Hobbiton

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...

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

Merry Christmas

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

Happy 5 Months Everett!

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!

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

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!

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

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

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

St. Nicholas Day

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

I think this is awesome.  

Adios facial hair

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!

Poor guy...getting teeth is rough. 

2 more days

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!