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 ~~;;

BYU-Hawaii

I've been done with school for just about 3 years now, and I have been trying for the last year to get back in. (still no word on that yet but I'm working on it). I was talking with my friend Jason from BYUH yesterday and he sent me over this picture. 100% real, non scripted just chris. Its funny because I slept through class in highschool, I slept through a car crash (probably saved my life), I slept through class in Hawaii, on my mission I would sleep during discussions and at church (funny story - my very first area is the ward that Jinhee's family attends now, when we visit I know most of the member, there are still members that know me as the missionary that would sleep through anything... and because its Korea they bring it up everytime... you know like "Hey, brother Colton. Remember when you were a missionary here and slept through church, discussions, member visits? Do you remember that... hahaha such good times..") Now at work I sleep at my desk and during meetings. Wow, sounds like need to see a doctor ~~;; Just thought I'd share the fun with everyone. I've got some pictures of Hanee I need to post but maybe do that next week. Our family will be in Washington for the holidays the 13th to the 27th. If you are there give us a call we'd love to see friends. If we missed you its okay "Have a merry Christmas" ^^

Best father daughter activity ever ^^

So there are few things that make Chris happier than his daughter. Shes the best little baby every. But a close second is Street Fighter ^^ As most of you know Chris likes video games (kinda funny cuz to people that aren't really into video games Chris seems like a hardcore gamer, on the other hand real hardcore gamers see Chris as a more casual gamer). One of Chris all time favorite video game series is Street Fighter. I still remember seeing Street fighter II in the arcade growing up and bugging my parents for quarters so I could play it. I remember walking a mile or two to the grocery store with my cousins so we could play at thanksgiving. I remember going to the neighbors house to play cuz my parents didn't let us get video games until high school. In high school I imported street fighter playstation games so I could get them 2 months before they would come out in the states. I'm not really sure why I like street fighter I'm not good at (well not good enough to be a pro) but I just like it. So this year is the first year a new streetfigther game has come out in like 8 years (I think). And it hit arcades first. I've been trying to think of a good reason to go the the arcade and play it but just couldn't come up with one. About two weeks ago we went out for dinner with some friends visiting Seoul and ended up going to Shinchon (place where all the college kids hang out). So while Jinhee and her friend where out shopping me and Hanee along with my friend Chun and there baby kinda just had to walk around and look at stuff. Chris saw an arcade and knew he needed to check for some street fighter IV action. Sure enough they had a post up saying it was in the basement. Chris at first was just gonna look at the arcade cabinet and not really play it (Chris really wants to own a bunch of arcade machines some day). I gave into the temptation put in my 300 won (about a 15 cents now ~~;;) and started to play. I couldn't really set Hanee down anywhere so I just held her on my lap and played. The best part is that you play against other people right. So a kid sits down across from me and we start playing, but since you are across from each other you can't really see the other person you just play against them. Chris totally kicked the kids trash~~ so he sent his friend over to see who he was playing against. There are some foreigners in Seoul but not many hang out in arcades, so when his friend saw that I was a foreigner he would have normally been surprised. But when his friend saw that I was a foreigner holding a baby on my lap and I still won, he had to do a double take. He then walked back to his friend and started making fun of him cuz he not only lost, but lost to the white guy holding a baby ^^ Jinhee's friend took these pictures to show what an awesome dad I am... okay maybe to show how sad Hanee looks ~~;; (She was perfectly happy to sit with dad and suck on her binky). I need to post some other more important stuff but for today this should be good. (Oh yeah, and now that I live in Korea and have access to Streetfighter games straight from Japan ^^, If you need anything from Thailand let me know... I'll be going tomorrow and back on Tuesday)

Ha-nee update

So I know I said I wouldn't be updating for a while... cuz studying and all, but these pictures are just too good not to share. Little bit of background on the photos. Jinhee has been taking Japanese class 3 times a week for the past 2 months now. She wanted to get out of the house a little more after having the baby (I agree, she needs to get out of the house more). One of the people in her Japanese class works at a photo studio, and when Jinhee told the class she was married (to one of those barbarian foreigners, none the less) the guy asked if he could take pictures of out baby (because everyone knows that Korean + Barbarian foreigner = cute cute baby). Normally it costs a ton to get pictures like this done in Korea (between $600 and $1500 depending on your prints all ...) anyhow He said if he could use the photos for his portfolio he would give us the raw pictures for us to print or do what ever. While I was gone in Europe this last week (more on that later) Jinhee took Hanee to get her pictures done. Jinhee said Hanee did good considering it took about 8 hours. We only got a few of the pictures back so far and are waiting to get the rest. These are just two... we have some more and I'll get to posting them later. For now just look at these two... oh and if I might add my totally unbiased opinion, she looks adorable^^ Just a quick note on Chris - I'm still studying for the GMAT and getting ready to apply to grad school again (I take the GMAT for the 3rd time on 11/13 *GO GO*) (Oh Paris and London where nice, I actually got to see London this time I'll have some pictures for that on here or facebook later)

More Ha-nee pictures. Her mom took these and I just thought I'd share them with everyone. Ha-nee is 7 months old now, growing her hair back ^^, she can crawl, eats baby food and is all around adorable. Hmmm... so what else is happening at the Colton house? The summer in Korea seems to have come to an end, by raining all day today and being cold enough at night that I actually have to shut the windows and use a blanket. Chris is thinking about what he wants to do again... I know... so last year the plan was to totaly go back to the USA to do an MBA, one slight problem, Chris didn't really get into the MBA program of his choice. I kinda took it pretty hard so I haven't really done much to improve on that position yet and its getting to be time to start applying to schools for next year ~~;; So, what can I do? Study for the GMAT again... or just reapply cuz I have more expernce now? I think I can do better on the GMAT... but it just sucks my will to live... that and if I do want to do better I really really really need to stop doing everything else in my life for about 3 months... again with the sucking my will to live... I studied for a little over an hour tonight and that felt good so have to see how things go. The goal for the end of the week is to be at 3 hours a day studying, but I need to ease my self into it. Don't want to jump into the deep end with out testing the water. If I don't do GMAT and study again I need to get ready for the CPA exam... and that requires studying too hmmm. Kinda a strange feeling, I know that I want more, I know there are ways to get it, just need get over what happened last time press on and make it happen. Shoot if Mike Phelps can win 8 gold medals... and the Korean swimmer can get 1 gold medal I should be able to take a little test and do okay right... right... ^^ So if not alot of posts happen in the future wish me luck.