Mac Meltdown 2012

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.

blast from the past

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

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!

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.

two of my new favorite pics

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

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

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"

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. 

cereal obsession

"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???  

traveling with Everett

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

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.

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.

apple picking

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.

City Market

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!