Winter Storm

We had our first winter storm of the year. I think this is the first time since we've been in Richmond to have snow before January. We had to run out an buy boots for Sarah right before the storm. We got the very last pair of rain boots in her size that day as it seems everyone else was doing the same thing. This is understandable since many years we don't get snow, so buying boots seems to be a last minute purchase if it does happen to come. At least the rain boots will work well in the spring.

Sarah had a great time running and falling in the snow singing "ho, ho, ho" the whole time. After that she built a snowman with Greg. The snowman is an official Tarheel in honor of UNC basketball (although they are not doing as well as Duke this year :). What Sarah enjoyed most of the whole experience was coming in to have hot chocolate with marshmallows and warming up after having fun playing. For our little non-sleeper (she dropped her naps at 3 and usually will stay up singing and playing in bed past 9 or 10 at night) we finally found something to wear her out! She was exhausted by 6:30 that night and even said she wanted to go to bed!

Welcome David Kang

On December 9th we welcomed the fourth member of our family, David Eu-Jin Kang. At 39 weeks, he came out at a whopping 9 lbs. 3 ozs and 21 inches. He beat his sister who was only 7 lbs 6 ozs when she was born. We were expecting a bigger baby because I was carrying heavier in the front (may be 8 lbs), but we didn't expect him to be so big! He is a healthy baby and solid eater. Sarah was very excited to meet him, but unfortunately with the flu season, H1N1 and hospital regulations, she had to wait until he came home. So far so good, but we've had plenty of people around to keep her company while mom is busy feeding the hungry boy. My mom came in the day before I was scheduled to be induced and stayed the week to help out.

The whole family together in front of the Christmas tree.

Nanny and Sarah making a Gingerbread House together

Sarah gets to meet her baby brother

Sarah gives her baby brother a kiss and hug the day before he is born.

Halloween and November

Halloween was fun for Sarah this year. She had a great time dressing up as Eyore. We also carved pumpkins with friends and ended up making a Winnie the Pooh pumpkin using a carving kit. Sarah had fun dressing up three times in her outfit. The first was the fall festival at daycare where the kids come in the evening and make crafts, have a cake walk, and get to play. The next time was the Halloween parade at daycare and finally trick-or-treating in the neighborhood.

Sarah eats a cookie at the daycare festival.

Decorating cookies with her friend Nina.

In November we started to get ready for David to arrive and were working on pulling out all the old baby stuff from the attic. We also enjoyed the nice southern weather. We had several days in the 70's. Sarah had a great time one day playing in the leaves while Greg worked on picking them up.

Sarah plays in the leaves.

Brody enjoys the leaves as well.

Fall

It's been a busy August and September with us working on a major bathroom renovation. I've started to put the photos together but thought I would try and do one big post on that from start to finish. We've finally got cooler weather in Richmond and it is so nice to enjoy the cooler days. Sarah has switched to a three year old class, which is Montessori and just loves it. She asks everyday if it is a Skipwith day (name of the daycare). When I say yes, the gets very happy. Within weeks of moving, she is already recognizing letters and numbers much better than before. We really like this new structure and class and look forward to how she'll do in the coming year.

Between the bathroom renovation, Sarah and I made a quick trip up to Massachusetts for a long weekend to see everyone before baby number two arrives in December (yes, for anyone that reads this and doesn't know, I am 7 months pregnant as demonstrated in the photo above). We had a fun time. While the weather wasn't nice enough to enjoy the beach (there were remnants of a hurricane passing through), we did go to the beach to see the waves and watch the surfers enjoy the high winds. Sarah got to play with her cousin, Abigail who has grown so much since we last saw her in December.

Sarah watches the waves at the beach


My mom and Abigail


Sarah running all over the beach and letting everyone chase her

Sarah enjoys dressing up in play shoes at my friend Chom's birthday party for her children in Massachusetts

Aunt Melissa and cousin Abigail

While the bathroom renovation has taken up a good deal of our weekends for the last few weeks, we have had a chance to do a few things. A few weeks ago, we went to Field Days of the Past just about 20 minutes outside of the city. I was amazed at how country (OK, I'll say it --redneck) it was given the proximity to the city. Never had I seen so many confederate flags for sale. Still something I have not gotten used to living in the south. Regardless, we enjoyed the day, ate kettle corn, watched the pig races (this one included swimming as well), and petted the horses, goats, llamas, chickens, etc.

Greg and Sarah eat Kettle Corn

Lastly, Sarah got to see her friend Emma this weekend who is my friend Kat's daughter. Kat and I lived in Australia together when we did a semester abroad in college. We watched Emma so Kat and her husband could go out dinner together. Next weekend, Greg and I will get to have a nice night of dinner together as well. I am looking forward to a nice evening of good food! The next day, Sarah and I went with them to pick pumpkins and take a hayride (photo at the top). I think the girls had more fun running around together in the pumpkin patch than picking them.

Sarah and Emma dress up as princesses

Bathroom Renovation

So for the last two months we've been working on a major bathroom renovation on the second floor. While the bathroom worked, the bathtub was old, worn, and small, the tiles on the walls and floor were worn and cracking, the radiator got in the way, we only had one vanity, and it just got crowded when Sarah and Brody wanted to join us in the morning to get ready.

We do not have a master bathroom and this is the main bathroom for the three bedrooms we have upstairs. Fortunately, we do have a bathroom with a shower downstairs in the side room that we converted from a half bath several years ago. Also, as with old houses built in the 1930's we have a random toilet in our basement (yes, it works most of the time and is just in the basement next to a utility sink--no door or separate room, just out there against a wall).

We initially planned to just hand this over to the professionals after doing most of the house projects ourselves (that includes our parents when referring to the bathroom and porch renovations!). However, after the initial estimates and sticker shock, we were back to rolling up our sleeves and going the DIY route. Again, this is with the help of our parents, who know what they are doing with helping us setting up walls and tiling.

The first week was demolition and putting in reinforcements on the floors. Greg handled most of that. There was a lot of tile, mortar and plaster to remove. So much so that what we thought would take 3 days, took 7 and included some help from his parents and brother who came up. After that, the plumbers came in to put in the new pipes since we moved everything around to make a tight space the most efficient it could be.

The next week, I took off and my parents came down. My dad and Greg worked on getting the bathroom walls and floor setup --always a project with old homes. After that, my mom and I worked on getting heated and floors in and getting the tile up. There was a lot of tile since we decided to have it go up half way on the walls. After that was all the finishing work. We are now almost completely finished. We have a few finishing pieces but we can use it and Sarah loves her new bathtub!

Old Bathroom looking at the shower

Old bathroom with one vanity

Old bathroom-radiator in the way, couldn't open the vanity drawer all the way

Walls are out to make room for new vanity (we had to move the wall back into our closet)

Demolition--old tub still in place (we let the plumbers take this out because it was cast iron)

Walls down to the studs with new bathtub and in new place to make it more open

Walls are up for the new tub

Walls are in for new vanity

New shower and tub!

Happy Birthday Sarah

Last Monday Sarah celebrated her third birthday. It seemed to be more like a week of celebrations, which I am sure she didn't mind. It all started the Saturday before her birthday when Aunt Julie sent Sarah her first birthday package. It contained a fun ballerina outfit (tutu and shoes) , pom poms and a head band that looked like a flower. Sarah decided she wanted to wear all of them at once, so the did. She was very cute and danced to the new mixed CD that Aunt Julie and her family put together for her.

How do I look?

On Monday Sarah celebrated her birthday with cupcakes at her daycare. Then the next day she joined her friend, Nina, who's birthday is the day after Sarah's, at Chuckie Cheese's. The girls had a great time together, except Sarah was very upset when Chuckie Cheese tried to come by and say 'hi' to her. Sarah still isn't a fan of people in costumes.

Sarah upset after Chuckie Cheese came by for a visit....

Sarah and Nina play with a telephone game.

On Friday, Sarah got to go to another birthday celebration at my friend Violet's house. Her son, Frank has the same birthday, so Sarah has celebrated her last three birthdays with Violet's family. After birthday cupcakes, the kids went out 'hunting' for fireflies. It was Sarah's first time searching for fireflies, which brought back memories of when we used to collect them in jars as a kids. It is very nice to have 'adoptive' family when some of our family is farther away. We are always welcome there and Sarah loves playing with G'ma Violet and G'pa Bob.

Sarah and Frank blow out their birthday candles. (They had face painting at daycare that day, so she went to the party as a cat. I found out that one of the other kids at the party also went to Sarah's daycare---the face painting on the two kids helped us make the connection!)

Sarah enjoys her birthday cupcake

Sarah looking for fireflies

Sarah's birthday celebrations finally came to end over the weekend when Uncle Eric came up to visit. He brought Sarah a hip new plate, bowl, cup, and utensil set with the letter "S" in the middle. Sarah loves them and has all her meals on them now. We had a fun visit and enjoyed some great barbecue from Buz and Neds (for you foodnetwork people, Buz was the one that won the barbecue showdown with Bobby Flay) and then followed-up up with Sarah's traditional birthday cake for the last three years---my mom's famous strawberry roll cake. If you haven't had it before, it always gets rave reviews and I am pleased that I get to hand down the tradition and make if for my family. It is sponge cake rolled up with fresh whipped cream and strawberries--a perfect summer treat!

Enjoying barbecue on the back porch

Outer Banks Beach Trip

We had a wonderful trip to the Outer Banks in NC the last week in June. We rented a house on the beach with Greg's immediate family. We had four kids, Greg's sister and husband, Greg's brother and his parents. The house was great and had everything we needed.

The weather was perfect the whole time. We had one afternoon of rain and one morning that was very windy. The waves were bigger than we are used to when we go to the Cape, so Sarah was a bit nervous the first few days. She was very content just digging in the sand and watching everyone from a distance. Once she started playing in the surf, she was hooked and loved to jump in the waves as they came to shore.

Sarah's cousins, Alex, Noah, and Lauren had a great time as well. Alex and Noah tried to skim board in the surf. Lauren spent most of her time attached to either Mom and Dad (Aunt Susan and Uncle Kelly). Greg and I had a great time enjoying the water and swimming. Uncle Eric took the kids crabbing. Unfortunately, the crabs were too small to eat.

It was a wonderful trip and made returning to work last week very depressing. We've agreed to go again sometime and I look forward to more visits to the Outer Banks.

Sarah waits for the waves. Greg and Alex work on skim boarding in the background.

Alex and Justus

Uncle Kelly and Lauren


Aunt Susan and Lauren (are you starting to notice that Sarah and Lauren seem to always have snacks in their hands?)

Sarah waits for the waves to come ashore with Apa and Uncle Eric

Having fun in the waves

Sarah and Lauren under the canopy enjoying snacks with Harmoni and Haraboji (grandma and grandpa)

All the kids playing in the bed (Noah, Alex, Lauren and Sarah)

The Month of May (and April)

It seems we are out of practice on the posts and need to do a major update. Sometimes it seems we aren't doing things that are news worthy, but even the little things are good to know. Since our last post, we've celebrated Easter, flown to Atlanta for a wedding, gone to the Georgia Aquarium (see photo on above), and enjoyed a wonderful Memorial Day weekend (mostly because it was three days off.)

We'll start with the trip to Atlanta. A few weeks ago, Greg's cousin got married. Most of Greg's family lives in Atlanta (he has two uncles and an aunt who there along with the cousins). Greg's parents came as well. We were amazed at the urban sprawl of Atlanta and wonder how people deal with the traffic. We had dinner at a relatives house each night and I got to try new Korean dishes I had not had before. Greg was happy to get his Korean food fix.

The wedding was beautiful with a mix of Korean and English. Sarah and I had to miss a majority of the ceremony because she wanted to sing, dance and talk most of the time. However, after that she was the hit of the party. She tried to dance the first dance, get the first piece of cake, and just join in all of the festivities. She even took the cake topper with flowers and handed out some cake to people (what a helper!)

Since we were in Atlanta, we decided to check out the Georgia aquarium. We had heard about it on the Today show a few times and it was a really fun place to visit. They had Beluga whales, sharks, tropical fish, and, of course, Sarah's favorite--Nemo (or at least a look alike).

Before our Atlanta adventures, we celebrated a low key Easter with some friends of ours, Aris and Jill. They live close to Monument Avenue, where there is an annual Easter on Parade each year. We went to their house in the morning for brunch and then headed out to the parade. It isn't as much a parade, but a big 6-7 block party with people and dogs walking around. People who own the huge mansions on the Monument Avenue host parties (we don't know anyone who lives on Monument, so we just see the parties). It's a fun time and great to people watch.

There was a group of cross dressers out on the day of the parade that Sarah was fascinated with. Mostly because they had on very colorful dresses and pretty hats. Sarah kept calling them, 'the ladies.'

During the weekend, we also attended a Easter festival at a park nearby. It was colder that day, but Sarah had fun going on the little merry-go-round, getting a sticker 'tattoo' and petting the little baby goats.

Sarah dances with mommy at the wedding


Sarah carries the cake topper and some cake.


Sarah looks at 'the ladies' at the Easter on Parade

Sarah hanging out with mommy at the Easter on Parade

Sarah sits on Apa's shoulders while at the parade

Petting the baby goats at the Easter festival