Korean-American Friendship Festival

This weekend our town, Songtan, held its annual Korean-American Friendship Festival. Basically there are a lot of booths (to buy food, give out information, or experience cultural art-making), a lot of carnival-like kid games, and big stage performances... All in the name of LOVE. :) haha! This year our school decided to have a booth to sell cookies and popcorn to raise money for a new playground as well as get our name out there and hopefully recruit some more students. All of the teachers and a lot of students signed up to work for a couple of hours each. Overall, I'd say it was pretty successful. Here are some photos of our booth and... Emma. Ok, so I just can't choose sometime so I have to show them ALL!

Pyongtaek-International Christian School

Some of my former 5th grade students (now in 8th grade) selling cookies.

More cookie selling. Oh, and Aunt Debbie, you'll be happy to know that your chocolate chip cookie recipe was a HIT! The bag closest to you in the picture has some of your cookies in it!

It was a bright day... hence the hat.

Emma checking out Isaac in the back.

The Zanger clan sporting our ICS gear.

And... one seriously cute little girl!

Game Day AND 1/2 Birthday!

Saturday was Emma's 6 Month Birthday and we celebrated by going to another one of Daddy's baseball games! Here a few pics from the event. (Have I mentioned that I LOVE our new camera???)

Exersaucer

Check out Emma's new toy!

Daily pics for Daddy

Everyday (ok, at least 2-3 times a week) I get out the camera and take some cute pics of Emma, then e-mail them to Eric at school. He LOVES getting to see his little girl throughout the day. He also always resets his computer background screen to whatever the daily pic is and then shows it off to whatever students are currently in his classroom. I think this is pretty sweet. Here are some of our recent favorites including several that I took and sent off this morning at the end!

Enjoy!

A playdate + A real date = A GREAT Day!

Want to know why? Because a playdate in the morning makes the day go SO much faster when you are a stay-at-home Mommy. And it's really nice for both Emma and I to get some social interaction in. :) Then, a REAL date with my husband gives me some much needed away time with him.

Yesterday, both of these things happened and it was a GREAT DAY! (Oh, and I highly recommend the movie, "Mr. Popper's Penguins." Nevermind that it was the only English movie showing... we BOTH really enjoyed the show!)

An Evening WITH Daddy!

A couple of evenings ago, before this cold weather blew in, we had the opportunity to spend ALL evening with Daddy! It must have been Sunday now that I think about it because lately, with Eric's school and coaching (& baseball playing... although that doesn't happen very often do to the other things) schedule, he has been getting home pretty late each evening. And with Emma going to bed around 7:30pm each night, that doesn't leave much time for Daddy to see baby. I'm ok with it, though, because on those late nights I know that Eric is out for a good reason. Plus, I also know that this is just for a season and that he won't be coaching all year. BUT, it was nice on Sunday because we were able to take advantage of him being home and went out for a brief walk, play time at the park, got some food, & even did a little shopping!

Heading out from our house. This was the 1st time that we decided to try Emma in the big-girl stroller. (instead of putting her in the car-seat and attaching it on top.) She did really well!

We happen to have a small park about a 2 minute walk from our house, so we stopped there to "play" for a bit.

We're not sure what Emma thought about the slide.

Or the swings.

But...

We're pretty sure she enjoyed being tossed in the air by Daddy!

Then we continued our walk and happened to stroll pass this spot on the sidewalk. I know it may seem childish, but do you see the names Eric & Laurie marked into the concrete there? Well, over 3 years ago Eric & I noticed this wet patch of sidewalk and decided to inscribe our names there. And here you can still see it! (Funny memory... I remember being upset that Eric wouldn't let me put a heart in between the names. Ha! Well, look where we are now!)

Then we went and picked up a box of our favorite cheap pizza here. PIZZA SCHOOL! And no, it's not actually a school where you go in and make your own pizzas.

And while we were waiting for our pizza to cook, I convinced Eric to walk across the street to the baby store and we ended up making 2 purchases! The 1st was of some more baby food containers for me to use when making Emma's food. And the 2nd was actually a toy! Other than the bath duckies we bought in the states, I think this might be the 1st toy we've ever bought for Emma! Yes, the rest were given to us. I'm sure that's the way it will be for many years to come... I've heard stories. Anyway, the above photo pictures Emma with her new ball.

"New" Furniture!

Remember this? It is a picture of Eric fixing our futon... the 1st time! This pic was taken around a year and a 1/2 ago. Well, let me tell you something. This futon went downhill quickly. By the beginning of this past summer, there were only 2-3 of those bottom slats in tact. Meaning basically the mattress/cushion was sitting on the floor.

So, when you sat (or laid) on the couch, it felt like you were in an uneaven bucket seat. NOT fun on the ol' back. And definitely not fun for a pregnant and then just-un-pregnant lady to sit on all day.

And do you remember this chair? It was the replacement chair for the old green one in the 1st photo above. I had high hopes of rocking my baby to sleep in this "nice" glider/rocker each night. Well, as it turn out, the rocker was broken making this chair very uncomfortable to sit in, much less rock in it. About the only thing it was good for was as a cat bed. Ug.

Well, we prayed and searched long and hard for a new couch and chair and God has been good to us. At the end of the school year, one of our long-time teacher friends was leaving and we got to have her couch. Below is a picture of 2 of the 3 or 4 men it took to bring it up our stairwell and into our narrow doorway.

Then, recently I found this chair on a facebook site called, Osan Flea Market. It looked like a really nice rocker at a reasonable price so we bought it! And let me tell you, it is SO NICE! Probably the nicest piece of furniture we have (excluding our bed which was brand new and a wedding present to us.)

So, now our living room looks like this and we are REALLY happy for the changes and how God has provided. Now we feel that we can actually have people over again and they can sit somewhere other than on the floor! Yay for gently used (American!) furniture.

Chusok with the Chungs

Do you remember this? It was taken last September (2010) on Chusok. Each year our landlord family invites us down for a traditional Korean meal to celebrate the holiday with them. Last year I was nearly 4 months pregnant and just starting to feel the need for maternity jeans. Well, I'm happy to say that I am out of those now and back into my regular jeans. yay!

But, that is not the point of this post. This year the Chungs invited us down again BUT with one new and exciting development. Usually the Grandma and Grandpa leave when we come over. I guess because they feel uncomfortable in their English capability. (However, Mr. Chung's English is REALLY good for his age!) Anyway, this year for the 1st time, the older couple STAYED while we were there and the Grandma even ate with us! I'm pretty sure it was due to them wanting to see and hold our cute white baby. But, hey, whatever works, right? We were so happy to be able to interact with them all. It was a good meal. We are hoping to have them all over for a Christmas meal again this year and hopefully be able to share more of our faith with them at that time. Anyway, below are a few pictures of everyone taking turns holding our precious Emma. (We even dressed her up briefly in her adorable, oversized, traditional hanbok for the occasion.)