Our Week

Sorry. Things have been quiet around here. Not around our house, of course, but here on the blog it's been quiet. And I can't even say why. Just quiet. Maybe it's because our lives just seem so peaceful compared to life in Nairobi. Or Peshawar. Or even Washington, D.C. And I'm pretty grateful for that.

We had a very restful five days off for Chuseok. That is primarily because I tend to be the one who says, "Let's go. Get out of the house. Anywhere!" But, when I'm the one laying in bed all day with a throbbing jaw and an awful headache, we don't tend to be too active. We watched a couple of movies: Silver Linings Playbook, Olympus Has Fallen (was that really released amidst all the turmoil with Enkay last spring?!), and Teach, the televised documentary. I would recommend all of them.

We finally left the house on Friday, having thrown out our plans to go the water park when Kennedy woke up throwing up on Thursday morning. She continued off and on throughout the day, so we figured we'd better keep things low key on Friday. Instead, we just headed to a nearby park just like every.other.Korean.family. It was busy! Kennedy was fine; apparently, she just had a quick bug--no fever or anything.

Saturday we managed to pick up some things for Kennedy's birthday party, though more stores were closed than we had planned on. It worked out okay, though. On Sunday, we finally caught up on some house work. My knees and back are still aching from all of the scrubbing I did. I can no longer say that I've never cleaned a bathroom in Korea.

The real fun began for us on Monday. Kennedy had a birthday party at the mall, so I picked up Cade and then went back to school to pick Eric and Kennedy. We had planned on dropping her off, picking up birthday presents for her, and then having dinner before we went to pick her up. Our plans were altered a bit when I didn't make a wide enough turn out of the school, and I hit the curb pretty hard with the back tire.

Sure, it didn't sound good, but we didn't think too much about it until later. By the time we got up into the parking garage at the mall, I could hear that all that was left of the tire was some floppy rubber. Thankfully, Eric was able to access the spare tire while Cade and I took Kennedy to her party.

We decided to just continue with our original plans, thinking that most places are open pretty late in Korea. We could get everybody back home and then Eric could take the car to a tire place. We were wrong. The tire place was closed by the time he got there.

That meant that on Tuesday, I had to cab it. So, of course it was raining! First, Cade and I walked up the hill to put him on the bus. Then I walked back home to pick up my stuff for school. Then I headed down the hill to one of the coffee shops to get a cup of coffee to break my big bill. That was only frustrating because I watched an empty cab pass by me when I didn't have small enough bills to pay him. I got my cup of coffee, juggling it with my computer bag and school stuff, and my umbrella. I got an empty cab without too much trouble and even managed to get in without spilling my coffee or dropping anything. Success.

I made it to school, taught my classes, and then headed back home to change clothes for soccer practice. After waiting for a taxi, I barely made it in the house to drop my stuff and change my clothes before I had to get back up the hill to pick up Cade. This time, the roads were dry and Eric had to take the car to get a new tire, anyway, so I figured the spare could handle the trip. Cade and I drove back to school. I walked down to the dentist (for the last time until I have to go back for a cleaning-yay!) and back again for soccer practice. Eric took the kids to go get a new tire.

It turns out that tires are one thing that Korean mechanics do not keep on hand, so after going to two places, he finally figured that we were just going to have to wait until the guy could get us one today. I managed to get the tire changed this afternoon (after only 5 minutes!), and I am finally able to eat solid foods again, so I would say that things are looking up around here!