Thursday, October 31, 2013

Happy Halloween!

Yes, Clarissa has two costumes. When you're that cute you require costume changes, lol. :)









Wednesday, October 16, 2013

Heirs


So I have a bit of a new obsession. And that obsession is called Heirs. It's a brand new Korean drama that just came out. Actually, it's still coming out. It's currently airing in Korea and Dramafever.com is airing it on their website as it airs in Korea.

In case you weren't around for my previous Korean drama posts and aren't familiar with them, Korean dramas are Korean television shows. They're like American television dramas but generally they only go for one season. They have one story line and it plays out over 20 or so episodes and when it comes to a conslusion it's over. Kind of like a long miniseries. Koreans know how to tell a story. There's no 8 seasons waiting to find out how he met their mother, it gets to the point, the story is usually super twisty and exciting, someone usually falls in love and you wait 20 episodes for them to finally kiss already and then it's over. And it's awesome. 

I've never watched a currently airing Korean drama before. I prefer to watch them when they're over so that I don't have to wait out all the cliffhangers. There's nothing more fun than having a Korean drama marathon in the middle of the night waiting for the two main characters to FINALLY KISS ALREADY! If you've seen a Korean drama, you totally know what I'm talking about. 

But this time I decided that I couldn't wait until it finally finished airing in Korea. Maybe it's just clever marketing by Drama Fever, but I've been hearing about this drama for months and couldn't wait for it to start! 

It's a big deal in Korea because it stars two of the biggest stars in Korea right now. The male lead, Lee Min Ho, is like the current "it" guy in Korea. He's everywhere. He was the lead in Boys Over Flowers, which is my second favorite Korean drama. The female lead is also really popular in Korea. She was in Heartstrings, the cute drama I just finished watching. She super cute, I really like her. 

So putting those two together is a big deal and they've been hyping up this show big time. It airs onWednesday and Thursdays. I've seen the first two episodes and tonight is episode three. I'm actually blogging about it while I kill time waiting for it to show up on the website. Shawn is playing flag football tonight with some work friends, Josh is at a church activity, Matthew is doing homework and Clarissa is playing happily, so I'm ready to watch cute Koreans almost kiss! :)

What's unique about this drama is that part of it takes place in the US. The main characters are in California for part of the story. It's been amusing to watch a story set in the US butfrom a Koreans point of view. There have been a few odd American stereotypes and there are a few American actors with small parts who are BAD actors (seriously, super cheesy), but I have loved listening to Lee Min Ho speak a little English and I've liked seeing the US from their point of view. I think they eventually go back to Korea later in the series, but I've enjoyed the US scenes.

I've killed enough time that hopefully the latest episode is up on the website now and I'm off to watch it! I will leave you with a meme that explains my feelings about Korean Dramas perfectly. :)


Tuesday, October 15, 2013

Happy adoptiversary! :)

Four years ago today we came back from Korea with our sweet Clarissa and began our lives as a family of five. Can you believe it's been four years? (Wow, that means I've been blogging for a LONG time.)

We've had quite a discussion today about what to call this day. We seem to call it something different every year. Some people call it Gotcha Day. As in, the day we gotcha. I like that fine, but no one outside the adoption community knows what it means. Some people call it airplane day. Meh. Some people call it Family Day, which I like, but I don't know that it accurately describes the situation. Because our boys weren't adopted I'm always really careful to celebrate Clarissa's adoption without making it SO important that it appears more important than their births, which of course were just as significant to our family. In families where all the kids are adopted and everyone gets an adoption celebration it probably doesn't matter so much but I always worry that celebrating a million extra holidays for Clarissa isn't fair to the boys. It's also entirely possible that, as usual, I'm way overthinking it, because I don't think the boys feel slighted. They're always happy to celebrate Clarissa's adoption day.

At any rate, today is the anniversary of her adoption. It's her adoptiversary! Of course, then Shawn pointed out that she wasn't technically legally adopted until six months later. *sigh* That man needs to learn when to just smile and nod and humor his overthinking wife. ;)

So whatever, it's her adoptiversary. I'm calling it an adoptiversary. It works for me, even if it's not entirely accurate. "Thedayyoucametolivewithuseventhoughtheadoptionagencystillhadlegalcustodyforsixmoremonthsaversary" just doesn't have the same ring to it.

So we started off the day by taking Clarissa on a preschool field trip to the pumpkin patch! Shawn took the morning off to come with us, which was fun! This is the ninth year we've gone on the preschool pumpkin patch field trip. I think Shawn has come with us on probably seven of them. It's kind of a fun little tradition.

We had a fun time taking a hay ride, petting some animals, picking a pumpkin, going down a huge slide and playing in a sandbox that was filled with corn. You know what I have discovered about Clarissa lately that I really like? She LOVES animals. So do I, so I love that we share that. She especially loves horses. She had a great time feeding hay to the horses this morning. She really enjoys being around animals.

After the pumpkin patch Shawn and I took Clarissa to the Korean market to pick out a little treat to celebrate her adoptiversary. (The name is growing on you, right?!) We bought her some Korean cookies and a Pororo toothbrush. (Pororo is a popular Korean cartoon character.)

This afternoon I took some photos of her to commemorate her adoptiversary. I still can't believe she's been with us for four years. She's an amazing kid and I'm grateful every single day that we were able to adopt her.

It's bedtime for me, so I will stop there, but I do have a bunch of photos from today to share. Some from the pumpkin patch and some that I took afterwards. Enjoy!