes to show him how to open the tupperware (it has these side things where you have to click it open) - open and close, open and close. finally, ethan loses his patience and starts to scream. it's hilarious. joe's so happy that ethan is getting taught since i'm not doing any of that. i mean, he'll learn once he goes to school, right?

the other babysitter is younger college student. she's been working with ex-pat families for about 10 years now, so her english is excellent and super experienced with kids! she actually thinks ethan is so easy to watch! it's true, she's only seen him in the mornings so far, when he's energized and ready to play - we'll wait and see, her evenings with both the munchkins are coming up shortly.

oh i digress, so here's my schedule. mak is at school from 7:30 - 4:30 - can you believe it??? our day starts at 6:45 - i can't even begin to tell you how painful that is to everyone involved. i also have my sitters come daily for 3-4 hours so i can do: quiet time, crafts, exercise, polish lessons, household errands, plan for family devotion time. (mind you, i have not started any of these things because i'm still organizing the house.... but i wanted to put it out there so you guys can ask me how any of these things are going :P - please, don't ask me too often)

monday - cleaning day. ethan and i just chill trying to avoid getting in the way of thorough cleaning. we can hop over to tracie's house (the other american family at joe's company) or just wrestle all day long.

tuesday - kid's club - kind of like gymboree run by international moms. i'll take a picture of the dreary environment where we try to stimulate our children.

wednesday - women's bible study - run by a missionary who's been here for 18 years - eclectic gathering of native polish women and international women.

thursday - free day. i'll probably hang out in the city with my new found friends!

friday - playdate with other american women. i'll tell you guys more about these two other american family we've met - i really like them!

so that's it. pretty good, huh? i'm still looking for a polish tutor and plan to contact 2 korean women who's apparently dying to meet other "korean protestant" - when my japanese friend told me that, i couldn't stop laughing. who actually says that? but anyway, i guess i fit the bill so we shall see if that goes anywhere.

my next agenda:
1. learn to make kimchi now that i've discovered napa cabbages. stay tuned for step-by-step on that one. (yanghwa, i'm waiting for yours so i can just follow your directions!!)
2. contact my fellow korean protestants.
3. get tick shots for my children.

on the next post: (this is to remind myself....)
1. my adventure to a malaysian food store
2. makayla's school picnic
3. new friends.

have a great week!

voila! tofu!

2007-09-22T11:46:00.000+02:00

1. soak soy beans for 8 hours.

2. make soy milk using soy milk making machine.

3. bring soy milk to a simmer for 10 minutes and add nigari to coagulate the milk. this is the tricky part, if you don't add the coagulant at the right temperature, it won't coagulate.

4. depending on how firm or soft you want the tofu to be, you vary the amount of the nigari.

5. you place the coagulated soy milk in the tofu mold and press it with 5-10lb. weight. here we are using crushed tomato cans.

6. let it sit in the mold for about 20 mintues and there you have it!

you can soak it in the water, store it in the fridge. as long as you change the water everyday, you can store it for up to a week.

joe has thoroughly enjoyed the process and loves drinking fresh soy milk. we'd better be making tons of soy milk and tofu to recover the cost of the machine and the shipping!!! i told my new japanese friend here and she was thrilled that i will be providing with her with fresh batch of tofu here and there! in fact, our neighbor was totally intrigued by it as well. she loves soy milk but it's actually very expensive to buy here so she's considering purchasing the machine as well. we gave her a batch of fresh soy milk today so we'll see what she thinks! apparently it tastes a little different than the commercial ones you buy in the states.

tofu horror continues

2007-09-09T20:57:00.000+02:00

ever since we arrived here, we've been on the hunt for tofu. we haven't found them yet. in fact, we ordered tofu making kit from the states and plan to make our very own tofu. however, it's stuck in customs so the detailed account of how we would make tofu would have to wait. yeah, and we have to find soy beans. i will be a korean Nigella Lawson before out 3 year stint is over. anyhoo, joe came home one day really happy to show me something. "I found tofu!!" he says. skeptical, i glared at the two different packaged tofu he brought home. hmmmmmm. it does say tofu, it has a picture on it. how come it's kind of flat and don't have to be refrigerated?

behold, what it looks like inside!!!

i'm sure i dont' have to tell you that we were too scared to try it and it went straight to the trash. . . . the other one he brought didn't look as bad. so joe decided to give it a try. i made miso soup for the kids and joe insisted on putting the tofu in. being the genius that i am, i took out almost all the soup and left one serving in the pot to cook some of the tofu - so that i can give it to joe and spare my kids the agony. oh, how i wish i video taped him taking the first bite!!!!!! his expression was priceless. he made all kinds of frown and proceeded to quietly spit out the tofu and threw away rest of the miso soup. darn you, tofu!! wasting my precious miso ration!! he said that words couldn't describe how nasty it was. . . . we are eagerly waiting for our tofu making kit.

rough week

2007-09-09T20:40:00.000+02:00

makayla started school this week. little did i know that it would stress me out to no end. i posted that i was afraid of what would break me - well here it is - driving in narrow roads. i always hated driving. hated. i always told my friends that if i had all the money in the world, i would hire a chauffer and a florist.

what was i thinking for not signing up for a school bus service for makayla? the drive there takes about 40 minutes (15min if no traffic and no construction). the school is located in the boonies - outside of the city where the last 5 minutes of the drive consist of a winding road where it's suppose to be one way but insisted on being a two way. so if there's a car on the other side, one of you has to veer toward the grass or who knows what.

first day, as i was swerving to avoid an oncoming car, i hit a ditch and totally scraped underneath the car. the second day, joe was driving and he hit a pot hole so deep i hit my elbow and knee hard that i couldn't speak for a minute out of anger and frustration - ofcourse not at joe but at the road.... the third day, it was pouring rain and as i entered the small road, i see a gold VW in a ditch, tilted 45 degrees and unable to get out. great ~ that's going to be me in couple of days, i thought. i later find out that VW belonged to a new American family - this poor lady was standing in the rain waiting for help. the school is so used to having people get stuck, the guard has all kind of equipment to get the car out of a ditch, a hole and cow dung. is that a good thing or not?

hallelujah! i just heard from the school that makayla could ride the school bus. Thank the Lord. now all i have to worry about is mak's safety and her emotional stability. please pray that she'll adjust to riding a bus with bunch of older kids. . . . poor girl, she has to suffer because b/c mommy is too chicken to drive in a foreign country.

so i mentioned earlier that everyONE has a dog in this country. or at least it seems like it - in our neighborhood. and not those little hollywood dogs but big, scary, hairy black ones. one day i was walking my cleaning lady to joe's co-worker's house, we ran into two of these dogs wandering in the street. ignorance is bliss, i tell you. my cleaning lady, statia, was so scared, she kept wanting to turn around. i was like "it's okay, i think they are owned by someone..." so we proceeded without a hitch. couple of days later, my neighbor tells me that she was bit by a big dog when she was jogging - and since the owner kept denying that it was her dog and refused to get the dog tested, she ended up having to go through the whole rabies shots. . . she was so sick from those shots. later i took the kids for a walk in a stroller. and sure enough, we saw those two dogs far away. this time, they looked so dirty and unkempt. i turned around and started to walk as calmly and quickly as possible. i turned around to see where they were, and they were running full speed toward us. i was soooooo scared! i was mumbling "LORD HELP US.... LORD PROTECT US." and started to imagine what i would do if they attacked any of us. then when it reached us, another dog in someone's yard started to bark at the two dogs and provoked them further. i had to stop moving for a second... the two dogs started to get all excited and started circling around barking at all the dogs in the neighborhood. hoping that they are now distracted, i just quietly started to walk again. THEN, makayla and ethan started to bark at the dogs!!! "ARRRRG, WOOF WOOF" "RUFF RUFF" - are they crazy???? don't they see the dire situation we're in????? i started to whisper loudly - you know what i mean? "SSSSTOOOOP IT, SSSTOOPPP, no barking! no barking!"

it was comical since we arrived home safely - thanks to God, and we haven't taken a walk since then :)

more holland pictures

2007-09-09T20:30:00.000+02:00

joe's mom bought the kids a cutest souvenir. slipper clogs.

holland has the best chinese food. this is my favoritest (i know how to spell, alright?) thing to eat when i'm there. this is a huge scallop still on the shell, with vermicelli noodles, lots of garlic, green onions and some kind of sauce. it's soooooo good, i'm salivating just thinking about it. yummmmmmmm.

ethan likes to sleep posing. so camera conscious, this boy.

mak at madurodum - it's a miniature holland. they have all the landmarks so if you don't have time to look at the whole country, just stop by here. if you look carefully, you can see ethan being squished behind mak. hahahahah.

journey back

2007-08-30T23:57:00.000+02:00

so i'm finally an U.S. citizen. hallelujah!

my way back to poland was an adventure in itself. first of all, i got to pretend to be jason bourne. since i changed my legal name and got my new U.S. passport, it didn't match my ticket name. so i had to whip out my old Korean passport and use that instead whenever i boarded the plane but took out my U.S. passport whenever i went through customs. yes, the thrill of a double life.

and then, i got the worst possible seat on the flight back to amsterdam. where, you ask? right next to the bathroom, not behind, not in front, but NEXT to it. what kind of ridiculous design is that? as we are boarding, this guy decides to take a dump in the bathroom. when he came out, oh Lord have mercy. me and the guy next to me look at each other and open our eyes open wide as to agree that we are indeed sitting in the worst place. and few seconds later, all the passengers start to gag and gasp as the nasty fragrance travelled further. and some outspoken passengers start to demand from flight attendants to do something. the flight attendant was a hoot, too. she was like "what, this is disgusting! who did this????" she goes in the bathroom and screams "what the hell!!!" she then comes out, grabs the air freshner and says to the passengers around her "wish me luck" as she extends only her arm into the bathroom and sprays it 'til we're gagging from the unnatural floral scent. . . . this was the most unprofessional but hilarious action i saw from a flight attendant - only in US airlines, i tell you.

so the rest of the trip consisted of me getting up to close the bathroom door whenever someone left it open - actually me and this other guys took turns. . . . i couldn't believe how many people actually left without making sure that the door was closed. i mean, c'mon, etiquette 101 please. at one point, i was so sick of it, i grabbed one lady's arm and said "can you please close the door" and sure enough the one time i spoke out, the lady goes "but someone else is going in..." sheesh.

so needless to say, i'm glad to be home. some of you have asked if my kids missed me. i have the most resilient children in the world. i didn't speak with them for the first couple of days, since i was afraid that it would trigger somekind of a meltdown. what was i thinking? they were having so much fun with joe's parents, i don't think they barely noticed that i was gone. when i finally saw them over the webcam, the first thing that came out of makayla's mouth was "mommy, show me my camera! show me my watch! did you get the m&m's???" (i promised to get her a camera and a watch for her birthday...) and ethan was just munching on his grapes barely saying "hi". at least i know that they will survive anywhere. oh, and some have suggested that children often act tough when their parents aren't around and have a mini-breakdown when they actually see their parents. when i arrived, my children gave me a huge hug and said "is my camera in your bag??" and ethan goes "chhhhh-chhh-o-co-lat???" go figure.

Loving Amsterdam

2007-08-19T18:45:00.000+02:00

we're in holland now visiting joe's parents. i wasn't too crazy about amsterdam before, probably because i visited here the first time after paris - and paris, I LOVE..... but this time around, coming from a small city krakow, i'm loving the diversity and craziness of a big city like amsterdam. and also dutch are the best creative designers around - everything here is so design oriented, it's so fun just walking around.

we visited this place, proef, which means tasty.... such an interesting place. it's only open on the weekends, and they are primarily food design place. i think they must make money doing catering and magazine/book work. food is very simple but uses the best ingredient of everything and is so fresh and yummy.

cappucino that mak is trying to drink. haven't had a decent coffee in a month - soooo good....

me and joe's sister, wing kiu.

sandwich and polenta. notice the little container inside the sandwich - it's roasted pepper sauce. everything is served on a wooden cutting board. i thought polenta was like pasta but it's this cous cous thing. i'm not a fan of cous cous but this was extremely good. mmmmmm.

2007-08-19T18:40:00.000+02:00

check out this spread. unbelievable cheese and salami.

our dessert. almond cake with white chocolate frosting. cooked prunes with mascarpone cheese. in the background is mak and wing kiu's boyfriend, tony. makayla LOVES tony. she's attached to him at the hip. poor guy, he had to feed mak and himself the whole lunch.

there's only one table indoors. unreal, i don't think they mean business. but there are many tables outside but it rains quite a bit in amsterdam so i don't know what happens when it rains.....

amsterdam continued

2007-08-19T18:35:00.000+02:00

we also checked out papabubbles. i think they only have stores in tokyo, london and amsterdam for now - maybe new york. they make these really instricate candies. they also do custom work so you can have them insert company logos or do wedding favors by putting in your names. really cool. if i had a company or another wedding, they will be making my favors!

ethan loving his lollipop. i think he was a great advertisement while we were there. the owner gave us some freebies :) thank you!

for those who are wondering where my other child is (since i got this comment like where is makayla? why are there only pictures of ethan?) she is sleeping in the stroller so she didn't get to see the candy store. poor girl. no need to worry. she got enough sugar later on.

mak and ethan at work

2007-08-16T22:13:00.000+02:00

after watching many street performers earning money in various ways, mak and ethan figures out a way to earn a few extra zlotys.

photo diary

2007-08-16T22:09:00.000+02:00

mak's birthday dinner. ethan's hand going straight for mommy's plate.

posing at the famous statue in middle of the square. makayla is right now watching street performance. bunch of guys breakdancing.

2007-08-16T22:05:00.000+02:00

horses admiring mak's new toy bird.

great thing about Poland #1: hey, it's still europe, it's charming. this is the view from one of our favorite restaurant. notice the couple in the picture, they were just looking at each other, oogling, cuddling, giggling. funny thing about europe, everybody is in love. everywhere you turn, couples, couples, as joe's boss' daughter who visited said "everyone here is TOGETHER, no one's just friends." something must be in the water.

come visit! krakow is the next venice! did i already mention that krakow is the next prague??

makayla feeding the pigeons.

2007-08-16T21:55:00.000+02:00

"ethan holding a dog and an apple" by mak 2007. limited edition. in fact, it's already been erased by ethan.

care package numero uno!! i mean, jeden.

2007-08-13T22:58:00.000+02:00

i jumped for joy when joe came home today. i always jump for joy when joe comes home but today, my jump was higher than usual. why? you ask. it's because i got my first care package from my bestest friends!!!! thank you ~ i love you! look at all the goodies i received. magazines, displine book, candles and swiffers!

look at these beauties.

i'm in love with my swiffer.

but i was completely guilt ridden because i will be returning to the states in a week. why? you ask. i'm getting sworn in as U.S. citizen, baby!! oh yeah, i gotta tell you guys how nervous i was about taking the citizenship test. did you know that there was three branches of government? just kidding, i knew that! but there were many many things i didn't know. like who said "give me liberty, give me death" - i mean, do you have to really know that to be a citizen? anyhow, i did pass the test with flying colors, 10/10 baby!!

but the tricky part came later..... the guy who was interviewing me looked over my paper and said "it says here that you want to change your legal name to [my korean name] Jeremy [joe's last name]- it's like you're trying to convince someone that you're a man." (note: i'm not writing my legal name to protect myself :P) he continues, "looking at your korean name, i can't tell if you are a female or a male and then i look at your middle name and now i know that you're a man!" I went on to tell him that how everyone knows me by Jeremy and it has to be included in my legal name, blah, blah, blah. so he goes, "I have an idea, how about including a woman's name in your middle name?" At that time, i felt like i couldn't say no - or i would be denied my citizenship. So, on the spot, we began to brainstorm women's name to be part of my LEGAL name!! He goes, "how about Jennifer, I don't know any men named Jennifer..." He was super helpful but i was panicking. I then decide that i could be an "MJ" - so we go with M names - he lists, "Martha, Mary, Matilda" - no, no, nope. we then move to "AJ". . . believe me, this is not how i pictured myself picking out a name. sooooooo, drum roll please, my new legal name after my swearing in is.....

[my korean name] ANNA JEREMY [joe's last name]!!!!!
has a pretty ring to it, doesn't it? My interviewer was so satisfied with the name, he went on to say "You'll thank me later." It was so awkward because i had to sign couple of papers right after with this full name and boy, to give up the signature you had with you since college, that was difficult. anyhoo, call me AJ, Anna, Anna J, AnnaJer, whatever suits your fancy!

See you soon,
Anna Jeremy

good weekend

2007-08-13T09:42:00.000+02:00

ellen, you ask how i can find the time to blog? when you have a completely empty social calendar, you can find alot of time to blog ;P

we had a pretty good weekend :) we had someone come out to jump our car and we got to drive for the first time!! the freedom, it was awesome!!! though we only went grocery shopping and ikea. on sunday, i met two separate missionary couples church planting in krakow. it was so cool to talk to them. one of them was a really young couple - early or mid 20's - they just started a coffee house to reach students and young families. i'll be sure to check check check it out! the wife was like "hey, we should hang out sometime" and i was like "heck yeah, joe will be watching the kids so i can come explore the city with you!!!" thank you, honey!

the other couple had two children and pregnant with the third. she is due any minute, and we were all nervous for her about delivering in krakow. apparently the hospitals here are not quite like the ones in the states.... i'll just leave it at that.

our first drive in krakow. apparently this country has the most number of signs per kilometer. i believe it.

we had lunch with the pastor and his wife after church at this local joint. unbelievable amount of food and it was good :) oh, notice i'm wearing a jean jacket, it is not that warm here.

ethan enjoying his potato pancake and beef stew.

ethan protecting his ketchup from daddy's fries.

we had a funny conversation with the pastor. we asked him how we can ask for ketchup. he said it's "ketchokowa" and the wife started to laugh and we finally caught on that he was joking. i then said "are you sure it's not ketchupski?" it's true, some words i've seen, you just ask "ski" at the end!! when mark kim found out that we are going to poland, he started to call me "jeremy moonski" - i thought it was kind of inappropriate but he was not far off - kudos, mark!

child play

2007-08-07T20:48:00.000+02:00

what is the saying? idle kids are up to no good? oh, there's no such saying? well fine, i made it up but it's true. my kids have been mostly hanging out at home, or at joe's co-worker's house or at the park. we have tried many different plays but when they are left to their own, they end up doing one of the following.
1. makayla magically takes off ethan's pants and let ethan chase her around screaming "my ppppaaants, my ppppaaants" - when i discover ethan all of sudden in diapers, i know that's what happened.
2. makayla plays baby with ethan and the helper. she makes the helper be the baby and forces her to lie down while force feeding all kinds of toy food. mak lays out the blanket and sets up elaborate spread and gets extremely upset if we move one little thing.
3. plays "we are girls" with ethan. joe's favorite. (not - i'm surprised that he gets bothered by this sort of thing, i thought that he was much more evolved than that!) ethan volunatrily puts on many hair clips and entertains makayla endlessly. i would say this is ethan's favorite activity at home.

makayla proud of her handiwork.

ethan dressing up his doggie just like himself. miss katie, we miss you!

did i already tell you that we received our car - but the battery died? so it's awkwardly placed in our driveway blocking anything else from entering our house. man, our car looks ginormous in this country. i'm so scared about driving - people here drive kind of interestingly. shall we say, selfishly demanding? in our many taxi rides, i've encountered many situations where i was like "what the &*%$?" people just don't budge. for example, you have to enter this kind of narrow side road to enter into our development. we are on a taxi getting out of the road and this lady comes right in. it's so narrow that only one car can pass at a time. she could have easily waited by the entrance - but NO - that would be too logical. she just marches right in and demands our taxi to back out until she can make a turn. the taxi backs out about 10 yard to let the lady go where she needs to go. this kind of thing happens ALOT! i'm getting nervous about having to back out in my big car in these narrow roads. no doubt i would put many scratches and nicks along the way. oh yeah, and did we tell you that we had to pay about $4000 for taxes for bringing the car? oh, yeah, deposit - we apparently get it back if we bring the car back. sooooo $4000 for shipping and $4000 for taxes, do the math, never bring a car internationally. and ofcourse, did we know any of this before? we got about 50 different version of what could happen and this was what we got. nice.

oh yeah, joe did say, you'd better start saying some good things or people aren't gonna visit. . . . ok, ok, ok, that's for next time. i'll list all the cool thing about poland. mind you, i haven't done anything cool other than unpacking. but there are things i like and people i really do like :)

we miss you!

2007-08-06T17:40:00.000+02:00

found some pics on the computer that i never sent to our friends. enjoy.

our other child, ellie. she still thinks we live next door. come visit soon!

mak and incredible hulk joy. this seems to be one of the favorite activity during our playgroup - putting pull ups on ones head. who can wear this style the best?

chloe who managed to match her outfit with the pull up?

or alyson who donnes it like a french beret?

church

2007-08-05T15:02:00.000+02:00

joe savoring every bite of his rice, egg and kim. we're rationing our korean food so he gets half a sheet of kim a day. we're thinking of making a journey to warsaw - they apparently have a chinatown and a "great" korean restaurant. we'll see.

the building where the church is held. it looks kind of run down and really it is. feels just at home, like we're in west philly :)

the nursery - looks pretty good in the picture but the blanket they throw on the floor is about 100 years old, so are the toys. though ethan didn't hesitate to put some in his mouth - i had to contain my "NOOOOOO" - didn't want to appear germaphobic and snobby..... a typical american....(oh yeah, did i tell you guys that i'm going to become a 'real' american soon?) makayla was coming in and out - one time, she came over, touched one of the gates - stuck out her hand at me - there was a dead spider on one of her finger. at that point, there was no containment, just a primal scream.

sushi adventure

2007-08-05T14:50:00.000+02:00

ethan patiently waiting for the bus - we're getting really friendly with the public transportation. and taxi.... our car is here but the battery died. we need to replace the battery, get polish registration and license. oh yeah, while we were waiting for the bus, two drunk polish (i guess i can stop qualifying everything as polish - i mean, you know i'm in poland, right?) men walked by and said "sayonara" to us. nice. our first somewhat race-related comment! we haven't gotten any ignorant comments so far, just lots of staring from young kids. i should one day throw a karate chop and say "hi-ya!!!"

buying a washing machine - the owner told us that the current washing machine works, we found it to be true if you are washing one towel at a time. soooo to keep me from having another meltdown, joe kindly agreed to buy a washing machine. but no dryer..... most europeans don't have dryers, yeah and asians too. oh, i miss you my duet dryer..... we have to hang dry our clothes and ofcourse it's so wrinkly i have to iron underwear. i told joe that we have to hire someone to just iron clothes for us because that'll take all day.

here it is, our polish sushi makers. yesterday was joe's birthday and to celebrate - we went to the old Jewish district to get some sushi. i was secretly hoping that it was run by a Japanese person and find out where they get their supplies. i could have busted out my japanese and win some affection - but unfortunately no asians in sight. it was a quaint small joint, good service and nice plates. oh the tea was good too.

what do you think? it doesn't look half bad in the picture. the tuna was more pink than red and the amount of rice in each roll was unbelievable. the rice was sooooooo sticky, we had to chew it so much. it didn't taste bad but the rice was way too overwhelming. joe and i just kept chuckling b/c our cheeks were filled by the rice and we couldn't talk. we ordered 4 rolls but got full by the 2nd roll b/c of the rice. i told joe, "we'll come back when we're really really desperate."

2007-08-04T14:49:00.000+02:00

This is what i'm talking about!!!

our yard, if you look, there's a stray cat in front of mak. note: stray cats in poland are vicious. kids and joe wanted to feed him and i refused - i shooed him away - he returned while i was doing the dishes. he jumps on the ledge of the kitchen window and hisses at me and scares the crap out of me. it was like a hitchcock movie..... he also returns dinner time - how in the world does he know?

all our boxes - hooray!

our helper, agnieszka. she is a delicate musician trying to earn few extra bucks. boy, she didn't know what she was getting into by watching our kids. she doesn't have any experience with kids.... all i hear when i'm unpacking upstairs is "ohhhhhh, edan..... ohhhhh, edan....." poor sweet agnieszka. hope she won't be traumatized to have children....

playdate

2007-08-02T22:28:00.000+02:00

today i had my first playdate in poland :) there was no way i was going to spend another week here without meeting people i can communicate with. so i called up this woman who i connected to while i was in the U.S.

it was interesting, a whole new world - it seems like most expats in europe just move from one european county to another. their first question was "where were you before krakow?" assuming that i've lived elsewhere as an expat. i met a group of cool european women - dutch, swiss, german and belgian. i surprising felt comfortable and was making inappropriate comments right away :P just kidding, i was on my best behavior - as for ethan, that's another story. dutch boys took a great liking to ethan and played with him the whole time.

i ask them "so do you guys speak polish now?" - they all looked at each other and started to crack up. i was so puzzled. then one of them said "everyone tries in the beginning, but it's a horrible language to learn - we all gave up." then another woman who's been here 5! years said "i didn't even try - all you have to know is hello, bye, thank you, your numbers and i don't speak polish" - wow, i'm half way there. so i was strangely comforted knowing that you can like a country without learning the language. good thing.

i found out that they collect garbage EVERY OTHER WEEK. and most households seem to have one european size garbage can - what's up with that? do they not produce as much crap or do they bury them in their backyard? so we ordered another garbage can and i'm making joe take a grocery bag of biodegradable garbage everyday to work. at least we have some routine down.

i just got a word that we will be getting high speed internet soon! whoo-hoo - that means we can set up our desktop and post some pictures! yay.

until then!

Korean woman in Krakow

2007-07-30T22:51:00.000+02:00

i'm an alien, i'm an legal alien, i'm a korean woman in krakow~

that song keeps spinning in my head. yes, i'm here and it's been exactly one week since my arrival. can't believe it's only been a week.

i know you guys are curious about how i'm spending my days - here's a day to day recap :) btw, i don't really have internet at home yet so forgive me if i haven't been in touch.

monday - my first meltdown happened the first night. we arrived at our new house finally - only to discover that our house was filthy! we went throught the house once and all our feet were black - literally - will have pictures to prove later. so the first night was spent mopping the whole house the old fashioned way - oh how i miss thee, wet jet swiffer. i will post a picture of re-enactment later - obviously it will be much more beautified since the actual event included tears and snot.

tuesday /wednesday- a blur. went to ikea and grocery shopping. note to self: when moving internationally, bring everything that's familiar to you that you use on daily basis. hand soap, shampoo, shredded cheese, cream cheese - yeah, bring Target, Whole Foods, Trader Joes and Acme if possible.

thursday- our stuff arrives! whoo-hoo. we weren't sure if we were going to get them but they came at 7pm to unload all our stuff. the movers were young and strong :) they decided that throwing stuff from outside to the 2nd floor balcony was much easier than using the stairs- uh-huh, including our super heavy king size mattress. amay-jing. discovering that young polish men are charming and sweet - good to know, good to know.

friday - unpack most of the day and joe decides that we should hit the town for a relaxing evening - NOT. kids didn't nap and falls asleep in the bus to the town - they fight to sit in the stroller. we decide to put them in TOGETHER in a single umbrella stroller - mak holding ethan. while we're figuring this out, bird comes by and poops on all of us - kids were spared by the stroller cover. what is that saying from Conan O'Brien - that ridiculous dog puppet who says- "for me to POOP on!" i don't know why but feeling like we should be on some comical reality show. we wipe ourself as cleanly as possible and head off to the restaurant. we sit outside - taking in the sites, surrounded by tourists - only to be forced in by rain.

once it stops we head off to the mall to pick up some "good" milk at nicer grocery store. the other milk we had tasted like corn, even mak commented "this is not good...." all the stress from the past several days hits me and i have a major IBS attack. i furiously ran to find the restroom only to find that there's a line of 15 women. unable to communicate that i'm in a hurry, my stomach has pity on me and calms down until it's my turn. thank you Lord.

once that ordeal is over, we head off to McDonalds to bribe the kids who are on the brink of meltdown since we still had to buy the "good" milk - i go to the store and leaves joe with the kids. ethan is flirting with some polish girls, playing peek-a-boo by the store window. joe then discovers that his diaper has leaked. when i return, we feverishly return to the restroom i previosuly visited to change the boy. polish lady who takes money for the bathroom yells "powieruwpoaiureoi!" to us - we don't know what she meant but she pointed at some other room. it was a changing room - thank you! but i hear her mumbling loudly as i entered the room - even without understanding, i know that she's complaining that we haven't paid. calm down, lady, we'll get to it. alas, the day ended with much needed prayer.

saturday- trip to Tesco - big british grocery store. took 3 hours to find half the things we need. i'm proud of myself because i ordered a block of parmasean cheese from the cheese lady. how did i do it? i found a can of processed grated parm cheese - pointed at the selection of cheese she had, raised both eye brows and said "where?" brilliant, i amaze myself.

sunday - church. surprisingly decent sermon. about how you live your daily christian life will determine whether you can gracefully jump through the obstacles of life. was ethan's birthday so went out to downtown krakow for some italian food and ice cream. wishing i was able to enjoy the sights with my dear friends....

despite the minor culture shock, i'm faring well - i'm a true survivor. i will post more discoveries later - ciao. oh, that's the wrong language. do widzenia ~ how i wish i was learning italian instead :P

krakow, here we come.

2007-07-12T04:25:00.000+02:00

welcome to my blogspot! it's officially open. was exploring different mediums to be in touch but i've decided this would be best - facebook seems way too complicated but cool to be in touch with people i otherwise wouldn't - and believe me, in krakow, i need to be connected to as many people as possible.

anyhow, we're off to krakow in less than two weeks. i had another panic attack the other night. major scare attack - i'm not sure what i'm really afraid of - scared of the unknown ofcouse, but more than that, i'm scared to face my breaking point - what would ultimately break me? - being with the kids 24/7 without any friends, daily stress of being in a country where i can't communicate, being lonely? all of them sounds so scray..... not to mention the possibility of endless conflicts i can have with joe. AHHHHHHHHH.

have to keep reminding myself that i'm going on a journey assigned by God and i should tackle all the challenges head on, GOD HELP ME! and really, aren't we all on a journey - this Christian life. i'm just getting removed from everything i know, and so many people seem to do it such grace - must God drag me kickin' and screamin'? soooo i'm keeping my composure, my chin up high, fixing my eyes on the prize - wherever this next 3 years will take me - hope to do it graciously :) pray that it won't get too ugly!

btw, i got my mail from INS to get my interview for the citizenship - whoohoo! it's about time! so the interview is on th 19th but i guess i'll fly back sooner than i expected to be sworn in - if i pass the interview :)

kauai

2007-06-03T21:11:00.000+02:00

on our 5th anniversay, trip to kauai: stayed at Princeville Resort on the north side of the island

joe's first attempt at surfing, as a strayed dog looks on - he actually rode some waves!

joe tricks me into doing a 4 hour hike on treacherous uphill like this

who's regretting it now? actually, it wasn't too bad - we did see a girl who sprained her ankle and awaiting rescue with this plank on her leg - we later find out that she had to be carried (!) down by two people - since there's absolutely no where for a helicopter to land...

kauai

2007-06-03T21:05:00.000+02:00

my adventure was riding this hanglider attached to what looks like a motorcycle: gets to go real high and goes into little nooks and crannies of the valleys: cool experience but would have been cooler if i was piloting....

view from the hanglider

Napali Coast: one of the most breathtaking scenery - and everyone knows i'm not a nature person: amazing - made me utter "How Great is our God!"

the water: so deep and blue: got to see dolphins and turtles!

kauai

2007-06-03T20:56:00.000+02:00

ok, now onto really important things - food: we were afraid that the food wouldn't be as great as Maui - who can really beat Mama's Fish House- but Kauai had alot more local cheap offerings that we really enjoyed: here saimin, looks just like japanese ramen but the noodle was much chewier? we couldn't quite figure out if we like it or not

shrimp tempura oozing with oil: i love hawaii because you can get cheap japanese food!

look at this roll! tuna, crab meat, advocado and cucumber - sooooo big and yummy: the whole roll to go only was $8!: found it on a fish market attached to a restaurant: definite find

local delicacy of shaved ice - pick a flavor, they'll have it