Happy Chuseok

Happy Chuseok to one and all.  Chuseok is a big holiday in Korea to celebrate the fall harvest.  One could equate Chuseok with our American Thanksgiving. 

To celebrate Chuseok this year, we attended a Korean folk festival in our city with Grandma Judy and Grandpa Al.  The festival's main highlight was a demonstration of a typical Korean wedding.  It was amazing to see what a wedding in Korea would look like and great explanations of the symbolism of various parts of the wedding were also provided.  It was beautiful.  The festival also included singing by the Korean youth choir and dancing by one of the Twin Cities Korean Dance groups.  What would a festival be without some amazing food?  We snacked on tteokbokki (spicy rice cakes), eo muk guk (fish cake skewers), hae mul pa jeon (seafood scallion pancake), bulgogi (beef) burritos, and gim bap (dried seaweed rice rolls).  Yum! 

Happy Chuseok from Lauren (dressed her Korean hanbok - which she loves and proudly tells everyone that she is a Korean princess when she wears it). 

TKD Belt Promotion Test (yellow and orange belts)

After months of hard work and practice, the boys were able to test for their next belts in taekwondo in mid September.  Cameron did wonderful on his written test and was awarded the academic achiever badge due to his excellent report card from school.  Promotion test days can get to be long, so Lauren stayed at home with our neighbor and favorite babysitter.  Kyle was up first.  He did a wonderful job with his white belt form (ki bon dong jak), self defense, and successfully broke his board with his hammer fist.  He is now a yellow belt.  Cameron took the floor next to try for his orange belt.  Cameron successfully completed his form (tae geuk yi jang #2).  Our school rotates its curriculum every few months so this is actually the green belt form.  He showed off his self defensive techniques, sparred, and had a spectacular board break with his hoping axe kick.

Bad parenting moment as we forgot the camera at home...darn.  We did take a few photos and video with our ipods but the quality is pretty poor.  Here we are at home following the test.  Congratulations boys!!!

 New Orange Belt - Cameron

New Yellow Belt - Kyle 

Show off their boards they broke

   

Ballerina

A couple of weeks ago, Lauren began her very first dance class.  This class focuses on ballet.  She looks adorable in her leotard, tights, tutu and ballet shoes.  She loves to spin and leap.  She is constantly dancing and singing around the house following her classes.  The parents aren't allow to watch until the final performance at the end of October but I do know that they will be performing Beauty and the Beast.  Can't wait to see her final show.