Photoessay #239 - Circle games

We hosted a going away part for Gowoon the weekend before she returned to Korea. Seven friend from her high school attended, much spirited talking, a lunch of spaghetti, salad and ice cream and some card-playing. Ilana served as social director; she used all her girl scout skills. She chatted them up and they seemed very receptive to the icebreaker games she suggested. Only a small step before she organized them into a circle and started doing the call and response, hand motion circle games. They enjoyed it quite a bit, enthusiastic acting out and singing. You are never too old for this stuff!

Photoessay #235 - Gowoon back to Korea

Yesterday, Gowoon returned to Korea after being in the US for one year. She was with us since the beginning of November. Though she complained about us quite a bit, I do believe that she enjoyed being part of our family and we did a good job as a host family. Yes, I did make home-made vegetable soup a lot. And Naomi does like to spend a lot of time by herself. Gowoon wanted to do every single thing in America. When she came to us, she eagerly went with me to my deep water aerobics class. Clearly, she did not know how to swim at all. But she was eager to learn so I arranged some swimming lessons for her. By the end of the two months, she went from being a non-swimmer to being able to swim the 'long way' across the pool three times in a row. She returns to Korea as a swimmer.

She enjoyed meeting all of the siblings spending time with Ilana and Susanna as they were here during the holidays. She will be a success here or back in Korea.

Photoessay #233 - Why I've been twitchy

Because I've been living with this group of young women throughout the entire holiday season. 4 of them between the ages of 16 and 23. All at the same time. This can make you nuts. But Susanna is back at school at the University of Oregon and Ilana at the University of Washington. Gowoon, our exchange student, is returning to Korea tomorrow.

I am trying to convince Gowoon to help find Susanna's triplet sisters.

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I throw this challenge out across the internet!!!

We are looking for two young women, twins, aged 23, who may be hairdressers in Inchon, Korea. They may be Susanna's triplet sisters and unaware. Anybody who knows who they might be, please respond!

This picture taken at Susanna's birthday celebration at a local chinese restaurant.

Photoessay #223 - New Year's Eve

Here's the New Year's Eve crowd last night at the Greater G's house. Ilana, Janelle (Naomi's friend), Naomi, Janine, Sara (Ilana's roommate) and Gowoon. And of course, puppy Daisy. Being silly on the couch.

And we played pictionary.

One New Year's project that we've done is to clean out a lot of stuff. Tons left to go. I tend to be so pleased when one thing gets cleaned out that I revel in the satisfaction of that one little part ignoring all of the rest. Selective satisfaction. Dennis and I 'cleared out' 3 computers that we are not using and got them all ready to go 'somewhere'. We got rid of all of our diskettes and zip disks and super disks and heaven knows what which contain important data which we have completely forgotten about and can no longer read. We tackled one complete side of the office and go rid of tons of stuff. I'll post an 'after' picture. You would have to see it 'before' to truly appreciate it. Susanna and Naomi gutted Naomi's room depositing boxes and boxes of refuse in our garage which they sifted through and took to the Goodwill. A friend told me of somebody who, with his wife, spent 20 minutes, every night going through the junk in their house. Both Dennis and I think this is an excellent idea.

Photoessay #219 - Kim Bop

Yesterday, Susanna and Gowoon made Kim Bop, kind of a Korean sushi, rice wrapped in seaweed with some fillings. Susanna really wanted to learn, so they gathered all of the materials. Seaweed covers, rice, sauteed carrots, pickled radish, cucumber, tuna filling. Spread the rice out on the bamboo mat, lay out the fillings, roll it up and slice. So busy, resulting in a big plate of kim bop, now almost gone.

Photoessay #196 - Dreidel

We marked the first night of Hanukkah with the menorah, gelt and a game of dreidel.

And a loss of power. Just like last year, we lost our power on Hanukah. Yesterday was a day of record rain and floods in Seattle. We were ok, though my neighbor's basement flooded (New carpet! Insurance won't pay!). For some reason in the middle of a calm afternoon, (no rain, no wind, nothing) the power went out in my section of the city. Aaack, everybody panics, everybody remembers last year when we didn't have power for almost 6 days because of a big windstorm. Awful! The only good thing about that experience was that you didn't have to worry about losing power because you already did. Had to throw away everything in my fridge and freezer, toothpaste froze in tube, etc etc.

Naomi and Gowoon play the game of dreidel on our kitchen table. You can see the flashlights and the candlesticks from the very recent (less than hour) power loss. Also the flower arrangement that Dennis' work sent in honor of his mother's passing.

They had a good time, I remember some crazy dreidel game from a few years ago (maybe with Perry) where everything went on the table into the pot, dishes, money, candlesticks, scraps of paper, no shortage of things to wager.

Photoessay #175 - New Stove

The appliance store delivered our new stove today with James (our contractor) on hand to install it. My neighbor cast off this old stove when she remodeled her kitchen 13 years ago (or so). So it was old when I got it, it never had more than 2 burners working at any one time, other things did not work. When the last big burner started going a month ago, I said to Dennis, "It Is Time". So, with our usual cautious research-driven purchasing philosophy, we went to Lowes and bought what was on sale. Gas stove, this time around.

James had come over to check it out earlier, he pulled out the bottom drawer. "OOOOeeyooo" we all exclaim at that site of all the detritus that had accumulated under the stove for the past 13 years.

"What a collection" offered James
"Anything alive?" asked Dennis
"Anything that WAS alive?" I chimed in

We got it all cleaned out. The new stove arrived with the big guys bringing it up the half flight of stairs. Shadow had some desultory hoarse barks just to update everybody of her presence. But the front oven door had some dents and the front steely stuff had separated from the oven door. Damaged. Has to go back. James goes out to negotiate and they decide that James can install this one and they will deliver a new one. Gets a little tricky with two Thanksgiving dinners coming up, the first one on Sunday.

But it's in, though it's now a loaner. Gowoon set right to work preparing her bulgogi for her high school club meeting this afternoon. We get some for dinner also. James helped us figure out how to work things including a strategy for using the stove during a power outage (a windstorm was forecast later this afternoon that never developed, yay!) So new stove until the next new one arrives (complete with installer) on Friday.

Photoessay #173 - UW tour

Ilana gave us a tour of the University of Washington this morning. Our exchange student Gowoon had never been to the UW though she has been in town since January. Ilana did a great job.

We started out at the 'Eight' the dining hall of the one of the largest dorms. Ilana assures us that the Eight has GREAT waffles. Actually I've always thought that dining hall was pretty nice, lots of choices and very convenient. Beautiful view looking out on Lake Washington, too. I declined the waffles but did have some eggs and fruit and 1 sausage. We walked through the campus and visited the Foster Library where Ilana works as a student assistant. Not too many people around on a Saturday morning but we got to see where Ilana mans the desk. On through the beautiful campus still filled with fall color into Suzallo Library with it's majestic reading room. We walked across massive Red Square, the brick paved plaza in the center of campus. We walked across to the Henry Art Gallery. You can always count on the Henry to have some really weird art and it did not disappoint. Some way crazy sculptures and drawings by an artist named Kim Jones in the large exhibit space involving a lot of sticks, you had to be there.

And of course the fountain which, looking through the buildings where, on a clear day, you can see a