Houston, we have a GIRL: Zoey’s Birth Saga

May 15, 2017May 15, 2017 / Ali Craft / 1 Comment

Grab some popcorn and let’s settle in for a nice story, orrrr a terrible story if you are still planning on having kids in the future.

Join me for a birth story told in gifs.

Let’s start at the due date, January 20th, which historically for me has meant a big fat nothing. So surprise surprise, my due date was met only with more “You’re STILL here??”‘s. Thanks again for those. 40 weeks + 4 days felt a little more special as that is the day that both the boys had born, but yet again, no baby, so at 40+5 I woke up feeling pretty determined to have a baby.

Please keep in mind as soon as we got the all clear that baby was fully baked, we had been walking, squatting, lunging, eating spicy food, eating pineapple, drinking red raspberry leaf tea, taking evening primrose oil, sitting on a birthing ball, etc. I had even gone so far as chugging castor oil TWICE.

I could go on explaining the gravity our efforts, but it would just get into terms you don’t know like “rebozo sifting” or the unmentionable act that will surelyyyyyy induce labor…

…we were fully prepared to try anything to avoid a 3rd c-section. At this point I had been having contractions, but they were still inconsistent. So Wednesday (5 days late), was just like every other day, I woke up went to work, but I knew exactly where I was going after…ZUMBA. I was met with gasps and stares as it didn’t seem that people realized just how serious I was about having a baby ASAP. So there I was at the back of the class, doing my heavily modified version, whilst still timing contractions. I would put another gif here but oddly enough they don’t have one of a large mammal doing Zumba, sooo we carry on…

I went home and we ordered in the spiciest Thai curry I could stand for dinner. At this point my contractions were about 5 mins apart and consistent. I was cautiously beginning to think that it might be the real deal.

Weighing the fact that I was having strong and consistent contractions less than 4 minutes apart with the fact that could basically be in the Guiness Book of World Record’s for slowest labor progression, we debated for a long time whether we need to go to the birthing center. As they continued for a couple hours, finally around 10:30pm we finally packed our bags (shame on us for procrastinating, but then again so did baby) called over a neighbor (also last minute, thanks Mike!!!), and headed to the center!!

Spoiler alert, baby Zoey was not born that night, or the next, or the next…do you get the picture??? So I’m going to leave you hanging right here for now, and I don’t even feel bad about it…at least you aren’t in labor.

Stay tuned.

Craft Party of FIVE: life update

March 29, 2017March 30, 2017 / Ali Craft / 4 Comments

This post is for the ones of you that have stuck around through the 6 months of radio silence; so hey, mom.

You guys must know by now that of the few talents I have, consistent blogging is notttt one of them. My apologies…but speaking of talents, I make cute babies. Yes, let’s blame the baby. On January 29th, after 80+ hours of labor because apparently someone, somewhere, reallllllly hates me, we welcomed baby Zoey to our family. Can you believe it?? A GIRL. A real life girl with girl parts. I’m still in shock.

CAN YOU EVEN HANDLE THE CUTENESS?? Where are the heart eye emojis when I need them??? Pardon me while I’m all like:

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Her birth story (saga) is coming soon, I promise. The boys are totally smitten with her, and insist on helping with everything. Luckily, I think I have finally convinced Judah I can at least nurse her without his assistance…

Life in Seoul is great. We are eagerly awaiting the cherry blossoms and trying to survive the terrible pollution. Spring time is always the worst for yellow dust in the air. Ah look, a beautiful spring day.

Everyone outside of Seoul, please take a nice deep breathe and think of us.

Yesterday was my first day back to work, and we all survived. Hooray. Judah turned three last week, and I would show you the pictures from his party but…

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Can’t win them all. At least I took a couple in morning.

The boys are great and hilarious and growing like weeds. Last Saturday morning Judah was playing on the playground and requested specifically to eat noodles at the picnic table. Who doesn’t need a 10am ramen snack? And here’s Asher the other day when I caught him workin’ it in the mirror.

Well that’s enough riveting news for now. Until next time.

Craft trio out.

Lately

October 18, 2016October 18, 2016 / Ali Craft / 2 Comments

Well well well…time flies and here we are half way through October. Life is full in every way. There was that 3 week stint about a month ago where I was certain someone was trying to kill us between 2 ER visits with the kids and me being actually sick above and beyond the normal pregnant sick…but yet, we prevail.

For those of you that don’t know, I’ve been coaching the varsity girl’s tennis team. It has been a blast, and winning a lot doesn’t hurt either; we are currently second in our division, but needless to say we are all looking forward to getting our afternoons and weekends back soon. We have two weeks left in the regular tennis season *praise hands*, and then next month I take my top 4 girls to a week-long tournament in Okinawa, Japan. Everyone seems very concerned about me going “in my condition”, but they don’t realize I am crazy/stubborn/travelled at 37 weeks domestically when pregnant with Judah and 35 weeks internationally with Asher.

Isaac is doing well. Parent teacher conferences are Friday, which is quite the event for a math teacher in Korea. It will consist of anywhere from 40-50 ten-minute parent meetings between 7am-6pm, where Isaac tries to convince parents that their kids are actually very bright and gifted.

He is also doing his typical get-in-super-great-shape-while-his-wife-is-getting-big-fat-pregnant thing that I just love him for. As my ankles swell and my shirts become too short he’s all like “look at my muscles”. God love him.

I’m over here like:

The kids are great, making us love and hate life at the same time. On to a bit about them.

Judah

Judah is growing in spades. He loves to do all things adult including washing dishes, pushing the stroller, blow drying his hair, getting dressed complete with belt or tie, and trying to shave or style his hair like dad.

He has also taken up the awesome habit of throwing things out our 6th floor window. We obviously discourage this due to the risks it poses to our belongings as well as the passerbys down below, but the stubborn toddler persists. The other day Judah threw his baby doll out the window, so after a recon mission Isaac and Judah came back with a the doll, a spoon, crayon, and a piece of our laundry drying rack. I do take great comfort in the fact that our real baby coming-soon, won’t fit through the bars…

Remember that time he threw a glass tumbler (pictured: bottom left) out our sixth floor window and it didn’t break? So fun.

Last night, I let Isaac know I was headed home from practice to which he responded, “Grab the whisk on your way up”. Cool, Judah. Here I am like a creeper in the bushes looking for our dang whisk and a neighbor walks by and stares, so we exchange awkward hellos, while I’m sure she wonders what the h I am doing lurking in the bushes. Little does she know I’m not being weird, just retrieving my kitchen utensils from the bushes… carry on.

Judah loves to help these days, as any parent knows, the help of a toddler is NOT help. But he is learning. He loves to take the trash down with dad. I assure you Isaac loves it, too, and it in no way makes taking the trash out take 5 million times longer.

Also, Judah has decided he hates sleep (ignoring compulsory comments from our parents about how they have no sympathy). On average, Judah has been taking around an hour and a half to go to sleep after the usual bedtime story, bible, songs, prayers, and milk. Please note that this frequently makes an unnamed pregnant lady an hour and a half late for bed, also.We have only casually looked at getting new locks for the door…It was hilarious though the other day when Judah began speaking about himself in the third person during one of his nightly last-stands after what was likely the third book, 4th cup of milk and 50th kiss, saying through his tears “Judah crying”. Ha, yes he is.

Our tortured child, in his warm cozy bed, with a sippy cup of milk, alligator and baby doll all covered up, and tucked in with extra love, songs, and stories by both his parents. LIFE. IS. TERRIBLE.

I think one of our most challenging evenings with Judah, after putting him to bed, Isaac ran down to the corner store and I jumped in the shower. I was fully aware that Judah would likely get out of bed, but I was thinking if I hurried, that I would be out before he came out for the first of many times. Wrong. So here I am, having just stepped in the the shower (our shower is a shower head mounted on the wall of the bathroom with a drain in the floor) when I hear Judah crying “mamaaaaaaa” outside the door. Knowing Isaac was gone I figured I would just ignore Judah, quickly take my shower, and then put him back in bed.

But the crying didn’t stop, it just continued to get louder until, with my back to the door I hear Judah open the door. I decided “I am not even going to look at him. I am just going to take my shower and deal with him when I am done”. A few moments later, as I turned around to rinse out my hair I now see that Judah has come in, shut the door, and is standing dripping wet, still whining “mamaaaaaaa”. Well played, son. I rinsed out my hair, shut off the water, grabbed a towel to dry off Judah’s hair, stripped off his wet shirt, and repeated our nightly motto. “Judah, it is time for bed. When you get out of bed you are disobeying…”, as I hauled our semi-bathed child back to bed. It is ALWAYS interesting around here.

And some of the sweeter things that have kept us from putting him FREE TO GOOD HOME:

-lately whenever Isaac or I cough or sneeze Judah asks, “you okay daddy/mama?”

-when we call for Judah to come he responds loudly with “I’m gummingggg”

Asher

No longer “baby” Asher, this boy is also growing like a weed. He has been walking since June and is always on the move. About two weeks ago his vocabulary exploded, and now he is surprising us with new words daily. Good pictures of him are about as likely as a picture of Big Foot since he never slows down. It took 2 months and serious illness to catch these two. You’re welcome.

He has a fiery temper (no comment) which seems to have developed as a defense to fend off a bossy older brother. Also, like all my precious spawn, he hates to be held. As soon as I sit down, he eagerly runs over to crawl in my lap which seems sweet and always gets my hopes up, but then he just crawls all over me, ends up punching me in the face and kicking me in the uterus, and then slides off my lap. Little baby jerk.

He loves to eat and is always happy to clean his and Judah’s plate. He also has a friend in Judah, who is always willing to sneakily score snacks for the two of them when mom and dad aren’t looking.

yogurt for two = massive mess for mama.

He is officially off formula and we are working towards losing the nap time bottle of soy milk, Lord help us all. I am fully confident that he would happily give up Isaac and I for life before releasing the death grip from his beloved bottle. I figure as long as he is weaned before college.

And here is this picture again from our last post about kid’s cafes just because I think it’s hilarious and I can.

Baby numero tres

This little one is happy, healthy, and growing. I will be 27 weeks on Saturday. Despite the consistent daily nausea and a grocery list of other pregnancy ailments, I still enjoy being pregnant. The fact that we grow can humans still blows my mind. While I feel all warm and fuzzy about feeling like crap, I know Isaac must be growing weary of conversations like “hey, what’s for dinner”, to which I respond “do we really need to eat dinner every night??”. My pregnancies are never easy breezy, but Isaac is a trooper and we get some pretty awesome kids out of the deal so we press on.

Baby one: Weekly hand drawn chalkboards

Baby two: Periodic bump pictures

Baby three: First picture taken is a doctor’s office selfie 25 weeks

And just to ensure we never run out of stories to tell you guys, we started potty training this week. May your prayers be with us.

When in Seoul: Medical Edition

October 13, 2016October 13, 2016 / Ali Craft / 1 Comment

In all of the different things we have experienced, especially having a baby here, many of them fell into a “medical” category. Again I will say, we try to tell you about things that are true of Korean culture and not just our isolated incidences here so you get an {semi} accurate view of life in Korea.

I also feel the need to apologize if I repeat myself on here; I can barely (read: don’t) remember what I had for dinner last night, so remembering all the things I have already told you is basically out of the question (and going back to reread what I have already written is also not going to happen).

Now that you have been fully disclaimed, here we go…

MERS protocols

When we moved here last June, it was right in the middle an outbreak of the Middle East Respiratory Virus (MERS). We didn’t know what that would entail as we moved here, but we were prepared to avoid public and stay home if advised. The outbreak was not severe here in Korea, but precautions were taken. At that point we didn’t know what the “norm” was vs. what was just because of MERS, like taking our temperature before entering hospitals and government buildings. I had just started to think it was normal as I made my weekly visits to the hospital for my prenatal checkups, but after about three weeks, the temperature-taking checkpoints were gone.

Pre AND post pregnancy rules

Bless the women that tried to tell me I needed my birthday steak well-done (Asher was 1-month old). We were confused because while in the States it is common to cook meat well-done etc. when you are pregnant, after you have the baby, a delicious medium-rare steak is fair game. The waitress explained that in Korea people still don’t eat the restricted foods right after baby is born, but that for me, since I was a foreigner, they would serve me medium-rare. The Lord must have been watching out for her, because if she tried to tell me {on my birthday} that I had to eat my delicious Brazilian steak well-done, I may have had to fight the woman, and we all know I still had all the crazy new mama hormones coursing through my veins, so there is no way I’d lose that fight.

This is our standing policy on steak doneness.

Scarring

I was greatly amused (and shocked) when at my first post natal checkup after my c-section I was given a prescription for scar cream for my incision. Let’s just say the scar my incision leaves below my waistband isn’t even on the spectrum of my concerns of “getting my body back”.

Korea is leading the world in plastic surgery and is extremely conscious of scarring or any imperfections. As a P.E. teacher I was told that if a student ever gets a cut or scrape, especially on the face, that I am to send them immediately to the nurse so that scarring can be minimized.

100 days

Let the record show, we make really bad Koreans with this unofficial rule especially. We are pretty crazy even by American standards in this respect, as Judah was at his first wedding at 7 days old. Don’t worry, he was just a guest. 🙂

In Korea, it is believed to be best if babies are not taken in public until they are 100 days old. So when we took Asher out to dinner with us at 5 days old in a desperate attempt to celebrate our anniversary while my dad was still in town to babysit, we got a lot of looks and comments. They would say “IS IT OKAY FOR HIM TO BE OUT??!!”. By some miracle we restrained ourselves from the many sarcastic comments that came to mind. Good news, Asher survived. It was this post c-section mama that almost died…but then again I’m sure they have suggestions about me being out, too.

Bedside manner

Or lack there of… This may just be because my nurses didn’t speak English, but the sure didn’t waste any time by telling me what was about to happen and I darn near almost dropped my brand new baby when they went on about their business checking my incision after my c-section.

or any reason to use a Downton Abbey meme…

Full Service Care

Or lack there of…It is quite common here that at the hospital you are expected to have someone with you to do what nurses usually do in the states. The family is not just there for moral support, but they are the ones responsible for taking care of the basic needs of the patient. In many of the rooms there are pull out cots for your family to stay and care for you.

Shoe wear

Or lack…ok, i’ll stop. But really, I was shocked to see that it seemed to be acceptable for medical staff to wear opened toed shoes with socks. Let’s be honest, it is neither safe, nor fashionable. In the Labor and Delivery area, anyone entering would have to take off there shoes and put on a pair of the provided sandals, and then when you would enter one of the patient rooms, you take off your sandals and leave them at the door. I just can’t even imagine taking of my shoes in a hospital room in the States.

HIPAA

I have no official knowledge on what privacy standards are here, but as tight-lipped as things are in the States I have been surprised to be in situations like waiting in the X-ray techs office while they take my kids x-rays, meanwhile patient info is laying out. Also, in the states there is always strict rules on taking pictures or videoing x-rays or ultrasounds, I assume for liability, but that doesn’t seem to be the case here.

Prescriptions

It is common practice here that when you are sick and go to the doctor they will give you 3-5 days of medicine maximum. If you are still sick, then you go back to receive more medicine. This was a big shock to us as we are used to getting something more like a 12 day prescription of antibiotics. Also here instead of pill bottles, they give you paper pill packets that are sorted into morning, afternoon, and night! So handy.

When the boys need medicine, we get separate bottles of their meds along with a small empty bottle and often a packet of powder. For each dose, we combine the prescribed amounts of each medicine into the empty bottle and add one packet of powder. It’s not really better or worse, just different.

Well there you have it…lots of stuff you never knew you wanted to know. Feel free to thank me later.

Kid’s Cafe: A Parents Escape

September 30, 2016September 30, 2016 / Ali Craft / 6 Comments

Folks…America needs to get on this ASAP. This is basically like ten steps above a Chick-fil-A with a play place. The price might also be ten steps above Chick-fil-A, but there are days I would literally throw my wallet at anything promising to entertain my children while I sat down (note: my wallet is probably empty anyways).

Kids cafes are a big deal here in Korea, and admittedly, we have not been taking full advantage. We’ve only been to two, but with baby three on the way, something tells me kids cafes could soon be playing a large part in keeping our sanity.

These cafes are all over, often with different themes. Last week we explored our second, and now favorite kid’s cafe, Lilliput. This one was about $13/kid for 2 hours and you had to buy food or a drink. So while my kids play I have to enjoy a delicious snack, or drink?? … Twist my arm. They even have staff that are there to monitor and play with your kids while you sit. I’m thinking we might move in permanently.

When you come in you leave your shoes in a locker, and take a pair of snazzy Lilliput sandals to wear, helping to ensure the place stays nice and clean…a very Korean custom. You pay for your time at the counter and are given a menu and shown to your table.

We went with another couple (hey, Mandy!) and their two kids, so we got lucky and were given this private sitting area all to ourselves! I am working on the assumption that they may have wanted to hide the rowdy foreigners, compared to the usually calm, quiet, and composed locals, but then again maybe they were just being nice.

*Imagine here a picture of our super swank private area that I forgot to take a picture of.*

If you squint and look past the mom and son playing, our hang out area was just next to the ball pit, with a low table and pillows for lounging.

Not pictured is a sweet lego area/craft area that the boys will love when they are older.

Here is Judah cruising on his Land Rover.

Asher playing a rousing game of hand the shoes to the kind employee. They both loved it.

This “sandbox” is actually filled with little wooden cubes! Way better than bringing home sand.

Introducing the cleanest ball pit ever, with clear balls so you feel less like there is something terrifying underneath. Also, that wall is interactive so you throw the balls at it in different games. Fancy.

Here is a not so appetizing picture of half finished delicious food, I was too hungry to take a picture before eating. We had margarita pizza, carbonara, and french fries. This is what happens when a pregnant lady misses lunch…

And if you had any questions about our spectacular parenting…mid-bite of pizza I looked over to see this. Naturally I took a photo while Isaac rescued him. I won’t admit how hilarious I find this photo, so don’t even ask.

Side note: since you obviously wouldn’t wear your nice Lilliput sandals in the fancy bathroom (I would, but I am basically an untrained monkey) that comes complete with baby-sized toilet, they have bathroom sandals for your selection. Kids sizes too, so cute.

It was so lovely to visit and enjoy a meal with our friends as our kiddos played. I feel like at this stage of life for us the only way to have an adult conversation is to get a sitter, or have people over after the kids are in bed (lol at that because that’s when I go to bed,too).

So if you need me, you can likely find me at Lilliput.

Tow Trucks in Korea: Another Adventure

September 26, 2016September 26, 2016 / Ali Craft / 2 Comments

One day about a month ago, Isaac and I gathered our resolve, and our children, loaded our car and headed out to conquer Costco. Usually, we go with a bus of people from our school that takes us there and brings us back, so we don’t have to get there on our own. Since our schedule has been so hectic, we decided to take a “quick” weekend trip.

Despite not really knowing where it was and the fact that our GPS couldn’t find a route, we were off. We were about 20 minutes into our grand adventure when we heard a thud followed by the noise of something dragging under our car. I’m no mechanic, but it didn’t sound good. I made it over about 3 lanes of traffic to the side of the road and stopped. We did the obligatory car inspection that looked at little something like this…

Yep. Looks like it’s all here.

We then had a look under the car to discover something important looking hanging down. For the stories’ sake, let’s call it a piece of our muffler. We did the obvious thing and began to google our car’s apparent aliment while I placed a long-distance call to my father to try and figure out just how necessary this thing was (turns out, you really do need it).

After realizing that driving it was out of the question, (of course not without me trying to talk my way into driving it by myself to our local body shop about 20 minutes away with all the windows down to combat the possible carbon monoxide inhalation (I seriously thought something along the lines of, “I’ll just hold my breath”)), we began the task of figuring out how to call a tow truck in Korea. We got the number to one, just leaving us with the slight hang up that: A) we don’t speak Korean (especially the vocab to describe our/any car issues) and B) we can’t even tell them where we are. So off Isaac went in search of a kind stranger that could translate for us, while I sat in the car with the children as we slowly melted in the heat. He came back after having no luck, so off I went to take a stab at it.

I walked into a hair salon just next to where we broke down, and luckily found some girls that I could just barely communicate with between my google translate and their limited english. They were so precious and pulled out all the stops telling the tow truck where to go, welcoming us in to wait in the cool A/C, bringing the boys fresh squeezed juice and snacks, and doting on them non-stop.

I am guessing they probably didn’t have kids of their own as they were mortified when just after opening his cracker, Judah dropped it on the floor, so I picked it up and handed it back to him. First child of laid-back mama problems?

When the tow truck arrived, there was a small game of “guess our car problem charades” before the issue was diagnosed. We decided Isaac would ride with the tow truck to take care of things and I would catch a taxi and take home our rapidly expiring children for their nap. We were initially told that it would take 3 days and about the equivalent of $130 to get fixed. Upon further inspections they came back and said it would take only an hour and $65 to fix. Has that ever happened to anyone in America, ever?? Typically your experiences look at little more like something along these lines:

So Isaac decided to wait for the car and grab some lunch to kill time. He ended up ordering some mystery dish that he described as “interesting”…better him than me, the pregnant lady that has gagged lately at the thought of things as simple as bagels.

Meanwhile, I used every tool in my mama tool belt to keep my over-tired children from opening the doors in the moving taxi. Each time that would grab at the handle the taxi driver would freak out and say in Korean what I would imagine to mean “No, they can’t open the door while we are moving!!”…must be another cultural difference…

After pulling up Kung Fu Panda on my phone and rationing and eating every last piece of candy stashed in the diaper bag for emergencies such as this, we arrived home safe and sound.

Isaac arrived shortly afterward with our car in full working order. It was an eventful day that sadly did not produce any groceries. To prove that we hate ourselves, the next day we decided to take our newly repaired car and children on an adventure an hour out of town to IKEA AND Costco in holiday traffic…and we have lived to tell about it, barely.

On to fight another day.

The Circus Is Growing

August 10, 2016 / Ali Craft / 3 Comments

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It’s true! We are due to have another baby in January and we are so excited! I keep looking around seeing babies and thinking, “ohhh, I want a baby”, and then remembering, oh ya. Judah and Asher are turning into the best of friends being 16 months apart, so we are looking forward to our third being just 18 months younger than Asher. And I know you are wondering…yes, we are crazy.

Since we are always looking for ways to bring great gnashing of teeth to our families, we have decided to wait to find out the gender. Isaac’s (young and healthy) grandmother even tried to play the “I’m old, you should tell me because you never know what could happen” card, to which I replied, if there is some dramatic change of events and your life expectancy decreases to the next 6 months, that I would gladly tell her.

With our first two boys we had thought about not finding out the gender, but the time was never right, so here we are, surprise gender baby three! We are also keeping the name a secret until the birth (again, sorry grandmas) but I will say that we plan to keep with our bible name and family name tradition.

So life around here has been pretty busy. We spent June and July traipsing all over the southern U.S. visiting family, going to training, and seeing friends. Now we are back in Seoul, in the middle our first week back to school with students. I have been feeling alright beside being nauseas 24/7. I am fully certain that Korean taxi drivers, smelly city alleys, and foreign foods are trying to kill me…but I press on.

Being due in January, we won’t be able to fly back to the States at Christmas but we are looking forward to a quiet holiday in Korea and hopefully many visitors in the spring. I’ll just leave you with this gem. Dearest third child, you may not be fed well, but you will be loved well!

Is it broken?: An unsuspecting nose and finger.

May 17, 2016May 17, 2016 / Ali Craft / Leave a comment

We are those people. Injured? Sick? We head straight to google. Need an x-ray? Nah. We are more self-diagnoses kind of people…at least until things get really bad.

images

That brings us to a few weeks ago. If you are not in close contact with middle schoolers, you may not know this but, they have a very limited attention span. So here’s the scene. We have been learning basketball in P.E. class, so we were warming up with a game of knockout, and I decided to play. I will not bore you with the details of the game if you are unfamiliar, but I will suffice it to say that the sweet, sweet, angel of a student in front of me got distracted while waiting to receive the ball, saw the ball coming at the last second…and…ducked. There I am with about .5 seconds to respond and I tried to get my hands out to catch the ball but Just. Didn’t. Make it. Poor, poor little {wedding} ring finger never saw it coming. I promptly removed my ring so as to not have to cut it off later, and continued to play until I won, because duh.

Seen here heroically finishing a blog post.

Four days after the tragic finger incident, there was the nose incident. It was Monday afternoon and we had just gotten home from school and were frantically getting ready for dinner plans with some friends. I needed to shower so I laid out clothes for Judah and Isaac started getting him dressed. Just as I got out of the shower, Isaac came in to the bedroom holding Judah by the hand and says, probably more sternly than I have ever heard him speak, “You need to discipline Judah.”, to which I responded “Um…in general orrrr did something happen?”. Somebodyyy may accuse me of occasionally being a softy, so I didn’t know if I was just getting a general verbal spanking. Apparently while he had been holding Judah in his lap to put his shirt on, Judah had not-so-thoughtfully thrown his head backwards, directly into daddy’s nose. My initial response? Let’s not talk about that. I took Judah by the hand, and disciplined as sternly as I could through tears from laughing at the absurdity of our lives.

In lieu of going directly to the doctor we:

Googled.
Called nurse friends.
Looked at old pictures to see “if his nose had always been that crooked”.
Called our super speedy local family doctor and asked “ya, I know you don’t have an X-ray machine, but dontcha think if we stopped by you could tell if it was broken just by looking?” (After all, the doctors office was on our way to our dinner plans.)

We called our friends to let them know that we would still be there, just maybe a little late pending the decision to go to the hospital…Isaac made the official call, after reading that rarely is there permanent damage done by not seeking immediate medical attention, so we skipped the doctor and proceed directly to our fried chicken dinner with friends. #priorities (FYI, fried chicken is hugely popular in Korea).

Isaac eating chicken (if you look closely, his nose is crooked)

UPDATE: We still don’t know if either were officially broken, because you have to go to the doctor to know that. Isaac’s nose is fine, it was bruised for a few days and it is just recently not tender to the touch. I can’t bend my finger fully and it still hurts, and most regrettably I can’t wear my lovely wedding ring. But hey, things could be worse, we could be stranded in an airport with two kids and 40,000 Koreans…

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Until next time…

{Part THREE} The final chapter of our (NOT) quick trip to Jeju.

May 13, 2016May 13, 2016 / Ali Craft / Leave a comment

The never-ending blog post of the never-ending “quick” trip is coming to a close. And all God’s people said, amen!

(If you missed part 1 or part 2, here ya go)

The next morning, after a restless night of sleep, we headed down for breakfast and to see if any headway had been made in flights. We were told that we had new flights scheduled for 7pm, and that we would check out the hotel by 12 and kill time until heading to the airport. We thought we would try and get the boys to take an early nap since we would be on the go for the rest of the day, which resulted in 2 hours of telling Judah to lay down while we sat in a pitch black hotel room. We stored our bags at the hotel and headed off to lunch.

Then it was off to find some formula for Asher just in case of emergency, of all the things we can make do without, soy formula is NOT one of them. We flagged a taxi outside of the restaurant, carefully jumped in with Judah still in the hiking pack, and just as we started to move I remembered: THE PACI! I vividly remembered it falling under the table at the restaurant and thinking, oh I’ll get it later. In that chaotic moment, my minimal Korean came to mind and I hollered, “Ki-dah-ryo-ju-se-yo!” (WAIT, PLEASE!). I threw open the taxi door, ran back inside, ducked under the table, grabbed the paci, and was back in the taxi in seconds. Considering that was the only paci we brought, and they don’t sell the kind Asher likes in Korea, that could have been very very bad.

We got to the grocery store with no problem, and found the formula we needed. Victory! We were a little bummed out that we had forgone site-seeing to get formula, so we figured we would wander around for a little bit before catching a taxi back to the hotel and then heading to the airport. We were pleasantly surprised to find the ocean directly behind the store. Which brings me to another favorite memory from the trip. In the last month Judah has taken to calling any liquid, milk. Cup of juice? Milk. Water fountain? Milk. Judah had been asleep in the hiking pack after finally giving up the fight while shopping. We were walking along the ocean front when he wakes up and seeing the ocean, yells “MILK!!!”. Not quite, buddy.

We made it back to hotel to meet the group, grabbed our bags, and hopped in a taxis to the airport; we were so close to being home. {cries quietly}

Ok. I can’t even keep this up anymore. We get to the airport and get all checked in. This was the scene. People as far as the eye could see. Us and 40,000 of our closest friends trying to get off of this island. (At one time, the flight from Jeju to Seoul was the most heavily trafficked air route in the world.)

We made our way through security to realize that we hadn’t even seen the half of it.

The next six hours looked a bit like this:

Lines so long at the bathroom you just resolve yourself to be dehydrated. No line for the men’s bathroom because, duh.
Getting stepped on/over and almost going all mama bear crazy because people are about to step on your sleeping baby.

A toddler that refused to nap/sleep because there was obviously a party to partake in.

Koreans finding cardboard boxes to break down to sit on to avoid sitting directly on the ground. You should know that as shoes are taken off when entering the home, they are apparently also taken off before stepping on your cardboard box… that you got from the trash.

No real nutrition, as airport restaurants ran out of food, leaving us to share snacks from duty free. Macadamia nuts, chocolate covered macadamia nuts, and dried mango do not a dinner make.
Leaning back to back with Isaac to find some reprieve.

Ajummas (Korean grandmas) that kept giving Judah food. While the rest of us may have gone without dinner, Judah certainly did not. There was fried chicken, kimbap (let’s just say it’s like sushi), cookies, rice cakes, candy, more cookies. Because if there is one thing that a sleep deprived child needs it is sugar. Isaac would try and take a bite and then give Judah only half, but the adjummas weren’t having it, so they would give him two the next time. Also fun, is when they offer him something he doesn’t like, so I try to keep him from spitting it or at least don’t let them see it, so what happens? They offered him more, while I sat there discreetly holding the last half chewed bite they gave him…

…so we showed up to the airport at 4:30pm for our 7pm flight. That became a 9pm flight. That became a “please come check later for info on your flight” flight. At 10:45pm, among shouts of joy and possibly actual tears, we boarded our plane home. Now, THIS was the happiest we have ever been to see a plane.

We made it home just after 2 am. We are alive, and have since recovered from the illnesses we somehow ended up with after our ~~relaxing~~ getaway. It was one of those events that is so traumatizing, that the group was bonded together for life, so to my Jeju trip family and the ones of you that have stuck through this whole story and are now equally scarred:

{Part TWO} Did we survive? The conclusion of our trip to Jeju island.

May 12, 2016 / Ali Craft / 1 Comment

Day 2 of our trip: ~2am in a dark hotel room in Jeju island, Korea:

Isaac- “Are you shaking the bed?”

Ali- “What?? Huh?? No…”

(we were both confused but fell right back to sleep)

It was only when we woke up to a text from my dad asking if we had heard about the earthquake in Japan that it all came together. Luckily we were far enough away to only feel the small tremors, but it was certainly erie to realize that we are all at the mercy of “mother nature”. Anyways, let’s just say that the tone had been set for a day full of unexpected moments…

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Site of the 7.0-magnitude earthquake- Japan’s Kyushu Island

We were up early and headed back to the hotel restaurant for a buffet breakfast, thankfully with plenty of “western options”. You guys, if I have not mentioned before, let me just tell you, of all the things we love about Korea, Korean breakfast is not one of them. Basically, Korean breakfast looks the same as Korean lunch and Korean dinner, and 8am is just a little too early for these people to be eating kimchi.

After breakfast, we loaded up the vans and were off to a day of adventuring and hiking. Rain had been forecasted so our faithful tour guide suggested that we follow the planned schedule as long as we could, and reevaluate if it started raining. Cue rain.

Our new plans were announced within minutes and we were off to Aqua Planet: Jeju. Going to the largest aquarium in all of Asia as your back-up plan isn’t too shabby. It was Judah first visit to the aquarium out of utero (and let’s be honest, that view wasn’t the best), so we were excited to take him. We also made it the whole way to the end with Judah and Asher in there respective carriers, which was a major victory; we got to actually look at fish as opposed to herding kiddos.

Luckily, we beat most of the crowds by going first thing in the morning; as we left I am confident that no less than 75% of the population of Korea had shown up.

Then is was lunch time, our favorite. We had our pick of two of Jeju’s most popular foods, black pork (from a kind of pig native to Jeju) or fish. I will say that while in the States, Isaac and I are huge fans of seafood, we generally steer clear of it here as it often refers to squid (don’t think yummy calamari) or “fishy” fish that we have never heard of served with bones. While in America we almost always eat our fish filleted, it is said that Koreans like to eat it on the bone as it seems more fresh. Well, you do you, Korea. So we, and all the rest of our group chose pork which came with a variety of other proteins. It was served in the traditional Korean barbecue style, around a small grill with a retractable vent hood, where we cook the food ourselves.

Sweet baby Asher had fallen fast asleep right as we pulled up to lunch, in true baby form. I just planned to do the mom thing and eat with one arm, but our tour guide asked the waiters if we could make a pallet for him out of the floor cushions in the floor dining section. They happily obliged. When we sat down to eat, all the tables around him were empty, but they quickly filled, and as the ajummas (the name for older ladies in Korean) got seated at the tables near him they couldn’t help but crowd around to take a look and readjust his blanket. It was all in good nature, but thankfully our tour guide made sure that they didn’t disturb him (other wise I would have had to go all mama bear “DO YOU KNOW WHEN THE LAST TIME HE TOOK A GOOD NAP WAS” on them). Crisis averted.

Next up was the Haenyeo Museum. The term haenyeo refers to female divers that dive for shellfish, seaweed, etc., without the use of diving equipment (their only tools are googles, a basket for their catch, and something to help them balance). This is a tradition that has been practiced for hundreds of years.

To this day, although the tradition is dying out, there are still many women that continue the trade. The funny thing is that since this kind of work is becoming less popular, the ladies that still participate are even as old as 80+ years. Our tour guide’s aunt is a haenyeo that still practices at the age of almost 70. These women are basically rockstars.

Sorry, I couldn’t help but put that gif there. Moving right along. By the time we left the museum, it was a full on downpour outside. We bundled up the kids in their carriers, and made a mad dash for the bus, the kids laughing hysterically as they bounced around. We were wet and tired and all ready to be on a plane headed back home. HA. Ha. ha.

We loaded up the bus and were headed to the airport, until the bus pulled over unexpectedly. Everyone began to murmur, wondering why we had stopped. Then there was a quiet announcement at the front of the bus, our flight had been cancelled due to weather. Cue one of the funniest parts of the trip. I turned around to make sure that the people behind me had heard the news; we would not be sleeping in our own beds that night.

Me: “did you guys hear the news?”

Ladies: with two thumbs up and big smiles “ya, we are stopping to get coffee!”

Me: “uhh, ya, but did you hear about our flights?”

Ladies: “wait, what???”

Needless to say I had to be their bearer of bad news, but on the other hand, we now had plenty of time to kill at a coffee shop while people tried to make us new arrangements. Our colleagues and their caffeine habits have certainly helped fuel our “coffee is life” fire.

Our hosts made us new arrangements near the airport, so off we went to grab a few snacks and dinner before dropping off us at the hotel.

We got to our hotel feeling especially exhausted and whiney, only to find our previous night’s spacious accommodations were a thing of the past; we would be sleeping Lucy and Ricky style in separate twin beds. We made a bed for Judah halfway in the closet, and called for a crib to be sent up, only for them to send the world’s largest porta-crib to our world’s smallest room. The air in the room had also not been switched over from heat to cool yet, so it was a balmy 83 degrees. Opening the window was also not an option because the bad weather brought wind gusts over 50 mph, and the window would just slam shut. We thought we could out smart the wind by propping open the window, only to create a room sized whistle as we channeled that 50 mph wind through our room and under the crack of our front door.

I only considered breaking the window and using this 5 times.

You are likely looking for the escape hatch from this post, I too feel your pain. I will stop for now, and if you are looking to put off doing something you hate more than reading this story that will never end, stop on by next time for the real conclusion of our trip to Jeju.

P.S. I’m not sure where this should logically go in the story, but it is worth mentioning that as we entered our hotel, we were greeted by a family of giant Asian teddy bears. Ali out. *Mic drop*

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Our Southern Seoul

Making His name Famous in South Korea

Author: Ali Craft