Sunday, May 29, 2011

2 years

I cannot believe Jaemin, Chelsi, Kaelin and I came off the plane from Korea 2 years ago today. He's changed so much in 2 years.  Not just the regular changes a baby goes through going into toddlerhood, but his personality too.  He's still as energetic as ever, but now he's so charismatic.  He makes you laugh all the time.  He worries me most of the time with his carefree, daredevil attitude.  He's scared of very little aside from mommy being away from him.  Sometimes, at night, when he's lying next to me in my bed and sleeping I just stroke his little, sweet face and thank God he's with us.  I can't believe how beautiful my little tornado is and how lucky we are to have him here in our family. 

I don't thank God that he was placed for adoption.  I thank God that when he was, we were afforded the ability to bring him here.  I love you Jaemin, my little shocker boy!

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Oh man! Almost over
















It's almost time to leave vacation and come home. I'd be ready if it weren't for the stinky weather back home. Looks like we're leaving our sunny, breezy, wonderful weather for rain!  We found a great place to stay for the kids.  We're not on the beach, but we're close.  The Caribe resort has a trollie that takes you to the intercoastal beach and it's really nice, pretty, green water.  The waves are a tad calmer there and better for the little ones.  The resort also has a huge pool for our building, an indoor pool for our building and lazy river.  There is also another pool with a water slide and the indoor pools have little waterslides.  All in all this place is really nice and we got to split the cost with our friends.  The room is nice too.  3 bedrooms and 3 bath rooms.  With 4 adults and 6 kids, I can't imagine less.  We've done most of the morning and lunch cooking and a couple of evenings too.  But the kids really wanted to enjoy the seafood, so we've been trying to let them since this is really a treat and we never get to eat out at home.

We've had such a great time.  We've spent LOTS of time at the beach where we quickly found out Jaemin is definitely a brut!  He takes a licking from those waves and just keeps on going.  Though I think we emptied a pound of sand out of his swim diaper and pants pocket.  Jaemin and Chelsi are SUPER tan regardless of our efforts to put tons of lotion on.  I burned regardless of my efforts for myself.  Not bad though.  Cole, Chase and Kaelin have nice little tans going too.  No one can beat out Chelsi and Jaemin's suntan Barbie tans.

The Naval Museum was pretty neat and Jaemin was in stimulus overload with all those airplanes.  I don't think he knew what to do.  He just kept yelling 'airpane', 'airpane'.  He was so, so excited to see all of them and a couple of helicopters.

We spent a morning with my dad since we were only four hours away and hadn't seen him or his wife in 1 1/2 years.  This is the first time they 'really' got to see Jaemin and his 'real' personality since right after he came home from Korea.

The shrimp boat was super fun too.  They touched all kinds of sea life.  Even Jaemin and Chelsi helped feed the small fish to the seagulls after we were done checking out the catches and our deckhand explained what everything was and a little bit about them.

IF you ever come to Orange Beach or Gulf Shores, don't come during the Hangout Music Festival if you have kids.  Not real kid friendly then.  Lots of younger crowds I didn't care to have my kids around.  Do go to Flippers to eat. It's off the beaten path for sure, but awesome atmosphere where you can eat right on the bay, outside.  Free homemade ice cream afterward too!  DeSotos is a great seafood restaurant.  A little expensive, but HUGE meals that are REALLY good.  Live Bait was really good too.  Our friends didn't care for Bubba's lunch.  Dominoes, while cheap and we could eat it at the pool, not worth the 1 1/2 hours and 3 phone calls it took to get it to us.  It was luke warm by the time they arrived.  Needless to say they had to waive the delivery charge.

I brought my good camera and tripod and took our family picture on the beach.  So that's what we're bringing back to the grandparents, wink wink, just so you know.  That's the gifts your getting.  We thought that would be better than a bunch of useless items that say Orange Beach AL.

So our trip is winding down, our house seems to be still standing from what Brian's dad says and we're all getting worn out.  It has been enjoyable though.

Here are the pictures I haven't posted yet; before we head home.

On the drive down.




Room with a view.



First day in the water.

Day 2
Day 3 - Cole has glow sticks on his head and they're throwing a glow ball.  They were just being goofy that night.

Day 4

Sorry, I just enjoyed our day today....no pics!