Team Meyer

Mac Meltdown 2012

2012-01-27T06:00:00.000+09:00

Earlier this week we had the first ever GSIS Mac-n-Cheese Meltdown!!! Here were the event details:

Here are some pics from the event... Everyone getting ready to start eating.

Here are all the different mac dishes. There were 11 different dishes.

This is my friend Kim (who was my "sous chef") pointing to the ones we made. I actually made two dishes for the competition. One was traditional and one was a slightly different twist using gouda and parmesan.

Friends, Becki and Elise, enjoying their mac.

This is my plate. Every mac dish was given a letter and if you look closely you can see I have letters along the rim of my plate so I could know which mac dish I was tasting. My dishes were D and J.

After tasting all of the dishes we voted for our top three.

Dish "B" won, made by our friend Joe. And we took second place!!! You can tell Everett is so proud (and full of drool).

The Mac Meltdown was so much fun! I highly recommend participating in a food competition with your friends; the smack talk and tasty food were great! It was also amazing how every single mac-n-cheese dish had its own unique feel.

Now after thinking about macaroni and cheese and eating mac-n-cheese for over a week non-stop (in preparation for the competition) I'm ready for a mac break.

the best christmas gift from 2011

2012-01-26T06:00:00.000+09:00

Check out these hilarious earrings from my sister-in-law, Jen. While going through some old boxes Tom's siblings found these little charms that Tom's mom had. Jen then converted them into my very own little Tom Meyer earrings! So funny!

laughing

2012-01-25T06:00:00.000+09:00

Everett is always quick to smile but it's hard to get this little man to laugh. Here Tom was able to get a rare recording of E getting his laugh on. (Also, make sure to check out those teeth! Dang!).

6 months

2012-01-24T20:25:00.000+09:00

Say what...?!?!?! Everett is 6 months old?!?! Here are some new pics of baby boy.

the cold, hard truth

2012-01-20T09:30:00.000+09:00

A friend of mine sent me this article yesterday. Sadly, it's all true. Our school is experiencing frigid temps, especially in common spaces like the cafeteria. I'm in a constant state of wearing my winter coat. This article explains why.

Shivering S. Koreans Battle Big Chill in Offices

Everett blowing raspberries

2012-01-19T19:54:00.002+09:00

Lunch with Wendy Jessica Won-Young Park

2012-01-19T19:22:00.001+09:00

Wendy Jessica Won-Young Park is actually one person. I taught her for my first three years at GSIS. The first year I taught her she was Wendy. Then after that year she decided to change her English name to Jessica. So I decided she should go by both of her English names and her Korean name. She was definitely among my top Math students here in Korea and was one of our 68 graduates last spring. While she was back in Korea for her winter break from Rutgers she and her mom invited Bonnie, Everett, and I out for lunch. It was awesome and we felt so loved! Wendy had never met Everett before so this was her first time to meet our little man. We had a lot of fun and hope to get together again in May once she has completed her first year. Some pics from our time together:

Wendy's mom showing Everett the little fake stream that ran through the restaurant.

Wendy's mom, E, and Wendy

Thanks Wendy Jessica!

dreaming....

2012-01-16T20:52:00.000+09:00

"I can't wait until Everett is older and we can make milkshakes together. It will be awesome!"--Tom

For now E's satisfied with milk and carrots...

growing baby boy

2012-01-15T17:10:00.000+09:00

It is incredible how quickly our baby is turning into a little boy. When I went into the ELC (daycare) I saw Everett sitting with the "big kids" at the snack table. He was suppose to be playing with a toy while the others were snacking, but in reality he was trying to grab food from the other kids. You can see in this picture him eyeing his buddy's plate.

This week we also discovered that Everett can sit alone! He was pretty wobbly the first few times but now he can sit like a pro. It's amazing; one day he can't sit without help...the next day he's a big boy doing it alone. How does it happen that fast???

Here's E sporting his big boy clothes. The sweater and pants are both for 12 months. We don't like to think of Everett as chubby, but rather an overachiever. :-)

Thanks Uncle James/Aunt Jennifer for the sweater and "Aunt" Emily for the pants!

Lastly, yet another reminder of our growing baby boy is that tooth 8 is on its quest to the surface. I predict it will pop through in a day or two. We're really hoping after tooth number 8 he'll have a teething break.

Everett has something he would like to say...

2012-01-10T16:38:00.000+09:00

More rolling

2012-01-06T08:40:00.000+09:00

Everett is now rolling both ways! He rolled from front-to-back for the first time yesterday and then proceeded to do it about 10 more times in the next 30 minutes. Thankfully we got one recorded.

New Zealand (Part 2)

2012-01-06T08:37:00.002+09:00

Our trip to New Zealand was awesome. We've been back in Korea for a little under a week, and we're soaking up our last few days before we return to school. Here are pictures from the second half of our New Zealand trip.

Everett's first swim:

Hiking at Moke Lake.

Feeding himself for the first time:

E's first time at the beach:

Hanging out with a couple from our school, the Pettigrew's:

Geothermal sites in Rotorua:

Geyser exploding:

Time to go back to Korea:

Hobbiton

2011-12-29T16:31:00.002+09:00

Yesterday we got to explore Hobbiton!!!!! If you're a Lord of the Rings fan you know exactly what we're talking about. Hobbiton is the fictional place where the Hobbits live in J.R.R Tolkien's books. This fictional site was fleshed out in New Zealand as a movie set for the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit movies. We were in luck because they just stopped filming on the Hobbit six weeks ago and opened up tours so we could see the latest creation of the Hobbit village.

Was the tour overpriced? Absolutely.
BUT...
Was it awesome? ABSOLUTELY!
We got to see Bilbo Baggins' hobbit hole and learn interesting facts about how the movie was made.

We took a lot of pictures but they made us sign a confidentiality agreement that we wouldn't share them with anyone since the Hobbit movies have yet to be released. You can see a few pictures of the movie set on the tour's website here.

Here's a picture not from the movie set. It's a little hobbit hole painting in "The Shire's Rest Cafe." Everett was a perfect size (and he grabbed the door all by himself)!

And now we've exposed just how unashamedly nerdy we are.

you know your a parent when...

2011-12-28T16:39:00.000+09:00

...you travel around with a giraffe in your backpack.

Merry Christmas

2011-12-26T19:19:00.000+09:00

Everett got to bust out his special Christmas pajamas one more time to celebrate his first Christmas!!! Even though E opened most of his gifts back in Korea, "Santa" seemed to find him to bring him one more little gift on the actual day of Christmas.

After opening his gift we took Everett to church and he actually made it through the whole service without groaning loudly! Woohoo. The message at church was all about change, specifically the change the comes with a little baby (something we can relate to!) and how Jesus came to change the world. It was great.

We deeply missed family and friends, but had a good Christmas celebration in the southern hemisphere!

Merry Christmas!

what we've been up to lately

2011-12-23T16:25:00.000+09:00

Happy 5 Months Everett!

2011-12-22T13:51:00.003+09:00

Everett is 5 months old today!!! Here is a pic on his big day:

We are currently on the south island of New Zealand. These pictures were all taken in Queenstown, NZ. Tonight we are hanging out in Te Anau, which is a small town in the middle of beautifulness.

We're off!

2011-12-17T20:53:00.003+09:00

We are done with school for the semester!!!!!!! It's been a stressful few weeks of finishing up our classes but as of 3:15pm today all of our grades were completed. We're officially on Christmas break.

We leave tomorrow for New Zealand! We'll be there for two weeks and back in Korea for a week until we start class again in January.

Merry Christmas!

Everett's First Christmas

2011-12-14T19:58:00.000+09:00

Today we celebrated Christmas! We're leaving for New Zealand on Sunday and my dad will be out of town starting Wednesday, so we decided that this morning would be the only time for my immediate family to open gifts "together" until after January when we return from our trip. My brother, his fiance, my parents, and the three of us all skyped this morning to celebrate Everett's first Christmas!

Last Christmas I was experiencing terrible morning sickness and Everett was just 7 weeks old in the womb! My mom bought him these Christmas pajamas last year (before we even knew we were having a boy). They fit perfectly! Here are some pictures of E's first Christmas:

You can even see the sun rising in the background of this picture. We had to open gifts before school so it was an early morning!

Check out all of Everett's Christmas gifts! There was one for Tom and I, but the rest were all big E's! And they were all shipped from America! Incredible.

I'm not sure who was more excited about his first gift, Everett or Tom?

Thanks Aunt Jina, Uncle Greg, Carl, and PJ!

I think Everett will love this. We're pretty excited to see this thing in action. Thanks Uncle Honk, Aunt Annette, Emma, and Claire.

This was the one gift from Tom and I under the tree. Green Toys are made in America (we actually found them here in Korea!) and are made from recycled products like old milk jugs. They're super cool!

Puzzle!

Don't worry...we pulled E's mouth off of these immediately and gave the blocks a good wash.

Everett also got some great clothes and books from Uncle James and Aunt Jennifer but I think in all the excitement we forgot to take a picture! Granny and Gramps also got Everett a loud (thanks mom and dad) train with animals and some cute clothes. Check out this handsome coat from Granny and Gramps!!! The pictures didn't turn out the best, so we'll get some better ones in the future, but the coat is so cute!

Merry Christmas everyone!!!

Yummy!

2011-12-10T22:25:00.001+09:00

The doctor took one look at Everett at his four month old check up and said, "I think he's ready for solid food." She didn't even hesitate! I was hoping to wait a little while longer before we started solids, but E has been showing signs of being ready to go for it for a few weeks, so with the doctor's green light we decided it was time.

We started with a classic choice: rice cereal. It was recommended to us to make it really runny in the beginning and we'll thicken up the cereal as he gets better at learning how to eat.

Here are a few pictures of the event. Even Granny got to witness some of the first food action!

It's so exciting to watch our little man learn new things.

a great little saturday

2011-12-10T22:15:00.001+09:00

I love the weekend! We had such a great Saturday....

This morning Everett got to chat with his cousin, Mo:

Then E had his first experience with solid food (more to come on this in the future):

Everett also got to experience his first snowfall! You can't really see it in the picture but it was really coming down this morning. It was so pretty!

Watching the snow fall:

Then I went on a MISSION to find an exersaucer for E. I've been plotting for months on how to get one of these for a reasonable price in Korea and today was the big day. It was suppose to be a Christmas gift for Everett....

But I couldn't wait!!! I think he loves it.

Our living room has officially turned into a baby playpen. Love it.

By the way, Everett had his 4 month old check up yesterday (even though he's already 4.5 months). He weighed 21.5 lbs and is a little over 27 inches long. He's above the 95th percentile for height and weight. The doctor said he's doing great!

this is how we roll

2011-12-07T20:00:00.001+09:00

Everett rolled over yesterday for the first time! We finally caught it on camera today! Way to go buddy!

St. Nicholas Day

2011-12-06T22:06:00.001+09:00

When I was growing up it was a Meyer family tradition to put our shoes outside our bedroom door on December 5th because December 6th was St. Nicholas day. After we went to bed St. Nicholas (aka my mom and dad) would fill our shoes up with candy and a Christmas ornament. We decided that we wanted to start a similar tradition with Everett (and any future Meyer babies). The only bummer about starting it this year is that there was a fairly limited selection of ornaments at our local Emart (think Walmart). We figured this one would get the job done though.

Everett says "Happy St. Nicholas Day!" By the way, all of the presents are for him... I can see where Christmas is headed.

check this out

2011-12-03T16:56:00.001+09:00

I think this is awesome.

Adios facial hair

2011-12-01T15:55:00.001+09:00

It is finally gone. I capped off the month of Movember with a nice Korean barbeque dinner with many of the guys that participated. After dinner I went home and shaved. Here are the before and after shots:

This artistic little number was put together by my buddy Todd (3rd down on the right). Believe it on not my boy Eddie on the top right actually did grow his mustache for a month.

Overall our ragtag group raised over $3000 for the cause. It was a good time but I am glad to have my face back. Thanks for your support!

there's two of them!

2011-11-29T14:06:00.001+09:00

Poor guy...getting teeth is rough.

2 more days

2011-11-29T10:17:00.001+09:00

I only have 2 more days with a mustache on my face. So far I have raised $66 for prostate cancer awareness and research ($25 of that was my own). Any one else out there want to toss in 5 or 10 bucks? Our goals as a group (20+ guys at GSIS) was to raise $2000 and we are close. Your donation could get us there! Here is one more picture for motivation!

To donate visit http://us.movember.com/mospace/1618874/ and click donate!

Everett is healthy again

2011-11-28T19:11:00.001+09:00

I took Everett to the doctor again today to get his lungs checked again. The doctor gave us the great news that his lungs were clear of any wheezing. This was awesome news! We were pretty worried that the doctor would hear wheezing again and Everett would get tagged with an asthma diagnosis. If he has another episode like this that may still happen but for now he is in the clear.

On a similar note they weighed and measured him again. 20.2 pounds and 27 inches. We were worried that this was abnormally large (which is kind of is) but we heard from my sister-in-law that while looking through my brother's baby book they discovered that at just under 4 months Jimbo weighed in at 19.5 punds and measured 27 inches. So it seems like Everett is on pace for a Meyer boy.

Happy Birthday Papa!

2011-11-27T15:42:00.001+09:00

Happy 80th Birthday Papa! You're the best Great-Grandpa!

Love you and miss you.

Everett, Bonnie, and Tom

Happy Thanksgiving!

2011-11-26T20:19:00.001+09:00

Even though we're a few days late, we ended up celebrating Thanksgiving today (Saturday). We had to work on actual Thanksgiving day and Everett has been sick, so today was the first day we could have a proper celebration. We started out the day by making pumpkin pancakes for breakfast and then I made a pumpkin pie while the boys and I hung out together. Next Tom made his ever famous, green bean casserole, and we headed over to our friend's apartment to share in a Thanksgiving meal with our American friends here in Korea. We really missed being with our family but we are so thankful for the community we do have here. We have much to be thankful for.

The last pic is E with the other kids at the Thanksgiving celebration. So fun!

We ended our evening with watching Home Alone and putting up our Christmas tree.

Hope you had a good Thanksgiving! Christmas here we come!

Happy 4 Months Little Man!

2011-11-22T10:44:00.001+09:00

Happy four months little Everett! I am sorry that you are still sick with bronchiolitis. I love that even when you are sick you are such a happy baby boy.

Here are some of your accomplishments at 4 months:

You are becoming more active! Watch that video we took last night and see how you wail on your rattle. The poor high chair....
Your hand/eye coordination gets better every day. You love being on your playmat and grabbing at your toys.
You've found your toes. So cute.
You have a tooth!
You are quite the talker. You babble to yourself all the time.
You still don't really cry. But man do you groan!
You smile the most for your daddy (maybe because he has a funny mustache right now?). Your daddy will walk in the room and you will light up. It's awesome.
You are so loved.

Here are some recent pics:
Not really sure what happened with your other sock? Check out that drool too!!!

"Coloring" with his friends at daycare. His friend, Jamie, is in the table across from him. She always calls him "Eber." So cute.

Bronchiolitis update: Saw the doctor yesterday. He's still wheezing but we can continue to monitor him from home. He'll be home from school until at least next Monday. We haven't seen too much change with the wheezing but he rarely coughs now, so I think there's some improvement there.

Jesus, please heal our little man quickly! Thanks for such a great baby boy.

"sick day"

2011-11-21T10:22:00.001+09:00

Well I had to take a sick day today because Everett has a doctor's appointment at 12:20 and that just happens to be right in the middle of all of my classes. There was no point in trying to head into school so E and I have just been hanging out a home all day. This is primarily what we have been up to:

Monday mornings = NFL football here in Korea. I also wanted to see if I could snap a picture of his upcoming tooth. Here were my best efforts.

It's officially teething season!

new couch!

2011-11-20T15:34:00.001+09:00

Friday was a tough day. We took Everett to the hospital and found out about his bronchiolitis, so we felt pretty bummed. Then when we walked through the door our apartment we were greeted with this:

A brand new leather couch!

The school furnishes our apartment, so while our previous couch was a tad on the ugly/uncomfortable side we tried not to complain (it was free after all). Over the past couple of years the school has been trying to update the furniture in the apartments and on Thursday we received this message from our school: "Tomorrow afternoon, new couch set will be delivered into your APT!!!!! No more fabric, no more green & yellowish, no more HARD sponge!!!!!"

Here's the best pic I could find of the old couch. I think the model is pretty cute....

In the midst of all the sickness, etc. we forgot the new couch was coming, so it was a nice surprise on a down day. The new couch is great! We have already learned that it is so much easier to clean spit up off the leather than the fabric. :-)

Quick Everett update: This weekend has gone pretty well. We are not doctors, so we can't be sure, but Tom and I do not think Everett has gotten any worse. For the most part he seems to have stabilized, and his mood has been more pleasant today. We have also discovered that we can see/feel his bottom teeth. They are so so so close to breaking through the surface. Bronchiolitis and teething at the same time...poor little guy.

We also learned at E's doctor appointment that he now weighs 19.5 lbs and is 26.5 inches long. Based on our calculations that makes Everett in the 99% for weight and 92% in height. The outfit he is wearing above is a 9 month old outfit! And he'll be four months old in two days...!

Thanks for your kind words and prayers about E's health. Please keep them coming.

round #2

2011-11-18T20:50:00.001+09:00

We just got back from the doctor and Everett was diagnosed with his second episode of Bronchiolitis. He seemed to be doing better today, so we were taken aback by the news. Right now his case is not serious enough to warrant staying at the hospital, so we can just care for him at home. However, if his condition worsens we have to take him into the ER (please Lord, not again). We have a follow up appointment on Monday, so our prayer is that he'll start bouncing back over the weekend.

Please send up some prayers for our little man. This is how the last round of sickness started, so we're concerned.

Thanks and Love.

sick day

2011-11-17T19:55:00.001+09:00

Look at that sweet face. I love that our little man always smiles, even when he's feeling sick. Everett has been coughing quite a bit and had diarrhea, so I decided to keep him home from school today. Aside from the fact that I HATE seeing Everett sick and I feel like I'm letting my students down while I'm out, I loved getting to stay home and care for big E. We made an appointment with the doctor for tomorrow afternoon to check his lungs. Since our last sickness battle was with bronchiolitis only a month ago we want to make sure we get him checked out.

While taking pictures on my computer today I realized that on my laptop's "photo booth" I had some pictures I had forgotten about. This little photo series was from the hospital. While Tom was at work and it was just E and me, the cleaning ladies came in and declared that it was time to change out the curtains. They made us wear these masks to protect against the dust. (Great idea...change the dusty curtains around the baby with a respiratory infection.) You can see that it was not an easy task to keep a mask on a baby.

I don't think the mask look is flattering on me.

big kid monitor

2011-11-16T18:32:00.001+09:00

Tom and I were eating dinner at a nice restaurant with a friend and I noticed that there was a TV above our table. I didn't really pay too much attention to it because, us, North Americans are use to having TVs in restaurants blaring sports. Then when I looked closer I realized what was on the screen....

It was a surveillance camera for the kids playroom in the front of the restaurant! On one hand it's nice because you could enjoy your meal while ~~spying~~ keeping an eye on your kids. But on the other hand, whatever happened to good ole' fashioned spending time with your child? What do you all think about this?

somebody is teething....

2011-11-14T18:44:00.000+09:00

It's official....

Everett is teething.

We've been suspecting this for a while because he's become a drool factory and constantly puts everything in his mouth (or is trying to at least). Then today we saw it...

We saw a little tooth starting to form. It hasn't broken through the gums yet, but you can see it's getting pretty close! (Since I'm nursing him I'm not sure how excited I am about this new milestone.)

(sorry in advance...this is one of those videos you may have to be a grandparent to enjoy)

The current status of my face (2 weeks in)

2011-11-14T12:13:00.001+09:00

I'm still not used to this thing on my face. It drives me crazy. Bonnie said to me over the weekend, "if mustaches were cool you would be the coolest. The problem is that they are not cool." Thanks Bonnie. To donate to postate cancer awareness and research look below the pic.

To Donate:

Visit http://us.movember.com/mospace/1618874/

click on "Donate to me"

Thanks!

noreabang

2011-11-13T16:47:00.000+09:00

I finally submitted to peer pressure and after 3.5 years of living in Korea I went to the noreabang. Noreabang is Korean karaoke. How it works is that you rent a room with a group of friends and sing your little heart out. As your song lyrics show up on the TV screen, random scenes from Korean dramas (that have no relevancy to your song) appear on the screen. The room also comes with microphones that have a wicked echo, song books, and tamborines. Despite the fact that I'm against the noreabang in theory, I had a great time.

Two of my good buddies here Kim (left) and Leslie (right). We went to noreabang to celebrate Leslie's birthday and all of these great pictures are from her.

Me getting started...

Me in full on noreabang mode!

The noreabang crew:

So would I go back to the noreabang?

...Maybe.

high chair time

2011-11-12T18:31:00.001+09:00

Everett has not started eating solid food but he gets lonely hanging out in his swing while we eat so we decided to try putting him in his high chair. This way we can "eat" as a family.

And here's a pic I'm throwing in just because it's cute:

Movember week 1

2011-11-08T09:55:00.000+09:00

It has been 1 week since I started to grow my mustache. I have actually had some students ask me why I am growing it so it has raised some awareness for prostate cancer. I also received my first donation courtesy of Jerre Robertson. Thanks! Here is my progress:

I'll be honest. It feels pretty weird and I have trouble taking myself seriously.

To Donate:

Visit http://us.movember.com/mospace/1618874/

click on "Donate to me"

Thanks!

blast from the past

2011-11-07T19:31:00.000+09:00

My mom just sent me this picture of when I was little. I've never seen it before! Isn't it crazy to think how many pictures and videos Everett will have compared to our generation? The digital age has really changed things.

From this picture it's apparent where Everett got his thunder thighs from....

Our Stay at the Hospital, Part 3

2011-11-05T21:10:00.001+09:00

We just visited the doctor on Thursday to follow up with Everett's doctor from the hospital. The chest x-ray came out clear and the doctor said he sounded great! He also gained about another two pounds....!!!! So he's weighing in at 18.5 lbs and 26 inches. Dang.

In light of our recent doctor's appointment we wanted to write our final post in the mini-series about our stay at the hospital with Everett. This post will be dedicated to awkward cultural moments.

1. Our first night in the hospital the doctor comes to check E out. They do a full physical and we notice the doctor pressing quite a bit on his stomach. Finally she asks us, "Does his stomach always look this full?" We reply with a yes. The doctor nods her head and then moves on. I think she thought something was wrong with him until she realized that he is just a big baby and he always looks that way! ha!

2. Everytime a nurse came to us she would be panting a bit and very hurried. We would chat with her and then she'd literally run out of the room. At first this really startled me...is there something wrong with Everett so the nurses are running for help? Is he in such bad shape that the nurse needs to sprint and immediately meet his needs??? Then I noticed something...The nurses just run from point A to point B ALL THE TIME. This is probably because there are so many people that need care at the hospital so they're just trying to work quickly, but it was a mental adjustment to realize that the running nurses are normal. They aren't running because it is an emergency.

3. When working with numerous people at the hospital we would get kind of freaked out because sometimes the person helping us (generally the nurses) voice would get really shakey. It seemed like they were unsettled in talking to us and it made us feel like something was going terribly wrong. At one point, a nurse literally runs into our room (see point two) and while she is out of breath her voice gets really shakey as she starts to ask us about how Everett got his blood taken. She kept asking us all these questions in reference to his blood test, so finally I asked, "Did everything come out okay on the test?" Her response, "Potassium is high..." Then she ran out of the room. Turns out his potassium levels were fine, but we didn't know that until a couple hours later when the doctor came in! Over time we realized that the shakiness didn't come from them having bad news for us; we're pretty sure it was because they were nervous to speak to us in English!!!

4. When you live in another culture there can be a serious lack of bedside manner. I don't fault Koreans for this. When you're learning another language you don't always know the fluffy way to say things to make someone feel better. You just speak to them using the words you know. So on the first night with the doctor we were told, "He has bronchiolitis and he is so young. This could be very bad." Talk about making me FREAK OUT!

This picture is our first night in the hospital while giving E a breathing treatment:

Before we headed home:

Let me reiterate, I loved the care Everett got at Samsung Medical Center and I don't fault any of the people we worked with for some of these awkward moments because we're the ones visiting their culture. I am so appreciative of the effort they took to provide us with English speaking doctors and nurses. That being said, when you're in another culture it can make for an interesting experience!

Check out this funny picture attached to E's bed:

Praise the Lord for a healthy baby boy!

Halloween!

2011-11-05T17:10:00.000+09:00

I know this is way late, but better late than never! Here are some pictures of our halloween weekend.

Is it really November now??? Where is the time going?

awkward beginnings

2011-11-02T10:10:00.000+09:00

Movember 2nd. I gave myself my first shave forgoing the upper lip. It just looks like I missed a spot at this point.

Can't really tell right? My ultimate goal is to emulate the original mustache in my life. It was worn from before my birth until sometime when I was in high school. I still remember that fateful day at Turkey Creek Ranch when I walked back into the cabin from a morning run and came face to face with the barren upper lip of my father. It was a stunning moment. I hope I can have a stache like that a month from now.

If you know someone with a prostate you should think about giving a small amount to this cause. It is good stuff.

Visit http://us.movember.com/mospace/

click on "Donate"

click "someone you know"

search "Tom Meyer"

I am a member of "Real Men of GSIS"

Thanks!

Movember

2011-11-01T11:17:00.000+09:00

Since today is Halloween that means it is also the last day of October and therefore November is just around the corner. Along with a group of men here at GSIS I am going to be participating in Movember. The point of Movember is to raise funds and awareness for men’s health, specifically prostate cancer and other cancers that affect men.

I have known several men in my life that have battle against various forms of prostate issues so this is a cause that seemed applicable to me.

What does Movember entail? Me growing a wicked awesome mustache for a month. Why? So that when people ask "Why is that thing on your face?" I can say, "For Movember to raise awareness for prostate cancer."

If you are interested in donating to the cause you can donate to me at: http://us.movember.com/mospace/1618874/

I gave myself my last full shave for a month this morning. I have no idea what this is going to look like. I can only hope that I will do some of the great staches out there justice:

Happy Halloween!

2011-10-31T19:11:00.000+09:00

Happy Halloween from....

Changgyeong Palace

2011-10-30T15:54:00.000+09:00

Tom blogged earlier this school year about checking out Changgyeong Palace. Little Everett and I had never been so after church last weekend we decided to take a stroll around the palace. It was a perfect fall day for it! Before getting to the palace we decided to stop for a bit to eat. We found a great Italian restaurant and despite our garlic/basil pizza being green, it was super tasty!

E took a nap during the meal.

The green pizza:

Palace Entrance:

Don't Feed the Birds!!!! (this one is for you Adam Osborne)

Walking along the palace grounds:

The famous green house:

They had such interesting plants inside the green house:

E biting on his fingers. This is his newest hobby (maybe teething???)

(Notice the outfit change.....)

Love this one!

My newest favorite picture!

Happy fall everyone!

Flash Mob!

2011-10-27T16:50:00.001+09:00

Tom and I were a part of a flash mob! In the middle of our school's pep rally "Ice Ice Baby" by Vanilla Ice came on and we performed a dance for our students. Tom and I hid in the back and giggled as we messed up most of the moves! We had a great time. Go Knights!

Math-letics

2011-10-24T19:35:00.000+09:00

This past Saturday I had the pleasure of sponsoring 7 of our GSIS math students at a math competition at another international school in Seoul. I was really proud of the students that went because they all worked hard throughout the competition. The day started with each student taking an individual test (roughly 150-200 kids came) at one of three levels (all of our students were in the middle level).

Some of the other school's students were not as committed to the competition...

After the individual test each school took part in a team test where the whole school submitted one answer sheet for a 32 question test. This test was freaking hard. Here are some of our kids working at it.

After that it was time for a mental break with a pizza and ice cream lunch.

The final session of the day took our top four competitors to a "school bowl" and the other three took part in a partner test (which took place outside on this beautiful fall day).

Though our group was by far the smallest contingent our students worked really hard and even won some awards. One student placed 3rd in the intermediate level individual test. And our top four took second place in the intermediate level "school bowl." Also I won a raffle for a 20000won ($20) Starbucks gift card and a book about code writing. It was good day and like I said before I was really proud of their efforts.

Our Stay at the Hospital--Part 2

2011-10-24T16:57:00.000+09:00

"We are having a hard time finding you a room," said our international clinic helper, Rose. "You can either have an expensive, private room on the VIP floor or you can have a semi-private room in the international clinic for a much cheaper price." I inquire a bit more about the semi-private room and Rose responds, "The other person in the room has a mental problem. She sometimes gets very angry. I can't really talk about it because of privacy issues. It's just a mental problem." At this point, we were going on hour four in the ER so we just wanted a room. We hesitated with the mental problem but thought it didn't sound contagious so we'd be alright.

We show up to our room to see Everett's name tag (notice the spelling).

We walk into our room and see an African American women in her early 30's who seemed quite pleasant. "How are you all doing? Oh, I'm so sorry your baby is sick. I'll pray for your baby. Do you all want the TV off? If it's bothering you we can turn it off." Upon first impression I thought, this won't be bad at all!

This is Tom doing a breathing treatment in our room. The roomy is behind Tom behind the curtain.

Then 30-45 minutes later we had another conversation with E's roomy that went something like this, "Oh, I'm so sorry your baby is sick. I'll pray for your baby. Do you all want the TV off? If it's bothering you we can turn it off." Tom and I respond kindly then turn and give each other this look of, "Didn't we just have this conversation?" Luckily our roomy's friend was there and she mouthed to us that she has a short term memory problem. It all began to make sense....

Other repeated phrases we heard over the next day were to Tom, "Wow! You're really tall? How tall are you?" And to her friend, "Did you eat my lunchables? Why didn't you give me a hot pocket?" And our personal favorite that was said to all in the room, "You may not want to go in there for a while...." which she would say before and/or after leaving the bathroom.

So after having the same conversations repeatedly we found out we were being transfered to single room in the peds ward! Sweeeeet!!!!! It was great....while it lasted. We found out after a day of the private room we were being moved to another semi-private room because of our insurance (actually it was because of a miscommunication). We were okay with the move until we walked into the germ factory that was the shared room! E's second roomy was a 4 year old boy that coughed like a seal was dying inside of him. I instantly went to the nurses and said I wasn't comfortable sharing a room with someone else that could be contagious with something. They said that so far the roomy tested negative for 2 of the 3 virus tests and so did Everett, so since they were in the same situation they thought it would be okay. What?!!! That makes no sense. I protested. I told them I didn't want my child with someone that potentially has a virus while he was already sick. But there was nothing that could be done. They already moved us and there was no extra space. So we pulled our curtain around E's bed and washed our hands incessantly.

Here's Everett in his second shared space.

Aside from being a potential germ factory, this shared room was also interesting because the little boy would cry, throw tantrums, and worse of all have night terrors. He woke up a few times throughout the night SCREAMING for his mom. It was intense.

Fortunately after our protests from the day before they moved some folks around so E could move back to the private room. This was such a blessing! Right after they told us about our move to a private room the doctor came to tell us that, ironically, Everett had a virus (RSV) while the 4 year old roomy did not test positive for any viruses. She told us this with a little chuckle.

Pretty much everyday we were at the hospital we were re-located, which made our stay that much more adventurous. With each move the Korean cleaning staff would come in and hurriedly pack up all of our stuff and force us out of the room, whether we were ready or not! My favorite moment with the cleaning staff was when one lady took our bar of soap out of the bathroom, grabbed it with her plastic glove on, and then took off the glove around the soap so the soap was contained in her glove. I was a bit weirded out by it, but it was soap after all.

Despite our "adventures" in moving I still feel like Everett received quality care and he constantly had people checking on him to make sure he was progressing.

Next up in our series: awkward cultural exchanges

Everett is 3 months old!!!!

2011-10-23T20:23:00.000+09:00

We love you Everett! Happy 3 months little man!

Our Stay at the Hospital

2011-10-22T18:02:00.001+09:00

We've been back to our normal lives for a week now. So far, Everett has survived going back to daycare after being sick and he seems to be getting back to his normal self.

There was so much that happened while we were at the hospital and I've barely had time to reflect on it all since we jumped right back into work. I may attempt to do a small series on different things we experienced while staying at the hospital in Korea.

I'll preface all of this by saying that in the beginning the whole thing was very scary. When you become a mom it's like you're instantly given all these amazingly deep emotions, and it seems that E being sick gave me the opportunity to stretch out those emotions! I can't even describe what a helpless feeling it is to see your child being sick and there is nothing you can do about it. I don't know if I've ever prayed for anything more consistently and more passionately than for the health of our baby boy.

The journey to the hospital started with what we thought was Everett just having his first cold. He didn't have a fever (and never got one) but he just seemed to be more tired and stuffed up than normal. We noticed his breathing was a bit labored so on Saturday we took him to the doctor. He was diagnosed with bronchiolitis, given an antibiotic, and told to return in 3 days. After two days of him not improving we took him back to the local doctor and he said he thought E's lungs were sounding worse. He prescribed a whole bunch of medications, which wouldn't happen in the States, so we took him to our school nurse to get her opinion on everything. She took one look at Everett and said we needed to take him to the hospital and get another opinion. This is when I really started to freak out. Our school nurse is awesome and usually is very calm about things. To see her worried and insistent that we leave for the hospital got me FREAKED OUT.

Here's Tom giving E a breathing treatment at the doctor's office by our apartment.

We arrived at the hospital and the international clinic at Samsung Medical Center had people waiting to help us through the process in the ER. I'm so thankful for this because the ER was overwhelming. (Keep in mind that Seoul is one of the top five biggest cities in the world.) There were people stuck with IV's EVERYWHERE. I'm not kidding. It was like wall to wall people with IV's waiting to be seen. It felt like we were in a war zone. We went back to the pediatrics area in the ER that was basically this little hallway with a few rooms. There was hardly any room to sit so I sat on a coffee table while I tried to nurse Everett in the midst of the madness. The doctor we saw at the ER was quality. She confirmed that he had bronchiolitis and they called in a pediatric lung specialist to evaluate Everett. The doctors all agreed he needed to be admitted and started on breathing treatments.

Then we waited in that cramped ER for six hours.

SIX HOURS!

The doctor ordered x-rays, and said it would be quicker to get it done in the ER. Since we saw the doctor so quickly we thought our wait would be short, but right after we found a place to sit in the tiny hallway there was a big emergency where for at least an hour doctors were running in and out of a child's room with alarms going off, etc. It was a scary sight to see. After that chaos died down we continued to wait and wait and wait. Finally they told us they couldn't find a room for us and were searching for a place to put us in the hospital. In the mean time, they hooked Everett up to an oxygen censor and then oxygen when they realized his oxygen levels were low. They gave him a series of tests where Tom and I had to literally hold him down while they stuck him with needles and swabbed his nose. They also gave him an IV, which took forever to get because they couldn't find a good vain to put it in. Everett doesn't really cry but he WAILED while all this was happening. We literally were holding him down with tears streaming down our faces. I'll never forget the pained look on Everett's face while he was getting stuck and prodded.

This is the IV in his hand. They put a little paddle under his hand and wrapped everything in tape to try to keep Everett from pulling the IV out. Everett loves putting his hands on his head and in his mouth so he whacked himself in the head with his paddle hand a few times...poor guy!

Long story short, we got to the hospital at 1:30pm and didn't get to a room until after 7pm. It was such a long, hard day. I feel like the medical care we got at the ER/hospital was top notch, but I've never witnessed anything like being in that ER for so long.

Next up on the blogging series: Everett's hospital roommates. Get ready for short term memory loss and night terrors!

I'm getting a new sister!

2011-10-17T21:03:00.002+09:00

I'm so happy to announce that my older brother, James, is engaged!!!

Here he is with his fiance telling our Papa the big news!

We're so excited to have Jennifer be a part of our family. James and Jennifer are perfect for each other and we've been waiting for the day when my brother would pop the question!

Congrats, big bro! Marriage is such a blessing. You'll make a great husband.

home sweet home

2011-10-15T21:36:00.000+09:00

Everett took a nap this morning as we waited to visit with the doctors....

We were feeling hopeful that today would be the day he would be discharged. The doctors came and said that his overall condition was good enough to be released from the hospital! Praise the Lord! After we got permission to leave the nurse (as seen below) came in and took Everett's oxygen sensor off, so for the first time in almost six days Everett didn't have a cord coming off of his body!!!

Although it still may take another week or two for E's lungs to totally clear up, the doctors felt that he had made major improvements in his health while at the hospital. We were so excited to get the car seat out of the car and take our little man home!

Thanks to everyone for your prayers and kind thoughts. Everett's health really took a turn for the better once he was in the hospital and had so many people fighting for his speedy recovery. THANKS! We're so so so thankful to the Lord for how he provided for our family this week. There is still much to reflect on about this whole experience, but that will come in time. For now we're just enjoying a weekend at home together as a family.

RSV

2011-10-13T19:33:00.001+09:00

Although there have been some bumps over the past 24 hours, overall things are looking up for our little guy! Everett was able to keep his oxygen levels up so he has been able to stay off any extra oxygen. We keep monitoring his oxygen saturation levels and they appear to be better today than they were yesterday. The doctors continue to say that his lungs are sounding less wheezy and crackly (one of the three doctors said he thought that crackle was now gone). He is still taking in more breathes per minute than normal and shows signs of some labored breathing, but all the doctors say he is looking much better than when we were in the ER a few days ago.

Some of his lab results came back today and it revealed that he tested positive for RSV, which is a highly contagious virus. There are a lot of people sick around our school and in older kids/adults RSV just appears as a common cold. However, for young babies, like our little Everett, RSV can lead to more serious conditions like bronchiolitis which can lead to hospitalization. This is something we now know all too well.

I'm so thankful we came to the hospital so Everett could be monitored and treated properly. He's been getting breathing treatments through a nebulizer every fours and has been getting IV fluids to prevent dehydration (this was especially important in the beginning when he had diarrhea).

Going through all this while living in Korea has had its challenges, but I feel like Everett has gotten solid care at the Samsung Medical Center in Seoul. Their international clinic has bent over backwards to make sure we understand what is going on and to help us through all the processes/procedures Everett has needed. SMC is also a teaching hospital, so we have two residents that have been working directly with Everett and then once a day "the Professor" (as they all call him) comes and checks out E and gives us his final conclusions. I feel like they have been very attentive to his needs and quality in their care.

There have been a few bumps in the road, as I mentioned earlier....

We got kicked out of our private room last night and moved into a room shared room with a four year old that cried way more than Everett.
The said four year old woke up a few times in the night with what Tom and I would predict were night terrors. Out of no where he would start screaming, "Ohhhhhh--Maaaaaa! Ohhhhh----Ma!!!" (Oh-ma is mom in Korean). I really mean screaming.
Tom had to go back to work this morning so it was just me and E all morning. Normally this wouldn't be a big deal but it's hard to maneuver him with all the cords hanging from his legs. His left foot has an IV so it's strapped to a splint to keep it from coming out. The other foot has his oxygen sensor, which makes his toe glow like Rudolph all night.
Additionally, they had to take more blood work and I had to pin him down while they stuck him. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible feeling to go through that.
Mid-poopy diaper change the staff announced we were moving rooms again. It was great to move back to a private room, but there was little warning. So while I'm taking care of poopy pants this lady starts packing all my stuff up onto a cart and moving us whether I was ready or not!

Despite the bumps, all that matters is that Everett seems to be improving. The doctor said we MAY get to go home tomorrow but then he said it may be Saturday...So, it seems like we're getting closer to E getting a clean bill of health!

E Update

2011-10-12T10:27:00.000+09:00

Guess who got taken off of his oxygen today???!!!!

After we got moved to the pediatric ward (yeah!) and into a private room (double yeah!) they took the IV out of his hand (well...really it stopped working after we changed his clothes and moved it around too much) and they moved it to his foot. This is great because baby boy loves chewing on his hands (evidence seen above) but it does make changing him a bit more complicated.

We chatted with the doctors this morning. All three that we've been working with said that he sounds better today than yesterday but his lungs still have the wheezing/crackling sound. I think we'll be staying at the hospital until all that clears up.

Also, for the first time since we've been here the doctor said..."Don't worry. He'll be okay." It's taken three days of being at the hospital but finally we've been given some comfort! The doctors said it will still be a few more days before we go home, and they're going to run more blood work and take x-rays tomorrow to see how he's progressed.

I feel like I won't be completely at peace with all this until his lungs sound clear, but for now I'm finding comfort in the Lord and the fact that he keeps showing signs of improvement.

Thanks again to all for your love. Keep the prayers coming...specifically that his lungs would clear.

Prayers Needed

2011-10-11T13:32:00.000+09:00

As most of you have probably heard, Everett has been admitted to the hospital due to breathing difficulties from bronchiolitis. For older children bronchiolitis is not too big of a deal, but because he is only 2.5 months old it can be very serious. We were in the ER in Samsung Medical Center in Seoul for about 6 hours yesterday afternoon and were admitted to a room in the international ward of the hospital in the late evening.

Everett had a good night at the hospital. They have him doing quite a few breathing treatments and he is on an antibiotic to try to fight the infection in his lungs. As of now, there is still wheezing and crackling in his lungs which they have diagnosed as bronchiolitis. At best, he'll be in the hospital for 2-3 days, but it could be longer depending on how he progresses. As of now, his breathing is still fairly labored but his oxygen levels stabilized overnight. He's sleeping like a champ and consistently eating better, which are both good signs. Two different doctors that saw Everett yesterday came to see him this morning and both reported that they thought his lungs sounded a bit better. Prayers are already being answered.

Thank you so much to all of you that have emailed us and sent us messages that you are praying for us. Tom and I are very aware that all of this is out of our control and so we appreciate everyone interceding and lifting up our family to the One that controls all things. Here are a few things that we could use specific prayer for:

one of the biggest things is that we need for the wheezing and crackling to clear up in Everett's lungs
that we could move into the pediatric ward (there isn't enough room there right now)
wisdom and discernment for all involved (so far we've really liked his doctors)
that Everett would continue to be a fighter and beat this thing!

Today Everett gave us some encouragement when he flashed a few smiles at us. He's our little trooper.

Love to all--Bonnie, Tom, and Everett

Volleyball

2011-10-08T21:44:00.000+09:00

Hello blogger it has been awhile since I've written here. Bonnie has been doing such a fine job that there just hasn't been much for me to say. Recently Bonnie, Everett, and I attended some GSIS volleyball games as a family (Everett attended a Platte City game back in America). Here are some pics from our time there:

Watching the action

Some silly glasses we stumbled upon

The action got a little too intense

The happy family

This was a Saturday morning when we took a walk to Dunkin' Donuts but since he was sporting the Mizzou gear we figured we'd throw it in here too.

At present Little Man is battling his first sickness. He was sounding pretty wheezy so Bonnie and I took him to the doctor and he was diagnosed with bronchiolitis and and ear infection (and he weighed 16.5 lbs at 11 weeks, holy cow!). Bonnie and I both had frequent ear infections as a kid so he may be cursed with that as well. Despite the nasty sounding nature of the illnesses he still has a pretty chill and sunny disposition. He's a trooper!

Bonnie and I are both feeling a little under the weather too. This could be a rough weekend/week for the Meyer family.

two of my new favorite pics

2011-10-02T08:25:00.001+09:00

The second one is special to me because while we were sitting on the couch I looked over and found Everett looking up right at me. I love my little man!

so I wear glasses now

2011-10-01T19:34:00.000+09:00

Inspired by Everett's glasses (hehe), I decided to go get an eye exam today. I've never had my eyes checked before; I think I've always felt a bit proud of the fact that I had great vision (or thought I had great vision). This summer, however, I noticed that far away words were kind of blurry so I decided to bite the bullet and get checked out.

The eye exam process was super quick and efficient. I went to a place near where we live that a bunch of people from our school recommended because they have an English speaker. I just walked in, took the eye exam, and was told that I did in fact need glasses to see far away things. After a bit of looking I picked out some frames and lenses and was told to return in 20 minutes. Twenty minutes and 70,000 won (less than $70US) later here is the final product:

More importantly, I can see so much better! I had no idea how blurry things were until now when I wear my glasses distant objects are so crisp and clear. While we had our twenty minute wait I was mentally debating if all this was necessary and if I really needed glasses. Now that I have them and can literally SEE the difference I'm pretty pumped about my decision to get them.

First Day of School

2011-09-29T21:27:00.002+09:00

As is tradition, here is my picture on the first day of school! I also had to get a picture of me and the little man, since he got to come to school with us.

Everett had a full day of being at the ELC (daycare) and he did great. I got to check on him a few times and he was either sleeping or sitting peacefully with the other babies. The ELC provides a daily report on how he did--it's so cute! His report said, "Today I was happy and quiet. Today I enjoyed sitting on the bouncer and looking around."

I don't think I'll put his daily report on the fridge every day, but this first one is a keeper! I'm so proud of our little guy. I, personally, had a great day too. It was super fun to see my students and be in the classroom again. Honestly, today exceeded my expectations all around. Here's to a new year!

PS--Although I'm more positive now, yesterday was rough! I definitely had a mommy breakdown about taking him to daycare. I hear that's normal. :-)

Everett's first day of "school"

2011-09-28T19:02:00.000+09:00

It's tradition in our family to take pictures on your first day of school. Yesterday was Everett's first day at the Early Learning Center, otherwise known as the ELC. The ELC is located in the dorm of our school and it will be Everett's daycare while we teach. Here's the big guy right before we left the apartment:

He looks super excited in this picture...haha! He's rocking that double chin! That's my boy!

I actually start work tomorrow but yesterday and today I dropped Everett off at the ELC for two hour chunks so we could have some trial runs before our big day tomorrow. I think he did really well and I've only had one small breakdown about the whole transition, so I think all in all we're doing okay.

smiling baby

2011-09-26T15:23:00.001+09:00

This is one of those shameless mom videos. I love seeing this little guy smile. Sorry if the video is a bit hard to see; it was taken with my iPhone. Enjoy!

how to fly with an infant

2011-09-26T15:07:00.000+09:00

When Tom and I were preparing to fly with Everett I tried to chat with anyone I could to get tips for flying with an infant. We are FOR SURE not experts on this topic, but we did fly with Everett over two flights with a total air time of 15 or 16 hours so we're hoping our experience can help others. From other's advice and our own experience, I present to you a list of tips for how to fly with a baby.

1. Get your baby to suck something. A common problem with flying is that on take off and landing your ears can pop and be bothersome (ask Tom, his are especially bad). Adults solve this by chewing on gum, however, this is a luxury an infant can't experience. One solution to try is to get your baby to suck on something, whether it be a pacifier or a bottle. We actually fed Everett on take off and landing on our long flight and he didn't even flinch.

2. Ask the customer service reps for infant friendly seats. Unless you buy a seat for your baby, they will be considered an "infant in arms," which means you will need to hold them during the flight. On international flights if you ask they will try to sit you in the bulkhead of the plane so that they can attach a bassinet for your baby to sleep in as long as the seat belt sign is off. It's much better than having to hold your baby for hours! Another option, which is what we ended up doing, is to ask the customer service reps if there is an empty seat by you. If the flight is not full they can block out the seat(s) by you and you can strap in your car seat. Words can't even express how awesome it was to have Everett riding in the comfort of his car seat during the flight.

3. Most airlines let you check a stroller at the gate for free. We decided to bring our car seat that snaps into our stroller so we could bring our car seat along for no extra cost. The other perk to this is that, like I mentioned earlier, if there's an empty seat available you can use your car seat on the plane or if the flight is full they'll just check your car seat at the gate, again for no cost.

4. Get a stroller travel bag. If you fly a lot or if you have an expensive stroller you may want to invest in a stroller travel bag that will protect your stroller when it gets checked at the gate. I don't think this is necessary but things can get really beat up on the flights and we found that the travel bag did a great job of protecting our stroller (unfortunately, the stroller bag did suffer a puncture wound on the first flight...like I said, flights can be rough on bags!).

5. Bring a cozy blanket. If you do get to use a bassinet, like I mentioned in point 2, they are often a rough, canvas material and you'll want something softer for your baby. Or even if you're just using your car seat it's nice to make the space a bit more comfy for the baby during the flight.

6. Bring extra clothes and a variety of clothing layers. Planes can get super hot and then frigidly cold. We put Everett in a simple onesie but we brought along pants, a hat, and a little jacket in case he got cold. Additionally, you never know when your baby will have a giant poopy mess or spit up explosion, which of course happened to us. Back up clothes are essential.

7. If you use cloth diapers, consider using disposables for the flight. We have been loving our cloth diapers, but when you're traveling for about 24 hours you really don't want to carry around with you a day's worth of used cloth diapers. We used disposables for our travels and it made diapering simple and easy. (If you want to use cloth the whole time, more power to you! You're better people than us.)

8. Even if you're nursing, consider bringing a bottle to feed your baby for the flight. I've been nursing Everett but I decided to bring with me a couple of bottles of milk that I previously pumped just in case I needed them. I knew I wanted to feed Everett during take off (see point number 1) and I didn't know how he would respond to flying, so I decided giving him a bottle may be easier than trying to nurse a screaming baby (luckily, that didn't happen). Also, a lactation consultant I talked with said that traveling/stress can lower a woman's milk supply so it was nice to have some milk on hand just in case we needed it. Just make sure you tell the TSA you have milk before they scan your bag. Baby formula/milk is one of the few exceptions to the rules on liquids and flying. You may also want to think about bringing on a hand held pump for the long international traveling if you regularly pump.

9. During the flight keep your baby's head pointed toward the middle or even better, keep you baby in the middle seat. Think about how many times you've walked down the asile of a plane and accidentally bumped into someone. You don't want that accidental bump from others to be on your baby's head. Be especially careful as people are getting on/off the plane with their bags. This was a great tip from one of the flight attendants.

10. Don't be intimidated. There were people out there that tried to freak us out about flying with Everett. People would constantly ask us if we were worried about flying with him and some of the baby books out there even discouraged taking your baby on trips. Tom and I weren't too intimidated or worried because we knew that we didn't have a choice. Everett had to fly because we had to return to Korea, and we knew that no matter what we'd survive. Take a risk...the adventure is worth it.

And lastly, don't forget to ask a flight attendant for some wings!

cereal obsession

2011-09-25T15:35:00.000+09:00

"I Love Cookie" is the name of the new store that opened in our area that sells imported products. You can find a random assortment of goods like Reeses Peanut Butter cups, A&W Root Beer, and....Froot Loops (I've never noticed until now that it's spelled "froot" not "fruit"). How much would you pay for this big box of FROOT Loops in Korea? Try about 14,000 Won or $13 US Dollars!!!!

However, we weren't tempted by this purchase because luckily for us we have 13 boxes of cereal at our apartment. Okay...maybe it's down to 11 now. But seriously, when we first got back to Korea we had 13 BOXES of cereal. Six of those came from America on our latest trip back here (this does not count the four Tom brought back on his own when he was here for 4 weeks while Everett and I were in the States).

So what is more ridiculous...paying about $13 bucks for Froot Loops or having 13 boxes of cereal at your apartment???

Everett meets GSIS

2011-09-23T07:19:00.000+09:00

Since Tom has been back at work this week and I'm still enjoying my maternity leave with Everett, I decided to take Everett up to school a few times to meet our friends and our students. It has been such a blast to introduce him to our community here!

These first two pictures are Everett at lunch:

Everett with Ms. Becki:

Tom showing off Everett to his classes (that is one proud daddy!):

If you look closely you can see the students busted out their phones to take pictures of him. How funny is that?!

Everett's New Room

2011-09-19T15:31:00.000+09:00

Tom did a good job of prepping Everett's room prior to our arrival, as seen here. It was so nice to walk in the door and immediately have a crib for Everett to sleep in that first night. We've been back in Korea for three days now and the first two days were dedicated to getting our apartment in order. We have very limited storage space so anytime we bring in new stuff we have to reorganize our place. With the addition of Everett and all of his things it took us a decent chunk of time to get things in order, but I think, aside from hanging some pictures on the walls, we're basically done! Here is Everett's new and improved room:

That's a traditional, handmade paper lamp next to the rocking chair. It has a dimmer so it's a great lamp for feeding Everett at night. It's a really unique, Korean piece for his room.

New pictures need to put in the frames still but at least the frames are ready to go.

His room has become my new favorite room in the house.

traveling with Everett

2011-09-19T07:20:00.000+09:00

As I mentioned earlier, we had a great journey to Korea. It may have been our smoothest adventure across the ocean to date! Our travels started around 3am on Thursday morning. I woke up, fed Everett, did some last minute packing, and then we headed for the Kansas City airport around 4am. We were able to check our bags in quickly and then we said a lot of tearful "see you later's" to my parents.

Our first flight was to Detroit. We were able to bump up to first class, so Everett could ride in style for his first flight! Everyone was super nice/helpful to us with Everett and the flight attendant gave him his first set of airplane wings (sorry Gramps, they're Delta not Southwest). Everett flew with us as "infant in arms" so he didn't get his own seat on the first leg of the journey. He was a champ though!

We had a nice long layover in Detroit and we were excited when we found out that the plane wasn't full so they were going to give Everett his own seat, so we were able to strap in his car seat between us! Looking back, I can't imagine us having to hold Everett in our laps for the entire 13+ hour journey in the plane.

Everett's cozy little set up. Tom and I were jealous because he looked super comfortable on the flight.

During the long flight over Everett had a record breaking HUGE poopy explosion (hence the new outfit in the next picture). We quickly became accustomed to maneuvering the diaper changing station in the small airplane bathrooms. Here's little man in his new outfit and his wings doing what he did most of the flight--sleep peacefully.

One of the biggest challenges was figuring out how to get all of our bags home from the airport. We had SO much stuff (kind of an embarrassing amount). We tried to comfort ourselves by reminding each other that we were moving an infant over to Korea and since we may not come home for Christmas we had to bring over about a year's worth of Everett clothing/needs.

Tom, in his master packing/spacial reasoning skills, was able to figure out a way to get all of our stuff on the airport shuttle that would take us to Suwon, where we live. The shuttle staff actually made us buy a third ticket because we had so many bags. We were feeling pretty proud of ourselves and then we realized....we forgot a bag at the airport. *Sigh* We had one small 20 lbs bag that was "Everett's bag" and we completely forgot about it. We'll have to teach Everett to collect all his belongings in the future. This was his first flight so we cut him some slack.

Everett and Tom on the shuttle to Suwon. Everett is saying hi to Korea!

We arrived at our apartment around 6pm Friday night after about 24+ hours of travel. Everett seems to be adjusting well to his new home!

PS--We got Everett's lost bag. Tom had to drive to the airport to collect it.

we moved our infant to Korea

2011-09-17T03:58:00.000+09:00

We are back in Korea! Everett did awesome. He didn't cry at all on the flight, his ears did not seem to bother him, and he was such a fun little traveling companion. All the traveling went smoothly and after 24 hours of being on the go we made it back to our apartment. More to come on our traveling adventures....

Here's a picture of Everett smiling before we left (thanks to my brother's girlfriend, Jennifer, for the pic). It is so so so fun to see Everett smile. Hopefully this is the first of many pics of our grinning little man.

2011-09-15T10:14:00.000+09:00

We have had such a great time in America this summer/early fall. We have especially enjoyed time with our families. Here are a few more pictures of Everett with those we love.

Granny Jerre and Everett on the patio swing. The fall weather has made swinging outside so great.

Great Uncle Lloyd and little man.

My parents each gave Everett a book where they recorded themselves reading each of the pages to him (these are really cool books made by Hallmark). It was such a sweet gift! This way Everett can hear Granny and Gramps as often as he wants.

Great Granny Luebbert and Everett:

Family photo (maybe the Christmas photo?) taken tonight.

We (mostly Tom) spent the day packing. I think we may be taking more bags over this time than we ever have! I'm proud to say that Tom was able to get everything packed; my husband has amazing spacial reasoning skills. (This is just a small portion of the stuff we packed)

We're leaving for Korea tomorrow at 6am. We will be enroute for about 24 hours. Please pray for us if you get a chance. We could use prayers for safe travels and a smooth transition back to Korea, especially with our little guy.

"smile and the whole world smiles with you"

2011-09-15T09:25:00.002+09:00

Here are a couple of videos of our little man. The first one is with his Great-Granny Luebbert. I love hearing her talk to Everett. She's such a sweet woman. The second video is Granny Jerre chatting with Everett and you can see him smile a bit. It's been so fun to see this little guy start to smile more! It melts a mommy's heart, that's for sure.

the summer uniform x2

2011-09-13T10:39:00.000+09:00

If you're one of our faithful blog followers you may remember this post about my Dad's summer uniform where we described how he tends to wear the same type of clothes everyday in the summer: white t-shirt, khakis, and a hat. Guess who decided he wanted to look like Gramps??? (Disclaimer: there is no hat because my Dad doesn't wear hats inside.)

apple picking

2011-09-13T10:28:00.000+09:00

One of my favorite times of year is the fall, especially a Missouri fall. Unfortunately it has been 3 years since I've gotten to experience a Missouri fall, so I had to make this one count while we're still here! We decided to take Everett to a local farm for apple picking. Granny and Gramps joined us and we headed to the Weston Red Barn for our adventure.

Tom decided to try out our baby carrier, which we hope to get a lot of use out of in Korea.

It doesn't get more classic Missouri than this scene right here:

I think this scene is slighty creepy, but I thought it was cool:

Gramps with our apple loot!

Fall family picture:

Granny and Gramps with Everett:

I love this picture of Everett and the pumpkin.

Not only did we have a great time, but this adventure has been the gift that keeps on giving--an apple crisp just came out of the oven.

Tom is Back!

2011-09-10T07:27:00.000+09:00

This is a few days after the fact but Tom is back! Here we are awaiting his arrival:

Family reunion:

Tom is back in full dad mode:

daddy time

2011-09-07T10:59:00.001+09:00

As you all know, Tom has been in Korea for the past 3.5 weeks while Everett and I have been hanging out in Missouri. We are happy to report that tomorrow night this season of being apart will come to an end! Tom will arrive in Kansas City around 9pm!!! We're excited for our little family to be reunited.

Although we've been thousands of miles away, we still found ways for us to connect. About twice a day we would skype chat, as you can see here.

It's not as good as being together in person, but it sure is the next best thing!

Here's a family picture (early in the morning) that exemplifies this time in our life.

Even Granny Jerre gets in on the calls every now and then!

If you get a chance please pray for Tom's safe travels home. He'll be flying most of the day Wednesday (Central Time). If you could pray for protection, safety, and that the flights would be on time. Thanks!

church attire

2011-09-05T10:33:00.001+09:00

Check out Mommy's little man in his church attire. He wanted to dress like his daddy--polo and khakis.

City Market

2011-09-04T10:53:00.001+09:00

This morning my parents, Everett, and I went to the City Market to do some produce shopping. The last time I went to the market I was a little kid, so it was fun to check it out.

Here is a pic of my mom checking out the peaches.

My Dad was in full on "Gramps" mode. He strolled Everett around the whole time. (We really had to twist his arm to do this.)

You can tell Everett really enjoyed his time...he slept through the whole thing. :-)

On our way out we stopped by the bakery at the market. Check out these great pastries!

4 more days until Tom comes back!

Go Royals!

2011-09-03T10:02:00.000+09:00

Normally I would think putting shoes on a baby that can't walk (let alone roll over at this point) is a bit silly. However, Everett's feet are a bit on the big side so if he doesn't wear them now, he'll never get to wear them! I think he's on track to catch up with his daddy's size 15 shoes!

baby quilt

2011-09-02T05:44:00.000+09:00

Everett got a really special gift from his Great Grandma Johnson this week--a handmade quilt! My Grandma is 96 years old and she made this entire quilt herself. It's inspired by nursery rhymes and is super cute.

I think Everett approves.

rafting and more Seoul

2011-08-30T06:30:00.001+09:00

This past weekend I spent Saturday with a group of our high school seniors on a rafting trip. This is the river we rafted. As you may guess from the picture it was not a rough ride.

I kid you not these were the only life jackets the place offered. This was a classic Korea moment that had to be captured. Also, I have never seen the through the leg straps before; not the most comfortable. Fellow sponsors Greg (left) and Todd are sporting the gear with me.

Here is the whole crew.

Though the rafting was tame the time on the water was a lot of fun. A lot of goofing around and jumping in the river. It was nice to get out and play a little bit.

After rafting we went out for all you can eat sam-gyup-sal (think thick fatty bacon, literally means 3 layers of fat). It was really good but fatty. Here we are in the process.

They cooked it on this awesome makeshift grill.

They would bring it over to us and cut it up straight onto our plates. It was a pretty cool eating experience.

The aftermath.

On the bus ride back we followed we followed this interesting bus for a little bit.

Sunday I decided to head into Seoul again. I spent some good time at a Starbucks reading and then worked my way up to the Philippine Market. Basically they sold a lot of food and beauty products that are native to the Philippines. There was one place that was making fresh Philippine food so I decided to check it out for my lunch. It was pretty good. The options:

After that I headed to the nearby Changgyeong Palace. It was built in the 15th century and in 1909 when the Japanese imperialized Korean it was, like so many other things, destroyed (side note: it was destroyed and rebuilt several times before that too). The Japanese turned it into a zoo and botanical garden. One of the things that the Koreans decided to keep around after the Japanese were expelled was this greenhouse. It was the first conservatory ever constructed in Korea and it was actually pretty cool.

I decided that the palace grounds would actually be a really cool place to come visit in the fall because there was a lot of nice coniferous and deciduous foliage. Maybe Bonnie, Everett, and I will come back for a stroll. They fenced this tree off. I guess because it looked like it should be dead but it was living. Resilient, like Koreans.

More nature:

Good times out and about over the weekend. Only 9 more days until I am reunited with Bonnie and Everett!!!!!!

New address

2011-08-29T11:58:00.000+09:00

This is not the most exciting post but just a heads up if you ever need to send anything here. The government changed our school's address the new one is listed on the sidebar of the blog at all times.

Here it is:

Tom and Bonnie Meyer
c\o Gyeonggi Suwon International School

451 Yeongtong-Ro, Yeongtong-Gu,

Suwon City, Gyeonggi-Do

Republic of Korea 443-808

Go Tigers!

2011-08-29T10:42:00.000+09:00

Thanks Gramps and Granny Jerre for my Tiger hat and shoes. I know I have big feet but I'd just like to clarify that these shoes are still a bit big. :-) I also love my outfit from Aunt Jen and Uncle Jim. I especially love that I got to wear my Shakepseare's Pizza outfit when the Shakespeare's delivery lady brought our pizzas! Much Love--Everett

Everett's Lady Friends

2011-08-29T10:27:00.001+09:00

I've mentioned a few times before that I'm blessed to have a close group of girlfriends called "the Council." There are five of us women in this group and within the past year 4 out of the five of us have gotten pregnant and had babies! My friend Sara had her girl, Lakin a year ago. Polly had her baby girl Adelyn earlier this summer. My friend Carly is pregnant with identical twin girls that should come any day! Do you notice a trend? Everyone has had beautiful girls, making Everett the lone male. I like his odds of possibly marrying one of my best friends kids! hehe

Here is the meeting of Lakin and Everett:

Although Everett technically hasn't met Carly's daughters, here is Carly in her pregnant glory with Baby A and Baby B inside. (Can you believe she's pregnant with twins?! She looks awesome!)

This past weekend we had a baby shower for Carly in St. Louis, so Everett had his first road trip! He did awesome!!! I was able to go half of the way to STL with my friend Polly and her daughter Adelyn, who is six weeks older than Everett. It was so fun for Polly and I to ride together with our two babies in the back. Here's a picture I took looking into the baby mirror in the backseat so you can see the two kiddos. They were so cute.

Here are the two sweet babies together. I love this picture.

It's been a busy weekend but Everett and I were so blessed by all the friends we got to spend time with.

Saturday in Seoul

2011-08-24T11:19:00.000+09:00

Since I was flying solo this past weekend I decided to head into Seoul and do a little exploring. I went to this place called Dongdaemun (Dong-day-moon). It is known for being a clothing mecca of sorts. I am not a big clothes shopper, especially in Korea, but I wanted to see what they had in the way of baby clothes. It was actually kind of slim pickings but there was some stuff to choose from. While there I found a series of shops selling used books. If you know anything about my past you know I spent a decent amount of time selling used books on Amazon and Ebay. So I am always drawn to them for some reason, even if I know I won't buy anything. These shops were especially cool though because they were so compact. They were probably like 8 feet wide with and aisle about 2 feet wide down the middle. Check out the pics:

Literally wall-to-wall books

There was a strip of about 8 to 10 of these shops right in a row.

I actually bought a Korean/English Bible from one of the shops though it wasn't this one which I later noticed was a Christian bookstore.

There was a shop that sold restaurant style paraphernalia and for some reason I found myself very tempted to buy one of these.

I spent some more time exploring other places but forgot to take pics. I'll have to work on that in the future.

Everett's Photo Shoot

2011-08-24T11:16:00.000+09:00

I was able to spend some time with my good friend Sara today and we did a little photo shoot of Everett. He's one month old now! Here's a preview of some of the pictures she took. She did a great job!

family time

2011-08-23T01:05:00.000+09:00

Everett has had a bunch of visitors lately! It's been really fun for him to meet some of his extended family.

Aunt Jina:

Papa

Emmy and her daughter Lilly:

Aunt Lori:

Uncle Aaron:

Everett got a Florida Gators football jersey from his "Aunt" Emily. Emily and I grew up together and my parents even call her their adopted daughter. Here he is sporting his jersey:

Emily and Everett:

My cousins Rachael and Amanda:

Uncle Tim:

Aunt "Pooh" (like Winnie the Pooh). Her real name is Jan.

Everett has been doing great! He's growing like crazy and becoming more alert every day. He misses his daddy too...16 more days and Tom will be back!

Civil Defense Drill

2011-08-17T20:32:00.000+09:00

We have signed up with the US embassy to get email notification of any important news that we need to know about at Americans living in Korea. This one came into my inbox today:

"The U.S. Embassy in Seoul is transmitting the following information as a public service to all U.S. citizens in the Republic of Korea.
Seoul Metropolitan Police authorities advised the Embassy that on Thursday, August 18, at approximately 2:00 p.m. an air-raid siren will sound for one minute to signal the start of a nationwide civil defense drill. Pedestrians in open and public areas should seek shelter in nearby buildings or subway stations. All drivers/vehicles on the road must pull over and come to a complete stop. At approximately 2:15 p.m. a second siren will sound, signaling the conclusion of the drill. Local authorities will give further instructions if necessary."

I have never actually seen one of these take place because we are always in school. I feel like it would be super creepy to just be going about your business on a Thursday afternoon and then this siren goes off and everyone goes into "holy crap we are being attacked" mode. The crazy thing is that there is a reasonable degree of necessity to the drill based on who our neighbors to the north are. I'll do my best to remember to honor the drill tomorrow by doing a good ole duck and cover under my desk when I hear it.

Nesting

2011-08-17T05:22:00.000+09:00

One of my assignments while being here in Korea is to get stuff ready for our new addition. When I got back one of the first things that I noticed was the awesome folks at our school that work in the housing department had set up our crib and moved in a dresser. My task was to inventory all of the stuff that we have here so we know what we have and if we need to get anything else before bringing Everett here. I also wanted to get the room cleaned up and organized. I've still got 3 weeks over here but when you are living the single life and jet lagged there can be a degree of boredom involved from time-to-time.

So over the past few days I counted up all Everett's baby stuff, cleaned up his room, hung some curtains (and in the process put about 5 unnecessary holes in the wall), threw down a rug, and put a sheet on the mattress. The walls still need a little love but I may have to wait for Bonnie on that one.

I can't wait for Bonnie, Everett and I to get settled in here.

who does he look like?

2011-08-16T02:11:00.000+09:00

In an effort to continue the discussion about, "who does baby Everett look like?" there's been a new development. Granny Jerre's baby picture...

I definitely can spot some similarities!

big boy

2011-08-16T02:03:00.001+09:00

Like I mentioned earlier, Everett has been busting out of his swaddler (as evidence below):

I thought it was faulty velcro, but the more I analyzed the situation the more I realized that he may be too big for his small/medium swaddler. So on a whim, I decided to try out his large size swaddler just to see if it was more comfortable for him. I was shocked to find out it fits him really well (see below). He's 3 WEEKS OLD and he needs a large! Wow!!!

The swaddler is great but I've begun to notice that baby boy loves to have his hands by his face and sometimes it seems like he gets so mad being the in the swaddler because it constricts his arms. As a result, today we're going to try out just wearing a sleeper (how cute is that?) and see if he's a bit more content.

It's crazy how quickly things with a baby change. I thought that I was figuring out this little guy, but it seems like every day his preferences are changing. He is for sure keeping me on my toes.

First day of school

2011-08-15T06:51:00.005+09:00

It was requested by my wife and her mother that I take a "first day of school" picture for posterity's sake. Seeing as it is 6AM and I am jet lagged I wasn't very patient with the process but I did come through. It is pretty weird having a first day of school without Bonnie here. Only about 3 weeks left until we meet again but who's counting...

monkey love

2011-08-15T00:23:00.000+09:00

Everett has been cheating on Blue Bear with his new monkey from Granny Jerre (like I said before, Granny is dangerous at Babies R Us). Everett just loves to hold onto things right now. There also seems to be a magnet between his hands and his mouth!

Everett Update

2011-08-14T05:47:00.000+09:00

Tom made it safely to Korea! Yeahhh!!! I think his flights went smoothly and he's excited to be back in our apartment. Thanks to all those who prayed for safe travels for him! Here's a picture of Tom and Everett right before Tom left:

After I took Tom to the airport, I went with my parents to Babies R Us. Now that is one dangerous store to go to with Granny Jerre!!! We've noticed that Everett has been watching ceiling fans quite a bit, so despite the fact that I personally think they're a little cheesey, we decided we should get the little man a mobile. The one we got him is pretty cute; it's a mix of animals and sports. My dad was able to hook it up to the pack n' play and I think Everett really likes it! As you can see, it helped lull him to sleep here:

You'll also notice in the picture that Everett broke out of his swaddler!!! A swaddler is a blanket like thing that Velcro's to keep the baby all bundled up. As you can see here, Everett is getting strong and when I came to check on him he had busted himself completely out!

In other Everett news, today we went to Great-Grandma Johnson's house and Everett got to meet his Great-Aunt Marlene for the first time.

Me, Aunt Marlene, Everett, and Grandma.

We've also noticed that Everett is starting to suck his thumb at times. It's hard to see in this picture, but his thumb is in his mouth and he puts the rest of his hand over his face. I have to admit, it's a pretty cute site even though we're trying to deter him from being a thumb sucker.

Disclaimer: I apologize in advance if I blog an overwhelming about Everett over the next couple of weeks. I'll try to contain myself but keep in mind that since I'm on maternity leave, hanging out with Everett is all I do AND Tom is away and I want to make sure to post a lot of pictures/events on the blog so he doesn't miss out. :-)

On an exciting note, now that Tom is in Korea we'll be blogging here from opposite sides of the world!

a brief separation

2011-08-12T20:12:00.000+09:00

Today is the day that I (Tom) have to head back to Korea to end my paternity leave. It will be really sad for me to leave Bonnie and Everett but there is also a good amount of joy involved in going back to reunite with our great community in Korea. I come back to Missouri on September 7th (only to depart again as a family Sept. 15) so we will only be apart for roughly 3.5 weeks. I'm sure in many ways the time will both drag along and fly by. I am so curious to see what Everett will be like then. To my friends, in America it has been great seeing you over the summer! To my friends in Korea, I will see you soon!

A family photo before I head out:

"firsts"

2011-08-09T10:01:00.000+09:00

Everett has had a lot of "firsts" over the past few days...

Everett and his first piece of mail. It was his Social Security card, which means we were able to send off his passport application today!

Everett's first time meeting his Aunt Jen and Uncle Jim. They came in from Columbia over the weekend and we got to spend Saturday with them. We all had such a great time!

For one of my baby shower gifts, Jim and Jen got Everett this onesie that says, "My Aunt is awesome!" But they added in "Uncle" and changed the "is" to "are" so now it reads "My Aunt and Uncle are awesome!" I would agree.

Everett's umbilical cord fell off recently so that means that today he was able to have his first bath!

In other Everett news, he had his two week doctor appointment on Friday and he weighed 9 lbs. 15 oz! So he's back up to his birth weight and almost at 10 lbs! Now that his weight is up he is starting to sleep a bit longer through the night, which is so great!!!

it was love at first touch

2011-08-07T01:02:00.000+09:00

Everett is 2 weeks old!

2011-08-05T23:09:00.001+09:00

My parent's neighbors were super nice and brought Everett a new outfit! They're a military family so they chose to get him some camo. We decided to put Everett in his new look, especially since we hadn't put him in shorts yet. Granny Jerre helped put the shorts on here and Everett was like, "Granny, seriously! You gave me highwaters!!!"

So we fixed his shorts. He's much more content here:

Hanging out with his Daddy.

Everett also got to meet his only Great-Grandpa. Papa was so proud of him! One of the first things he said to me was, "When will he get a brother or a sister?" Oh man...I'm not ready for that quite yet.

Everett with his Grandpa and Great-Grandpa. After this picture Papa insisted that we take Everett around his assisted living facility so he could show him off to all the staff. It was really cute.

Here's little man wiped out at the end of the day, rocking his Baby Armor!

Everett's lunch adventure

2011-08-02T10:20:00.000+09:00

We decided to take the Little Man out and about today for his first outing that wasn't to a family member's house or a doctor's office. His first big stop....CHIPOTLE!!! He loved it.

family time!

2011-08-02T01:20:00.000+09:00

Everett was able to meet a lot of family over the weekend. We had such a great time introducing our little man to the people we love. Here are some picture highlights:

Bonnie, Everett, Lori (Tom's sis) and Cousin Moses

The Meyer Family at Grandpa Meyer and Grandma Jean's house

The happy grandparents

The cousins already get along!

Great Uncle John (Honk)

2nd Cousins Claire and Emma

Bonnie and her two favorite creatures (besides Tom)

Nap time with Uncle James

Great Grandma Bonnie

Four generations (Johnson, Robertson, Meyer, Meyer)

Thanks to all of the folks who have come by to see our little man. He's excited because there are still so many coming!