Destination Paradise

It has clearly been an eternity since my last post and much has happened. Let's do a quick review for the benefit of those who have been following and wondering, or for those who are new to our story. A lot of this will come from the perspective of my Facebook account. January 2014 Just to recap, our last visa interview was in Seoul in 2012, where we were denied a visa and the opportunity to file a waiver. Since then policy has changed indicating that people in Carlos' situation SHOULD be able to argue for the chance to file a waiver. So that's what we were doing at the start of the year. I finally gathered the necessary documents and shipped them off to our lawyer so she could file our I-601 waiver.  Here's a picture of the stack of evidence of hardship I sent. Keep in mind this is just a portion of the waiver, as our lawyer then proceeded to construct a thick brief to give all of this context. A major undertaking. February 2014 Our lawyer finished con...

Saying goodbye to Daddy's airplane at Incheon airport/Seoul So yeah. It's been awhile. No, the title isn't referring to a new baby, as thankfully our lives are quite full with the two we already had as of my last posting. But in the nine months since I last updated this blog, I guess we've had a lot of eventful moments anyway. Most notably, we said goodbye to Korea. Korea was a gracious host. Certainly not without its challenges (goodness, were there challenges). But it was the one country that offered us visas, a job, a place to live, our son's first school, our daughter's birthplace, and for two years, a home. We made lifelong friends. We gained new food addictions. We discovered just how much we could accomplish all alone, half a world away from our friends and families, with no one to depend on but each other. And we learned just how much we really needed each other. Lucas and his friends take a final stroll through Seoul's historic center ...

I'm increasing my usual blogging frequency of a post every...few months...because I felt the current circumstances warranted an update, now that North Korea's rhetoric and threats have turned to the foreigners in South Korea, a demographic that happens to include my family. You see, my family has planned more of the usual tomorrow: I'm teaching a bunch of classes, Lucas is going to school where they're making ham sandwiches for "Cooking Day", and Carlos is working out after I get home.  We'll bake a chicken and some pita bread for dinner. We may even watch a movie in the evening! However, if you checked the CNN headlines today, you might be concerned that we may be choosing the wrong course of action... Based on this  headline, we would be better off staying home, purchasing airline tickets and packing for a hasty departure. But this is not the plan. Why? Because we believe there are other perspectives to look at besides the US media, which, af...

South Korean high schoolers' response to North Korea declaring war on the country where we live: Play an elaborate game of playground tag and help the foreign kid build a sand volcano. 04/31/2013 I'm hoping to squeeze this post in during March in an attempt to build some kind of blogging momentum, but then again we all know that working full-time while raising two kids in a foreign country can kind of present some obstacles to that goal. So today I am planning to talk about the everyday South Korean response to North Korea's increasingly threatening rhetoric this past week. But let's start with some good news, shall we!? Just a few weeks ago, the US Department of State very quietly slipped in a new amendment into one of the policy manuals used by immigration officers. It just came to our attention last weekend. Basically, it is providing an exception for the lifetime ban that currently has us exiled from the US, in cases where the intending immigrant was a mino...

a symbol of the vows we took on May 12, 2007 In the days leading up to Valentine's Day, there tend to be lots of events and lively public discussion about marriage. For example, today is National Marriage Day, and there is a growing international movement to make the week surrounding February 14  International Marriage Week , a week to celebrate marriage and promote its health and survival. In fact, last year several Congressmen in the House of Representatives spent 45 minutes reinforcing the benefits of marriage and the need for a National Marriage week. During that time, they said things like the following: "...It should always be our goal to keep that family unit together, and to hold that bedrock of our society together...And this is something that we can build on that will benefit our society." ~Rep. Gregg Harper and this "National leaders should be encouraging stable family formation, not redefining marriage. I call upon Congress to recognize the i...

OK, so it's officially February and I've been working on the following post for over a month now. But I have a pretty good reason for the delay, I think! 2012 was a remarkable year for our family. It's the first calendar year we've spent completely living in Korea, and the first we've spent living together as a family. While 2011 brought the newness and adjustment of being a complete family for the first time, 2012 was a chance to settle in and make this "normal". And although we started 2012 as a family of three, we finished it as a family of four. Welcome to the world, baby Carolina Violetta. Failed passport photo #27. Turns out this is harder to do with a newborn than a 3 month-old.  The day of her birth was a truly remarkable one in every way and totally warrants its own blog post which I'll hopefully get to soon...er...sometime this year.  Suffice it to say it was a major adventure and we're glad it all worked out as well as...

It's November! Chilly weather has officially set in, but it's still lovely. Our family has been quite busy. There have been Halloween festivities (more than I think we've ever done in any country!). Piles of candy in the apartment right now. Lucas had a major Halloween event at school, my school had Halloween festivities that consumed all my energy on the 31st, and yesterday we participated in a Halloween party for expat families in our area which was a ton of fun. Performing with his classmates Lucas and Daddy with the massive bag of candy loot My costume at school Lucas is Iron Man War Machine! Carlos worked to make it look extra cool Two little superheroes decorating mandarin oranges with Jack-o-Lantern faces Demolishing the remains of the Halloween piñata Baby - We're at 34 weeks. Time is flying. Still no name picked out, but we're getting closer to figuring something out. I'm very grateful that this has been a healthy pregnan...

I've been pregnant in 3 different countries (the US, Mexico, and now Korea), and I can say that by far, the experience in this one has been the best. Why is that? Let's see... Of course, my view is skewed by the fact that the last time, we were in the middle of our first attempt at the US immigration process, I was stressed out beyond all belief, I was unsure of whether to continue in Mexico or the US, ended up bouncing between both countries, and ultimately giving birth in the US while Carlos watched on Skype. Obviously it's much more ideal to be in one country and together full-time with my husband. During my last pregnancy, I guess I just rolled with it and survived, but now I realize how much I missed out on. For example, this time, I'll only have had to fly pregnant once (already done)! Instead of...four-plus times like I did last time. This time, I actually got to have Carlos there at the ultrasound where they checked the baby's anatomy and told us she...

Here we are in fall! The bridge from August to September is filled with rain. I'm not sure if the term "monsoon season" is apt in Korea, but it rains a LOT in August. And then the typhoons start. This year we had predictions of a really powerful one at the end of August. For days, there were warnings of the incoming Typhoon Bolaven , and we were instructed to take all sorts of precautionary measures, like prepping the windows with masking tape, turning off the gas, stocking up on water reserves, etc. It was supposed to be the biggest typhoon in maybe a decade. The day of the typhoon, classes were cancelled for my students and Lucas' school closed. However, at many public schools like mine, the teachers were still expected to come in. So we did, and enjoyed a day of quiet to get tasks done in the building. We were able to leave before the winds really picked up, and I spent a cozy afternoon hunkered down in the apartment with Lucas and Carlos, making baked goods. Carlo...