Hanee - Four Years Old?

Okay so she's not really four years old, more like three and a couple of months but in Korea they count age different so she's four here. Its been close to a year since I wrote anything so I thought I'd start into it easy with a post about Hanee. She is doing great, if I had to pick one word to describe her it would be "Energy", she is full of energy. She has been having tons of fun with Grandma and Grandpa here in Korea (likely because she can get whatever she wants from them ^^). We have only been in Korea about two weeks and her Korean is improving fast, although she is still a little shy when talking to the kids outside. Here is a quick breakdown of likes/dislikes in list form.

Likes:

Candy and Snack food

Fish - both to look at and to eat

Her little sister

Disney movies - right now its Toy Story or Tangled but it could change by the time I post this

Disney Princesses - including Mulan... even though she isn't really a princess

Ipods/Ipads and video games

Korea

Grandma and Grandpa

Nana and Papa

Hawowi - Hanee's word for Hawaii (she's never been but knows we are planning on going for Christmas)

Her piggy bank

Anything she can get at a dollar store

Hair Accessories

Skirts - sometimes she sleeps in it

Her camera - She uses a Nikon coolpix i got after my mission (she takes great pictures)

Her Jessie doll

Legos...

I'm sure there is more but that's about all I could come up with off the top of my head

Dislikes:

Real food - although she's getting better

Taking a nap

Getting up from a nap

Staying still when she sleeps

Listening to mom or dad

Washing her hands

Brushing her teeth

Anything that involves looking for something

Time Out

Now that I am done with school and have more time to spend with my family, lots more time, I have been spending more daddy daughter time with Hanee and it has been great. Also because she doesn't remember Korea that much I'm trying to show her fun things about Korea. This morning on our way out side I asked her if she wanted to play at the play ground or ride the bus. (Korea has a great bus system, and we have no car here). She wanted to ride the bus. So we held hands and walked to the bus stop. She was very excited and I told her about the bus while we waited. The bus came and we got on, sat in a double seat next to the window so Hanee could look out the window during the short ride to the intersection with all the shops. After we got off the bus Hanee wanted to go into a makeup store and buy lotion for mom... I'm told her mom had lotion but we could go in and look around anyway. Next we went to the dollar store and Hanee bought a piggy bank for a dollar. I figured we'd get some food and head home but Hanee knows her dad well and pulled me into a toy store to pick out hair pins and a ring (what am I going to do when she's a teenager and wants expensive things ~~;;). Then we went to the bakery and got her some sweet breads. On the way home we passed a man selling live octopus, common in Korea, and Hanee spent 5 minutes looking at all the sea creatures. If I could figure out how to keep the octopus alive and feed it I'd buy one for me... I mean her. We waited for the bus and came home again.

All in all our outing took about a hour and a half but it was a great time. I love spending time with Hanee, talking to her and seeing her face as she discovers new things. It great being a dad, sometimes hard, but most of the time great.

Sorry for the lame story but I wanted to write it down so I could remember it later.

Not going to make any promises but I do have alot of time between now and when I start working so there is a possibility that I might make two posts this year ^^

A new post... well kinda

It's been about 2 years since I posted anything new on the good old blog... okay maybe not but seems like forever. I enjoy reading my friends blogs and often think about putting something up on mine, but hardly ever do. So here is a quick review to get you up to speed.

Chris left a good job in Korea to come back to the states and get and MBA. Little did Chris know he would spend the next 6 months looking for a new job that was as good, if not better than his old one. At the same time I am supposed to be a Dad, a husband, a good student, do all this other stuff that keeps me busy, find time to play video games... I mean I can't do everything. (Laying on the sarcasm just a little... but not too much).

Anyway Chris finally found an internship, after interviewing with about 9 companies... and it looks like we will be headed out to San Jose California to work at Cisco Systems this summer. Chris is really excited about this.

Hanee is two now and she deserves a new post.. Hope to get that up some time in the next month. All I can say for now is that she is super cute, adorable, really smart and a handful.

Shoes, School, and back to the states

Things are moving along pretty quickly for us now. We are getting ready to make some big changes at the Colton home. Hanee has been growing and reaching important milestones all the time. (She still hasn’t reached the 10 kilo mark, but she’s getting close). The last couple of months have been filled with lots of first for Hanee, as well as some other exciting developments. My favorite development so far is her talking. She’s been saying stuff for a while now, and we talk to her all the time but she never really repeated what we said. A few months ago that changed. Here is a list of the words she can say, and understand.

Say
In English
“No”
“Fishy” (fish)
“Ball”

In Korean
“신발” sinbal – Shoes (This was the first word that she said other than mommy/daddy/food)
“멍멍이” mung mung ee – Puppy (also the sound a dog makes in Korean)
“엄마” omma – Mommy
“아빠” appa - Daddy
“마마” mama – Food (This is not the regular Korean word for food, just baby talk)
“물” moeul – Water
“부바” buba – piggy back (Korean baby talk)
“이 것” ee geot – This thing?
“뭐야” mo ya – What is this? (the full sentence is “이 것 뭐야” of “what is this?” but most of the time she just uses one or the other)
“없다/없어” opda – All gone (The Korean literally means “something does not exists”) she is really smart about this and if you tell her that something is “opda” she understands that its gone now.

Understand – everything above plus some simple Korean (I know I know she’s working on the English but I’m not home much during the day)
“Come here”
“Bring me _____”
“Give this to _____ (mom/dad/aunt)
“Sit down”
“Stand up”
“Lets go”
“Time to eat”
“Milk”
“Kimbap” (rice and seaweed)
“Bath time”
“Give _____ a hug”
“Give _____ a kiss”
“Give _____ a pat on the back”
“You’ll be okay / Everything’s okay”
“Don’t touch that”
“That will hurt you”/”Ouch”
“Lay down”
“Go to sleep”
“Lets read”
“Book”

I’m sure there is much more but that’s what I could come up with for right now.
As for Chris, I’m getting ready for school. I had to take two online classes, I’ve finished both of them and now have a little more time to relax. School starts in August but we will be heading to Utah the end of June. June 29th to be exact. I’m really looking forward to being an American again. Its strange but a lot of times I don’t feel like an American while I’m here. I hang out with Americans but work with all Koreans. Lots of times I don’t think of my self as a typical American, even though I do lots of American type things while in Korea… I don’t know hard to explain. I there are lots of things I like about being in Korea, and then there are things that really bug me (driving/traffic). I’m excited to move, we have a little over a month to go. I our stuff will be shipped out on June 3rd, and we will get it some time in July. Then it’s “bye, bye” to the land of the morning calm. I’m not sure how long it will be until will be until we come back to Korea. But I’m sure we will be back some time. (At least to visit ^^).

나 같으면 그렇게 안하겠다 ~

Some times I just want to take a break from everything, and when I do it makes me realize I have so much to do that I don't have time to take a break. I was thinking about how some people always seem to have time to do the things they need to, and the things they want to. I'm not sure what I need to do to become one of those people, but I hope I figure it out sometime. Life is going good for the family right now, it just seems like we are always busy. (I'm pretty sure part of that is living in Korea, because even if you aren't doing anything in Korea you are always busy... or at least thats what people told me when I was a missionary.) To be honest, I do have alot of things to do so that my family will be able to smoothly transition to life in America. We did get Jinhee's visa and that was the biggest relief. I'm pretty sure for the week after that was over I didn't feel busy or stressed at all. Maybe its because yesterday was supposed to be a holiday and I was at work... although my co-workers came to work sat and Sunday too... guess I shouldn't complain too much.

While I'm ranting I want to throw out a fun little story about work. My work comes in uneven chunks. When I have training to do overseas, I'm really busy preparing to do the training. That doesn't bother me too much because I'm pretty good at training. I'm not amazing at it, but I do all right. And I usually get to visit some cool country, and do zero sight seeing (okay so thats not 100% true, I've seen some pretty cool stuff). Anyhow back to my work rant. Then I kinda sit round at work for a while during the dead time, review some documents, update/study new accounting policy. Thats what I do until they throw me something to translate. Chris doesn't like to translate documents. Chris likes Korean, he likes to study Korean, he likes to practice Korean, he likes to learn new Korean words, but he doesn't like to be given a 20 page Korean document and told could you have that done for us in the morning. Chris isn't actually that good at translating documents. I can do it, I do a better job than most people in my group... the only problem is it takes me a long time. I can't just throw out 20 pages in 7 hours. 20 pages usually takes me 3 or 4 days, not 1. Work always wants me to get it done in 1 and then I have to tell them that Chris isn't a professional translator, he's never taken a Korean class... all that fun stuff. Any how the point of this all is about a month ago I spent an entire week translating like 30 pages of stuff for an official document for the CFO of our company. Yesterday I translated like 10 pages of stuff for a meeting my group is having with the CEO. I asked someone in my group if I could get an official copy of the stuff I translated for the CFO... they said yeah we didn't use that. I'm pretty calm... I think... I almost lost it... I had to go take a time out. Sit down. Breathe. Of course I had a copy of the stuff, but I wasted a week translating it, being stressed and working late, not spending time with my family, so that this could get done.. and then they didn't even use it. Wonderful. Sorry... I guess I just needed to get some stuff outta my head. Thanks for listening.

'End Rant'

The picture above is just because I love my baby girl. Jinhee did her hair up so cute. I'm always happy I have her. Jinhee and Hanee get home tomorrow and I'm really looking forward to it.

Hanee's 1st year

Hanee turned 1 on January 29th. Lots of stuff have happened during the last year, but by far the best thing was Hanee joining our family. We had a really big party for Hanee's first birthday, Its called a 돌잔치 (dol jan chi) in Korean. I'll try and get some pictures of that up later. For this post I just want to talk about my little girl. (Oh and post some pictures from her recent photo shot).

Hanee is amazing, she loves her Mom and Dad so much. She loves both pairs of Grandparents. She loves to give you hugs. She can walk very good now, and runs sometimes. She'll walk up to me and pull on my leg if she wants a hug, probably my favorite thing about being a dad right now. She likes to bounce on me when I lie down. Hanee likes to take baths (hates washing her hair keke). She will give you a kiss is you ask and she's in the mood. She waves bye bye to Dad every morning before I go to the office. She loves electronics (something I think she got from me). She can turn on and off the TV with the remote. She calls people with Jinhee's mobile phone. (If you hold down the 1 key it dials me, so she called me this morning). She is so active, she plays for like 40 minutes in her bed before going to sleep. (Stand up, sit down, roll over, repeat). Since her bed is next to ours (its a Korean thing) she will some times climb on me before she goes to sleep and give me a kiss.

I love my little girl, she really is the best thing to happen to me. The thing I look forward to most everyday is going home so I can spend time with her.

Happy Birthday Hanee! (Even though the post is late) I hope that next year will be as good as this one.

Isn't this last picture great? ^^

Back to school! Back to school, to prove to Dad that I'm not a fool! I got my lunch packed up, my boots tied tight, I hope I don't get in a fight!

Just thougth I'd do a quick update. As many of you know (okay, okay I know there aren't that many people that read my blog) Chris has been trying to go to graduate school (MBA) since last year. At the begining of this week Chris interviewed with BYU again. I felt like the interview went 'okay' but could have gone better. I was a little worried that I'd get placed on hold again, and have to retake the GMAT. So this morning I got up to check my email before I shower, and found a nice letter from the admissions committe saying I'd be able to attend school starting in Fall '09. So here we are. Chris is very very excited and happy to go back to school. Jinhee is happy Chris is happy, but will miss living in Korea (we are starting our 4th year) and Hanee... well she will be happy with what ever we do. I'm sure she will have fun with all the other kids in America. I guess now comes the hard part... getting ready for school, filling out paper work to get Jinhee a new visa... applying for student loans.

(extra points to anyone that knows where the title is from)

Merry Christmas

Yeah for Christmas !!! We have been in the states for a good part of almost two weeks now ^^ Chris loves America, for so many reasons. But, The family will be heading back to Korea on Saturday, and Jinhee is getting very excited to go home. Chris is sad he has to leave his home again, but what can you do... I guess technically we could just up and move back to the states, but I'd really like to have a job when that happens or maybe be going to grad school. (Got an email saying yes to interviews for school this year... but trying not to get my hopes up tooo high, cuz we know what happens then). So this is the most recent family picture. Hanee did a great job with the picture taking (she's our little model), Grandpa did the pictures and the turned out alot less green this year... something about the flash working right and Grandpa changing the ISO setting... I don't know... I think they looked good. I'll have more up on facebook later. Hanee is making great progress. Right before we got out here she stood up on her own, and about 3 days ago she started to take steps... like 6 of them ^^ she's almost 11 months old and I can hold her hand and walk her around the house... way smarter than I was. To prove it my mom got out the baby book and we looked at when I did all the crawling/walking/sitting up/standing stuff and Hanee has me beat on all of them. Oh yeah and I can't tell you how happy she was she walked. When she first stood up she screamed... not the bad i'm in pain scream... but the cutests scream of joy. She was so proud of her self, and then she just kept on screaming and clapping. Then this time when she walked by herself she did the same thing. Its the little things like that, that make being a parent so great. We hope everyone had a merry Christmas ^^

Oh and Kenzie call us up quick cuz we are going to be going home on saturday... hmmmm... like you need to call today ~~;;