cowboy

baby feet

This little piggy went to the market...

Aren't I cute?

Toes!

Owen has discovered his toes!

I see you!

Owen is very attentive and curious...

Interesting Things About Korea

1. The weather was just like it was here, but no one wore hats and all the buildings were so HOT.
2. Only cross the street where there are white lines, otherwise, you go underground to cross over. You don' want to jaywalk, otherwise you could get hit. Their driving is a little different.
3. There are many tv english channels. Mostly movie channels or ESPN. We saw a funny kid show where there were 2 teams and one team had to try and throw a paper airplane while his teammates try and catch it into a net. But the other team is waving big fans at the one who is trying to throw the paper airplane.
4. The subway is very, very clean. And very quiet. If someone is talking, it is usually kids. When an elder person comes onto the subway, someone younger will move so they can sit down. Also, you don't wait for people to come off and on, you just push your way until you are off or on. The seats are heated.
5. We ate at a Subway sandwich place and it was like our Subway, but behind in its time. There was white or wheat bread and the club sandwich consisted of some meat that had some white in it and some turkey and small pepperoni.
6. The style of clothes is very trendy.
7. You probably could not guess how old anyone is. All look so young.
8. Korea is a very large city. 11 million people live there and about 25% of the population lives in Seoul. There are not homes like we have here. Mostly everyone lives in apartments.
9. A lot of the stores or restaurants we were at played American music.
10. The most shocking! - Koreans are tall! They range in height just like here.
11. We may be saw only 2 people that were a little bit chubby. Mostly everyone is slender. It is probably because they have to walk everywhere. I can't believe how much was walked.

Our Trip: Saturday, February 4th

We come home! Owen was so good on our long trip home. We took a small van to a location to get onto a bus that took us to the airport. Tricia had Owen in a hip carrier. He took to it very well. He slept on the way to the airport (1 1/2 hours) and then we stood in line at the airport to check in for about another hour and a half and he just looked around and didn't mind at all. After we checked in, he was fed. On the plane, he did pretty well. There was a Korean older woman who was sitting next to us. Owen was a little fussy and she took him out of Tricia's hands and rocked him to sleep. Later we let her play with him. She was so cute with him. He liked it. Everyone kept telling us how cute he was "You have cute baby". We met at the airport another couple who had just adopted. They went through the agency, Holt, which Tricia was adopted from. Their boy is 9 months old and about the same size as Owen. We find out that they are from Omaha (where Tricia is from) And the wife is from Minnesota. Her family lives in Ramsey (where we are building our house). So we exchanged contact information and we hope to see each when ever they are here visiting or when we are in Omaha visiting. So after being on the plane for about 13 hours, we wait for our next plane in Chicago. Owen again is doing very well. He ended up sleeping the whole time on the flight back to Minnesota. It was so good to be back home. Tricia's parents met us at the airport. It was a tiring total of about 21 hours of travel time, but well worth it!

Our Trip: Friday, February 3rd

We became a family! The foster mom and her daughter brought Owen to the agency. It was happy and sad all at the same time. They told us his sleeping/eating schedule. They gave us formula and some medicine (he had a small cold). They also gave us some diapers and some gifts for Owen. The daughter gave us a letter that was written to Owen. She asked us to email her and keep her up to date with pictures and how Owen was doing. She said that he was her younger brother and that she will miss him, but was glad that he was going to a good family. Of course there were tears when we said our good-byes. When we got back to our room with Owen, it was his nap time, so the first hour and a half, we didn't get to play with him. We ended up laying with him.

Our Trip: Thursday, February 2nd

More sight seeing and shopping. First stop: Seoul Tower. It was amazing. You could see the whole city of Seoul. It kind of looks like the space needle. On the windows looking out into the city they had posted different locations and how far they were from that point. (picture attached) Our next stop was Namdaeman Market. This was an outside market. Mostly all the same stuff from the shops we were at the previous day. We ate some vendor food. Ben ate a corndog looking thing that also had french fries on it. And we ate some pancake looking things that had brown sugar inside. It was so cold out and again no one was wearing hats. We did go into a very nice deparment store. The main floor had a food market and there were employees at every station to help you. Example: getting a shopping cart - there was someone there to help you get that shopping cart. After that we went to city hall. Ben took pictures while Tricia stayed underground where the subway is because she was so cold. For dinner we ate at TGIFriday's again. We wanted to eat Korean food, but Tricia didn't want to get sick, plus it was kind of intimidating to figure out which place to eat at.

Our Trip: Wednesday, February 1st

We went out into the city. We took the subway, which everyone seems to take. It is pretty easy to figure out. Ben is good with directions, so he got us to where we needed to go. It only cost us each about a $1.00 for one way. The subway is very clean and no one really talks. Everyone is text messaging on their cell phone, or they are listening to music or reading and some resting their eyes. The city seems very safe. We saw little boys riding the subway by themselves. Our first stop was Itaewon. We shopped and Ben got asked at least 7 times if he wanted a custom made suit. We met a girl who was doing a survey about the street vendor food. She spoke perfect english. She studied in North Dakota and knew where Minnesota was. The next stop was Dongdeman Market. We went through 3 different shopping stores. They are named: Hello aPm, Magliore and Doota. These stores were something that we have never seen before. There was vendor next to vendor next to vendor selling mostly all of the same items. You bought from each vendor and if you wanted clothes, there were no dressing rooms. Tricia tried on jeans under a skirt. Yes, Tricia found jeans in Korea - but actually Koreans are very tall, "normal height" just like here. Our favorite store was Doota. It was less crowded and there was a children's section. We bought Owen some really cool pants, which we lost. (There are normal shopping malls) Outside of each store, there are these huge stages set up, playing american music.

Our Trip; Tuesday January 31st

Today we got to meet Owen! We ate breakfast at the Reinassance Hotel. We had not eaten for 18 1/2 hours. It was so good to eat. We met our social worker in her office and we were driven to the foster home. When we walked into the home, there was Owen sitting in a roller chair. Oh what a joy to finally see him! We got to hold and play with him. He took to us very well. The foster mom said that he usually doesn't like strangers, but was fine with us. The foster mom said that Owen looked like Tricia. (the social worker translated for us) The home was a small apartment with a little kitchen and family room with 2 bedrooms. It was so HOT in the home. They have heated floors and every where we went in Korea was really HOT inside, but cold outside. - which no one wore hats. It was amazing. Tricia was freezing and we saw no one wear hats and some even didn't wear coats. We took pictures and video taped our time with him. We gave gifts to the family and they gave us a photo album with dated pictures of Owen and they gave us a Hanbock (traditional Korean outfit). After our visit, we took a nap and then ate dinner at TGIFridays. Pretty much the same menu but different. There is one type of hamburger. Ben had Jack Daniels chicken fingers and Tricia had regular chicken fingers (which was a "new" item on their menu).

Our Trip: Sunday, January 29th/Monday, January 30th

We left for Korea 7:00 AM (Sunday) our time and arrived in Korea at 5:00 PM (Monday). We took Northwest to Chicago and then Korean Air to Korea. The plane ride was great. Tricia was scared to fly, but Korean Air made it easy for her to fly. There were tv screens on the back of each seat and you could watch a good handful of movies, listen to music, or play games. There was a lot of leg and head room. It was like flying first class on a regular plane. The airline made us feel well at home. We arrived at the "guest house" where we stayed around 6:30. We took a shuttle from the airport to a nearby Hotel and then took a taxi to the guest house. At the guest house there is a front desk man who was super nice. He spoke broken english and would always visit with us. He even said that Owen took after his father. (A lot of people have been saying that Owen looks like Ben)

Home at last!

It was a long trip home...

Bath time!

This was taken on the day we received him forever from his foster family. His "sister" on the left adored him and will miss him greatly.

Owen with his foster mother. He was loved very much in the few months he was with his foster family.

A happy mother and son!

We are at the foster parents' apartment meeting Owen for the first time...if you look at the family picture above our heads you can see that they had a black and white picture of us which the foster mother showed the baby every day!

Social Welfare Services, Seoul, Korea. This is where we stayed.