Belated Easter Greetings

Even though it is a week past Easter we wanted to post some information regarding our Easter holiday! We had a great day. We started the day with a wonderful church service and communion which then led us to dinner with the Hawkins. We had a few Easter egg hunts, one with just the cousins, one with the church kids, and one with Zoe Evans and Owen Steuernagel. Our kids had a blast and without Sunday afternoon naps they were in bed early! Here are some pictures. PS. Grandma Penland found the Easter dresses!

Seth Hawkins, Kacy Price, Hayley Hawkins, and Sara Price in their Easter best!

Kacy and Sara Price--Easter 2007

Kacy on the hunt...

Sara and Mama

Kacy and Daddy

Daddy and his girls--Kacy and Sara

Our Saturday in Pictures

After getting up, we headed downtown to take our first ride on the Daejon metro (subway).

Kacy was filled with awe...she loves trains!
Sara was more into people watching...
And then on to...

...what Kacy calls the special doughnuts...

...for a healthy breakfast!

And on the walk back home (yes, from KK to O Jung Dong), we saw some beautiful wild flowers.
After a quick lunch, it was time for Easter prep! Kacy is quite excited about Easter...we aren't really sure if she understands what she is excited about, but she is excited!
For obvious reasons, Sara was disqualified for participation in these festivities. But she watched noisily from a short distance. (Note the toes...)


But she did get an airplane ride from Mommy!

...which seemed very thrilling!

A Big Girl Bike

We were out shopping, actually buying some white eggs to dye for Easter, when we ran across some bikes. (As a side note, white eggs can be quite a commodity in Korea as most are brown, which don't lend themselves to very good dyeing.) In the past, you had small bikes or bikes that are for more elementary school age kids. Kacy's size is a bit in between. However, we found bikes of all sizes at this store. So that was a welcome surprise the weather is getting nicer.

Below are some pics of Kacy's first day out. She was so excited to ride it this morning and couldn't get out of our apartment fast enough.

Rolling Over

Sara started rolling over for the first time around 3 weeks ago. And that was great fun for her. She has now become a practiced expert and it is becoming somewhat problematic. She loves rolling over so much that she does it anytime we lay her down. And she can get her arms free now. She will roll over to get toys or just move around. The problem comes in that she gets stuck. She can't roll back over and gets tired on her belly. Up to this point, laying her down has been going well. She lays down and looks around, sometimes talking for a couple minutes, and then goes to sleep. Recently, she gets into bed and rolls over...getting stuck in the process and then doesn't want to go to sleep because she is on her tummy. So we go in and roll her over. And she promptly rolls back on her stomach again. Until she is sufficiently tired, she seems to enjoy this game in some twisted way.

Now she is starting to just give up and go to sleep on her tummy...sometimes.

Spring is here!

Here are some beautiful pictures of spring arriving in Daejeon. Some of the trees are just starting to show their flowers. More will be coming over the next couple weeks and the masses will go to the mountains to check out nature blooming. These first 2 pictures are of 2 trees at TCIS from last week. They are perhaps some earlier bloomers.


We also took a hike at Gyeryongsan (nearby mountain). The flowers weren't blooming here yet, but are anticipated next week and the buds were on the trees. This is a peaceful stream with a pagoda overlooking it.

Yellow Dust

I remember my first spring here in Korea...the cars got kind of yellow. I assumed it was the same thing that always happened to cars in the South--pollen. Allergies kicked in and hay fever symptoms were commonplace. However, I was soon educated that this was not mere pollen but yellow dust or yellow sand.

Yellow dust is basically sand from the Gobi desert that gets kicked up into the atmosphere and blown across East Asia. The really harmful part comes in due to the pollution. Heavy metal pollutants, coming particularly from China although other places as well, attached itself to the dust. So by inhaling the dust, the pollutants also get into your system. The dust becomes a conduit to bring down the harmful things in the air to our breathing space. They predict it will be especially bad this year.

At this point, it seems that many schools are cancelling outdoor events (like sports) when the level reaches 300 micrograms per cubic meter. 150 or less is not really a big deal. Overall, Daejon is much better than many other places in Korea and not nearly as bad as Seoul or other northern areas. Some mountains help protect us some as well. I checked the weather on Yahoo today and it said "Widespread dust". I checked the levels via the military bases and the ones closest to us were around 600 today. Seoul and most places were between 800-1000. It is a good day to stay inside. I think we would do well to invest in some stylish masks...

I don't know how well you can see it, but the yellow look and haze is due to the dust.

5 Months

So, from the day our kids have been born everyone has said that Kacy looks just like Darren. Everyone still says that. And since the day that Sara was born everyone says Sara is definitely a Penland, she looks just like Shirley (my mother). It is hard for me to see the similarities in my kids and their relatives. However today a friend looked at a picture and said oh, that is such a cute picture of Sara...when in actuality it was an old picture of Kacy at 6 months. After looking at it I thought, wow these two really do look a lot alike. So, if one daughter looks exactly like her father, and the other resembles the mothers side of the family how do they look so much a like? Mom and dad do not look alike. Here is a picture of Sara at 5 months and a picture of Kacy at 5 months.

Sara Emma Price--5 Months

Sara Emma Price--5 Months



Kacy Reanne Price--5 Months


Kacy Reanne Price--6 Months