Destination Paradise

Today's blog is about a belief that I often hear repeated in US culture, a belief that was recently re-affirmed by Honda CR-V commercials like this one. The premise is this: Once you get married or have a baby, that's it. Your bucket list is basically dead. So make sure to pack it all in before you take the plunge. Also, buy a CR-V to help accomplish it all. A fabulous high school friend who is a mom of two pointed out the absurdity of these commercials on Facebook and it really struck me. Nothing against the CR-V, but what a terrible message, that marriage or parenthood changes your life so much that you no longer get to do the things you dreamed of beforehand! Add to this the recent viral video parody, " We're Not Young ", which mourns the loss of the younger, vibrant days when we had goals and enthusiasm for life. This makes me sad because I believe that marriage, or even having kids, is no death sentence for adventure or accomplishing yo...

Preparing to embark on a 14-hour flight across the ocean, who's panicking? Flying with a little one, especially by yourself, can strike fear in a mom. Recently, a few people have asked about my experiences flying, especially internationally, alone with a child. I flew by myself with Lucas nearly a dozen times before he reached age 3, which means I've seen some of the best and worst of it. I am by no means an expert, and there are braver moms than me who fly alone with not one, not two, but three or more children. Much of what I do when traveling I've learned from them. I figured I'd share my view and the things I do in case any one else is nervous about the prospect. I know I definitely was the first time. Bear with me here - this stuff might be obvious or well-known to you, but for the benefit of those new to flying with kids, or flying in general, I wanted to include info on everything I've been asked by other traveling moms. Experienced travelers, what su...

I'm finally breaking the several-month silence on blogging. It's been Winter Break in the Korean education world, which is the longest break of the academic year, but for some reason my general productivity during break shot pretty low. I've got a whole bunch of half-written blog posts, most just waiting for the insertion of a few photos and some more-developed ideas. So for this post, I'm not getting ambitious. I'm keeping it simple: This weekend we're celebrating 6 months in Korea. Last fall, one of Carlos' soccer teammates, a chef from Spain who has lived in Korea for a few years, told us that if we could make it 6 months here, we'd be able to settle down and make it home for a few years as well. So far, it seems he was right. We may be foreigners, and our Korean still suffers pretty badly, but I can say pretty confidently that we're now settled. We know where to buy what, we know how to accomplish all our basic activities without needing assi...

I have to admit that I prepared for this to be a difficult Christmas. Obviously after spending 4 Christmases apart from Carlos, I had to be excited to finally spend our FIRST Christmas as a married couple and our first Christmas as a family of three. Obviously those things were a big deal but as Christmas approached, they kept getting overshadowed by sadness of all that we'd be missing. See, I am from a large, lively, mostly Italian-American family (mom's side), virtually all of which lives in Chicago, and except for one year with my Guatemalan family in New York, I have never in my 29 years spent a Christmas without them!! This means that Christmas has always involved multiple family events, piles of Italian beef, Italian sausage, mostaccioli, multiple pies, multiple Christmas trees, Christmas movies playing loudly on TVs all over the house, louder relatives having a good time, AND real cannoli to top it all off. Then let's add the fact that Carlos is from a Mexican ...

While being away from the rest of the family and the comforting traditions on Thanksgiving can be so depressing, there are some benefits. One big one is that we can be totally flexible with how we celebrate and what traditions we carry on/invent. So, our original Thanksgiving Day plan was to make our first trip to Costco for some essentials, and then cook dinner and have our own little Thanksgiving here in Korea. But the moment we set foot in Costco, we knew it was going to be no small trip. We ended up spending hours in there, and since Lucas was doing fine relaxing in the cart with an iPad, we decided to just skip the plans for dinner and instead do our Thanksgiving Dinner on Friday. Thus, our Thanksgiving meal was actually McDonald's, another rare delicacy from home.  This means we were able to stock up on so many awesome and exciting things: cheese, sausage, AVOCADOES!, oatmeal, plus our Thanksgiving dessert. Costco is fun because all of the expats wander the store with...

Here is about 3 months' worth of video footage and possibly some previously unseen photos related to our new life in Korea. I finally strung them all together thanks to the wonders of iMovie. It's a bit on the long side, but hopefully it will give you a bit more of a taste of our life here. Everything here was shot either on an iPod, an iPad, or MacBook iSight camera (and a few random LG dumbphone camera shots, too).  So it’s pretty unprofessional, but I think it tells the story pretty decently. :) Glad we’ve finally reached this stop on our journey.

Lucas, excited about some live fish in front of a restaurant. No need to visit an aquarium when you live in Korea.  Raising a preschooler in Korea with two foreign parents. Not a lot about this online. There are tons of blogs and online resources out there about living in Korea as a foreigner. There are quite a few on raising kids in Korea, too, but they seem to relate to families where at least one parent is Korean. Obviously there are families here in Korea where both parents are foreigners (we've spotted a couple), but they just don't seem to be writing on blogs or anything. Maybe because parenting a foreign child in Korea means you JUST DON'T HAVE TIME!!! So, until someone points us to some resources, here is our in-progress guide. Things You Should Know About Raising a Young Child in Korea (when neither parent is Korean) PART 1 - CHALLENGES Transportation Let's begin with the fact that, unless you've been granted immigrant or some very long-term status...