Hey, that's mine!

Yesterday we went to Homeplus to do some shopping. There is a McDonald's in the shopping center we always love to stop there for lunch- OK in Jennifer's world, french fries and ice cream. For around 60 cents you can get a chocolate dipped ice cream cone which has become one of Zachary's favorites, mostly because he likes to pull the chocolate off bit by bit to eat.

In three weeks, Zachary turns two. In the past couple weeks he has learned the phrases, "I do it"and "Zachary's chair" (toy, ball, whatever). While sitting at McDonald's yesterday, he said something he had never said before that just caught us so funny. He had his own pack of french fries and Patrick reached over to grab one. Zachary looked at Daddy with this horrified look on his face and said "Hey! Mine. " He didn't yell it or say it rudely. The way he said it was like "Hey Dad, did you realize those were mine?" We had a good laugh out of it. We did get in a lesson of sharing and when Daddy asked and said please, Zachary was very happy to share his french fries. :)

I guess he is just a little possessive of those fries like his mommy :)

Growing up

Zachary Pinho- 1 week old in 2005

Our friends here had a baby this weekend and it has really made me think about Zachary as a baby. It is hard to believe that he is almost two years old. The time has flown by and he is so independent now. It is an absolute miracle to me how God created people and how we are designed to learn as we grow all by his amazing plan. Two years ago all Zachary did was eat, sleep, poop, and look cute. Now he can walk, talk, feed himself, play independently sing songs, push elevator buttons, help mommy make cookies, color pictures, count to 12 and still LOOK CUTE! I miss my little baby but it is so much fun to watch him grow and learn into the little boy God designed him to be.

Pushing the Number 7 in the elevator- he knows which one it is :)

Making cookies with mommy
Coloring Aunt Sheri's birthday card

Twinkle Twinkle Little Star

Bulgogi Fish :)

Eating bulgogi lettuce wrap
eating with daddy's chopsticks


Since we have been in Korea we have learned to eat many new things. Bulgogi fish is not a real dish but to Zachary it is. He has become very picky and the only Korean food he would eat was mandu. We have learned though if you call food something he likes, then he will eat it. For some reason he wanted fish tonight (never had anything but fish sticks but that's what he wanted). We were not having fish but bulgogi which is a marniated beef. We just called it bulgogi fish and he enjoyed eating it. Woo Hoo! He even liked when you wrapped with the rice and lettuce and especially using the chop sticks. I feel bad 'lying' to him but if he will eat it called by a new name
I'm game. :)

eating with my own chopsticks

Singapore

I have found a new country to love in Asia. Singapore is such a wonderful place. Why?
Three reasons:

1. The speak English here.


2. The country is one big shopping mall! Toys R Us, Ikea, grocery stores with lots of American food


3. If the building is not a place to shop it is a place to eat. Subway, Taco Bell

Ok so there are many other reasons to enjoy Singpore. It is so beautiful here. It reminds me a lot of Hawaii. It is so lush and green and tropical. Very different from Korea. There are trees and green everywhere.

I have had to go to some meetings but have been able to enjoy Singapore as well. Last night we rode on a river boat and got to see the city from the water at night. Beautiful! I will have to post pictures later.

Some of the funny this I have learned about Singapore is that there is a fine for everything. One of the other teachers and I have been trying to take pictures of all the find signs we see.

• It's a $100 fine for not buckling your seat belt in a taxi


• There is a fine for stepping over the yellow line at the train station before the train stops.


• You could be fined for jaywalking.


• My favorite is you could be arrested for chewing gum and spitting it out. It's illegal to sell gum in Singapore!
  
  
  
  

I have enjoyed my time in Singapore so far but most of of all I have enjoyed getting to know the AERC staff and ministry opportunities we have to serve missionaries around Asia. I can't wait to get to started!

Did Chase come with us?

Zachary has a little boy in his class who is a 5 months older than him. His name is Seth. There are many times when I look at Seth and think it is Chase from back home. Chase is a little smaller but they have some similarities. Here are some pictures so you can compare and tell me what you think.

Chase

Seth

So what do you think?

Mandu!!!!

Zachary's favorite Korean food is mandu, actually the only Korean food he will eat :). It is a fried dumpling with pork, cabbage, rice noodles and I really don't know what else inside. I am afraid to ask but it tastes really good. Our friend Ellen took some videos of Zachary eating mandu the other night. I hope you can tell how much he enjoys it. Last time we ate it he had 5 in one sitting.

The first video is use waiting for dinner. Zachary likes to play with chopsticks. I accidentally uploaded the wrong one but it took so long I am keeping it on here :) He says hi to grandma so its worth keeping :)

Here is Zach eating his beloved mandu.

Mandu with chopsticks :)

Zachary's second love in Korea- dancing to Korean music. He dances when we are in restaurants, stores, or at school. Whenever he hears the music, he is dancing. The teachers in the ELC love to watch him dance. They will play music on their cell phones just so he can dance for them.

Notice the very empty plate and one final grasp for a mandu. :)

What's missing?

OK so I will finally get around to posting my game of What's Missing? I am going to post a few pictures. You can try and guess what is missing from the object or room and then I will tell you at the end. What do you win, you ask? More knowledge about our life in Korea!

1.Located on TCIS property
2. located in our kitchen



3. This hangs on our porch.

4. Located in our bedroom

5. located at the back of the apartment

6. Located on TCIS property

7. located in Zachary's bedroom


1. Students in Patrick's classroom that is in a 'container' -something like a trailer just stacked on top of each other :)

2. You may think it is a normal trash can but our special Korean trash bag is missing. In Korea, special green trash bags are bought at local kah-ges (convenient stores) that you must use to dispose of your non recyclable trash. This allows you to pay for your taxes for garbage collection. Recyclables should be sorted on a certain day of the week and your food compost goes in a separate container on the street. We haven't got the hang of it all yet. A lot of extra stuff gets placed in our green bags. :)

3. Clothes from our wonderful drying rack! Crazy invention!

4. Our comforter! We sent many items ahead of us with some friends and apparently someone decided to enjoy our comforter over the summer.

5. No Dryer! We are hoping baby #2 comes along soon so we can get that dryer! We are getting used to wearing very stiff clothes and ironing EVERYTHING!

6. Students from Jennifer's classroom :) Jennifer's classroom is located in the main building.

7. Zach's crib AND his clothes- When we arrived we only had a pack-n-play that was borrowed from another family. We now have a crib for him. I really just wanted to show off his Blue's Clues room. Zachary enjoyed it when we had no air conditioning because he got to run around almost naked. Even now he likes to run around with no clothes on. He is too much like his Hawaiian daddy :)

Hope you enjoyed this edition of What's Missing?

Our new home

I guess it is about time to post another blog. I know John has been waiting :). We have finally settled in to our new home in Taejon, South Korea. We have been here for almost 3 weeks now but it has felt like we have been here for much longer.

We endured the first couple weeks with no air conditioning. I think God was helping us to appreciate those littel blessings in life created by technology. Many people told us about August in Korea and that it would be hot and very humid. I don't think I really believed them. Some days were extremely sitcky and felt worse than any NC August day. They say the weather drastically changes on Sept 15th. I hope that is true.

Life before air conditioning

"Our Blessing"

School has gone well. We absolutely love the 'family' we have here at TCIS. The administration is unbelieveable. It is so wonderful to work in a place was God is the center of all we do and winning souls for the kingdom is far more important than test scores. Of course we are here to educate children and that is our goal as well but the focus is so much different.

We are enjoying life in Korea so far. The transition has been pretty easy so far. We have manage to handle the hard beds, bright lights all the time, crazy driving and boldness to cross busy streets, eating lots of yummy food once we can read the menu, and living on the 7th floor of a building.

Tune in for more fun Korean facts in my next posting that will be titled "What's missing?"

Post without pictures but lots of nerves

We leave the United States in less than 24 hours. I have no pictures to post today because everything is packed away. I have plenty of nerves though. I have been sick to my stomach since I woke up around 4:00 this morning just from all the nerves and thoughts in my head. I am sure tomorrow morning I will be throwing up. It's just one of those things I am used to doing. I am frightened of a new life in Korea but so excited at the same time. I know this is exactly the place God wants us to be and He will help overcome my fears and nerves. "Be bold and corageous for the Lord our God is with you!" He will help me through the long 15 hour flight tomorrow and all my stresses of Zachary on a plane and going to day care. This is my last post from NC for a long time. Next time I will be writing from our new home in Taejon South Korea on the other side of world! Wow! Can't wait!

Cool dudes!

Just had to share. They are too cute not to!

My boys from da hood!

New Coke Advertisment

Thought you might like to see the new advertisement for Coca-cola.





Think we could get some money for this one? Maybe that's why he was up until after 9:00 that night.

Aloha!

What a whirlwind! We have returned from our 10 days in Hawaii and have come home just to jump right into packing. Zachary loved flying and was inthrawled with the airports. He did great on the planes so hopefully that is good news for our flight to Korea.

We had a great time in Hawaii. Patrick's mom got married which we have no pictures of on our computer. We misplaced our camera for the day so we have no digital pictures. Someone gave us some on a dvd but our computer is so old it will not read dvd's. Can't wait to get to Korea to get a new computer!!!

The wedding was beautiful and his mom looked amazing. The cake turned out very well after a few tears and a breakdown on Friday. Once I can read the digital pictures I will post one of the cake. Otherwise you have to see my hard copy.

We had a busy time and didn't make it to the beach until a week after arriving. Zachary enjoyed the beach much better this time. He had a blast playing with cousins Shane and Samantha. He loved waking up every morning to have breakfast with Grammy (his great-grandma). We are hoping he will get back on NC time soon and stop waking up at night. Of course, probably by that point we will be in Korea and we will have to do this over again. Oh well! That's life these days!

Reunited and it feels so good!

Zachary and Dawson met at the sandbox (ok volleyball court)

This past weekend, Zachary and I, along with my dad, traveled to West Virginia to see Brett and Sheri and of course Dawson and Kenan.I got to meed Kenan for the first time and I fell in love! He is such a cuddler! It was hard to believe he is 5 months old already. Zachary enjoyed meeting the 'real' Kenan and not just the one on the computer.

Zachary and Dawson had a BLAST together. They loved playing with each other and for the most part shared ;). They loved copying each other. Each one had to push the buttons in the elevator. If you're not watching, I am sure it would be possible for them to take a ride in the elevator by themselves. Zachary taught Dawson all about Blue's Clues.

Zachary and Dawson enjoyed eating their popcorn together, each in their own bowl of course.

Relaxing after a hard day of play.

They loved to hold hands!

Good byes are always so hard!

We hope to get back up there in a few weeks so the boys can play together again.

Field Trip

I really have to get better at this blogging thing. It has been over a month since I posted last, almost two!

So much as happened since then. We are busy packing up the house. Patrick finishes school this week. Zachary and I travel to West Virginia on Thursday to Sheri and once we get back we quickly turn around and leave for Hawaii next Tuesday. Things are going well though. We have 5 bags packed!!!

We have so many things to be thankful for:

Insurance paid for for the month of July

House is rented!

Did I mention 5 bags packed!

Jennifer spoke at Angier church and it went very well

Running into someone at Target who wanted to pay for everything in our cart going to Korea!

Ok so the real reason for this post- Our field trip

Last Friday was national donut day at Krispy Kreme. We took the boys for their first donut and of course to LEARN how donuts were made :) They had a good time. Chase inhaled his donut. Zachary ate his like a dog. We also got to see a real choo choo train on the way home. It was a great day!

It's a small world after all!

Last night Patrick and I had the opportunity to get together with a future co-worker at TCIS. What a blessing it was to meet someone you will be working with for the first time and already feel like family. Ellen Sligh, came over for dinner and we got to know each other. My parents came to meet her and so did Ed and Patty Blanchard. Ellen will actually be working in the Special Ed department with me so we will be close coworkers as well.

We had a great night talking about Korea. My favorite part was realizing how connected we were through mutual friends. Being in the Alliance is a wonderful thing because it makes this huge world so much smaller. When you have all of these connections, you really feel like you have known someone for a long time even though you only met 2 hours ago.

I am so excited about this new family that we will become a part of at TCIS. It's been so neat to see how God has brought TCIS to us and we haven't even had to leave our living room yet. Here is a picture of our fun evening. Even Zachary enjoyed having Ellen over. One day she might even be his pre-school teacher!

House for Rent

Anyone want to rent a house??? Please????

Twins??

I took Chase and Zachary to the store the other day in their matching Elmo shirts. The question I am asked all the time is if they are twins. Hmmmmmm I wonder....One is obviously older than the other and they really don't look that much alike, especially with Zachary's dark skin and Chase's pale white skin. Now I would say Zachary looks more like Chase's mom and Chase looks more like me when taking a quick glance but they are definitely not twins.

However, they are REALLY cute! They love to 'drive' the car at the grocery store. Whoever invented those carts should be highly rewarded. Now, if they could just be a little easier to manoeuvre that would be great. If Target and Walmart would just catch on we would be a happy family. That's why our favorite places to go are BJ's and Food Lion.