Kimbap

I got to try something new... and apparently you aren't really a Korean until you've had Kimbap ;)  I am so very interested in getting to know and understand Korean culture/cuisine better but its hard because most of their stuff is handed down from generation to generation, especially the cooking.  There aren't a lot of written recipes so when people learn how to make Korean food it's from watching their parents or grandparents... and if you know anything about me my parents are the whitest tallest people ever... so, I have had to learn other ways.  Jane has been helping to enlighten me to my Asianness and I am so very grateful for it.  This roll has pickled daikon (radish), meat (we used beef but there are lots of other subs), spinach, carrot, and egg.  The nice part about this is you can substitute all sorts of things in.  It was delicious... like totally satisfying.  I am planning trying my hand in making it this week!  There is a lot of prep to it but once the prep is done the rolling is easy and fast.  Yum yum!

Norah loved it!

hahaha

YUMMO

JVG

Moo Goo Gai Pan and Mountain Rabbits

There are probably exactly three things my Dad can cook well... or I would request that he makes.  1.) Chef Pierre's Pancakes (something we named after him... long story.)  He makes these fabulous homemade pancakes and even though I have his recipe I'm still not nearly as good at them as he is!  2.) Egg on Bread.  Nothing real fancy but they are one of the childhood memories I have of him making breakfast for us.  3.)  Moo Goo Gai Pan.  This is a recipe that usually gets busted out once or twice a year... so not often.  When it does though it's a real treat!  I can imagine the reason why it doesn't get made often because of the quantities of food that would have to be made for our size family, but when we do I get so excited!

So, I was craving it last week and I finally remembered to get the recipe from my Mom.  They altered the recipe just a bit, but I like what they do, so I kept the alterations.  The nice part about this recipe is that you can add or take out vegetables or protein that you may or may not like.  Last night I made the recipe as is.  I didn't have any green onions so I just substituted some red... it added some nice color to the dish.  :)  It was just as delicious as I remember it being and it definitely hit the spot.  We ate the whole thing... so we no leftovers for lunch today!  Well, I just couldn't deal with that so I made a vegetarian version of it for lunch today.  I made it with chicken yesterday, and today I added carrots instead.  It's a really quick and easy meal in the wok and the ingredients in it aren't difficult at all.  I realize that with some Asian inspired meals there are harder to find spices and ingredients, but not this one.  I also don't have the electric wok that the recipe calls for, but my Wok that I purchased from IKEA did just fine.  :)

On Thanksgiving while the family was just sitting around the table and finishing off dessert my Dad busts out this CD that he got because it was on NPR.  As soon as it started playing I knew what the song was... it's call San Toki Toki Ya (Mountain Rabbit).  It's probably the most well known children songs from Korea.  I learned it while I was at culture camp and it has cute little motions to go with it.  So while it was playing, and I was stuffed to the gills with Thanksgiving feast, the kids and I got up and had a dance party to it with the motions.  Dad thought that I should take the CD home because there are many many other songs on that CD that are in Korean and he thought that the kids would enjoy.  And... we have been!  There have been many a dance party to this Korean CD.  :)  Another great childhood memory that I'm being able to share with my family now.

JVG

Sunday's Message

I. Love. Mars Hill Bible Church.  Even though it's little over an hour away it's so worth the drive!  This past week's message I found to be just for me.  If any of you have spent any amount of time with us you know the importance of eating... or having food time together.  Yes, I know a lot of it stems from my love of eating, but there is something about sitting around a table (or whatever) with friends and eating.  And if any of you have family you know that that time is a sacred and a special time together.  I really don't think I could do the message justice so I'm just going to post the link to the podcast so you can all listen and enjoy it as well.  :)  I highly recommend that you do... I feel like it gives such a great explanation of who we are as people.

http://marshill.org/teaching/2012/11/25/one-more-seat-at-the-table/

Also, the beginning of it talked about adoption and that has been on my heart lately.  I know that I'm pregnant with Norah, but I seriously feel like we could have 15 children! We've both come to grips with the idea that this WILL be my last pregnancy, but that doesn't mean we can't expand our family other ways.  We've discussed where we would want to adopt from and, really, I feel like our options are quite open.  We know that we want to adopt at least one more, two is quite in the possible reasonable and most likely so we will see how many more we will have!  I felt such a tugging on my heart listening to this woman's story, knowing that these are just affirmations along the way.  We have a friend who is literally right in the middle of her adoption in Kenya with her family and they are hitting as many obstacles and red tape as possible.  Their story and their love and determination is such an inspiration.

Here's to the future and all the adventures it holds!

JVG

Busy Wed

Lately, in the morning time my sides have been really sore.  :(  Its my lower ab, so I'm thinking that my body is just adjusting to whatever weird position I slept in... with the ever growing Norah inside.  One morning Lucy got up really early so Gaetan brought her into our room so hopefully she didn't wake Dude up.  Usually when this happens she's up for the morning but she was down with laying on me and she went back to sleep.  However, she wanted to sleep on me in the most uncomfortable way possible... so she got a few more hours but I didn't.  Her end position that she liked was all bent backwards with her head off the bed, laying on my arm and punching me in the face.  it was pretty cute watching her sleep, but I was pretty uncomfortable after that.  However, once both kids got up Gaetan was sweet enough to let me lay on my side and try to get feeling back in my arms and sleep a little more :)  He and the kids even made me breakfast in bed.  It was very sweet.

On a different note... I found this really sweet Korean market about 2 miles away from our house!  I was really stoked about it!  I was there initially to buy some sweets for a little girl who was adopted by a sweet family I met on a missions trip, but after I found what I was looking for I just browsed a bit to see what they had to offer.  I will definitely be stopping back there again sometime soon!  :)  I ended up mailing her care package off for her 'gotcha' day, which was last month, but it's the thought that counts right?  And by the time all my errands were finished the kids were up from their naps so it was perfect timing.  :)

Also, I feel compelled to print off pictures that we take on our phones for the photo albums that nobody really looks at.  Gaetan and I have discussed that the reason why we feel the need to print them off is because the generation before us did, and now it's kind of a novelty.  With all the technology and sharing, we never have hard copies of pictures... so I printed off almost all the pictures that we've taken since we've gotten our phones.  I think that it's also very interesting that our phones, ya those things that are supposed to be used for making phone calls and texts, have taken over my camera!  It's crazy to think that my phone has better resolution than the device made solely for taking pictures is better.  Anyhoo... We had a lot of pictures to print off... I'm talking in the thousands.  I guess its probably easier when your kids are so dang cute you *have* to take pictures of them daily :)  Am excited to start this new project of putting them all together in an album... speaking of which, I should probably put the pictures from the last time I printed them off in an album... haha.  Gotta love snapfish!

Since we had returned some of that stuff back to Old Navy we had some money on a gift card so we headed back to see if there was anything the kids could use or Gaetan.  We did luck out and Gaetan found some shirts that he really liked from last year this year on sale!  So we got a handful of those, and the kids were really excited to find their 'ninja' slips.  Now, last year was the first time we ever lived in a place that didn't have free heat, so we bought these slippers for Tristan hoping that it would keep him warm.  He wasn't real excited about them initially, but then Gaetan told him that they were ninja slippers and not only would he stay warm, but he could be sneaky... from that day forth he LOVED them. So much that he wore a hole right through the bottom.  He was heart broken when we had to get rid of them, but... he saw another pair of ninja slips at ON and he was beside himself with excitement.  Not only that, but he picked out a pair for Lucy too.  They LOVE them.  He was actually looking for something for Norah, but then he saw these and they had to get them.  Best of all, they were on sale :)

JVG

Getting my Asian on

Gaetan and I have been talking pretty seriously lately about when we think we should start the adoption process.  We both agreed that we will probably start in about a year (when he's done with classes) and then see how it goes.  Another thing that we are feeling really at peace about is how many we want to adopt.  Originally we had discussed that we would like a child around 6-12 months old.  That way they are nursing anymore, but they are still young enough that they haven't formed too many habits.  But the more and more we've talked the more and more we're thinking that we will adopt siblings.  Yup, two of them.  Which, ultimately means they will most likely be a little older.  When my brother and I were adopted he was 4 and I was 2.  I look at Tristan (who will be 3 next month already!) and can't even fathom missing out on all this stuff in his life, and still a whole nother year after that!  But, I am confident that whatever children are placed in our lives we will be more than happy to have them, and God will give us the wisdom on what to do.  :)

With that said, and watching my friends go through the adoption process (in Kenya), attending a tradition Korean first birthday, and thinking about my future and furthering my education, we talked about me taking Korean classes.  It was such a shocker being around all those Korean people who spoke Korean as their first language, and not having a stinking clue on what they were talking about.  I would LOVE to be able to speak it and teach the kids it as well.  I've been looking into places that offer it, and I think that U of M would be the best and closest.  A lot of places have Korean/asian studies majors, but not the actual language.  The thought of going back to school is exciting... and I'm definitely not going to major in it, but I would like to, hopefully one day, be fluent.

I would say I'm confident in who I am as a person, be that an American or Korean... but there is so much more about my heritage that I wish I had knowledge about... and thinking about adopting two ones from there I would want to have the best understanding about their lives to help with their transition.  So, we will see what the next few years hold in store for us and Korea!  Also, part of the adopting criteria is they want the parents to travel to Korea for at least a week, and I would love to not be out of my element (as much as can be helped).  :)

JVG

An authentic Tradition first Korean Birthday

On Sunday we attended a Korean First birthday.  Now, I know that I've thrown two of them myself, but I don't know how authentic they really were.  I got the gist of how things are supposed to be from the internet, and my trust source (Mrs. Nawrocki) but this was quite the experience to attend one where I would say less than 5% of the people there spoke English as their first language.

It was for the people I used to work for in Caledonia.  They are first generation Koreans here... they came over in the 80's I think.  Both their kids are American citizens and it was their boy who's son just turned one.  They had a TON of yummy Korean food there.  A lot of people from their Korean church were there... they had a bit of a church service first (all in Korean) and then they did other things (which I'm not really sure what it was because I didn't speak it!)

Their delicious spread.  This was only one of the tables... there were other goodies elsewhere.

Ethan's spread for choosing his destiny!

The man of the hour in his outfit

Omma trying to calm him down...

His has chosen!

Feeding his Momma some cake

Older sister helping out in the background

Happy family... 3 generations.

For the most part I think what we did was similar.  Had a lot of people over to eat food, hang out, and then do the presentation part.  Their spread was more impressive but I think I did all right all things considered.  :)

I was happy to be apart of this and to witness this side of my culture.  I would really love to get more into it... but unfortunately I think the only university around here that has Korean classes is U of M.  So, we'll see.  I would love for the kids to have an understanding about Korean culture, and hopefully speak the language one day too!

JVG

Traditional Korean 1st Birthday

Whew!  We threw Tristan a traditional Korean first birthday.  Traditionally children mortality was high, so if they made it to their first birthday it was cause for celebration!  Another high note is their 100 day...

I was lucky enough to have a teacher-friend help me out.  I am very interested in learning more about my heritage and be able to teach my children about it.  We made bulgolgi, which is like a Korean BBQ, kimchee, cucumber salad, seaweed and of course rice.  We also made a traditional rainbow rice cake... which was a lot of work!  But also had some American finger foods also.  We had a ton of friends and family over to celebrate with us.  We got Tristan a traditional boys hanbok also... SUPER cute.

I will post some pics soon.  But we were very excited to do this and be able too!

JVG