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On Saturday we took August to get more shots, visited Sarah, took our bed off the frame, and I went with our friend Meg to see the movie Jimmy’s Hall.

Sunday, we did some more shopping, cleaned, and hosted Jill and Derek and their son Logan for dinner.  

Somewhere in there Carly and I watched most of The Fault in Our Stars but didn’t finish it. One of these days…

Stealing my pillow Saturday morning when I rolled over to get my phone: 

Waking up:

Oral immunization before the shot:

He likes fans, but we haven’t used ours in a few weeks. So he was excited by Sarah’s:

August was intrigued by the crib temporarily being placed in the living room, and sat there calmly for a long time:

Playing:

We got this steamer/blender for just over 40 bucks on clearance at Toys R Us. A total steal. Here is Carly using it to make chicken:

Becoming a meat eater:

 

Sunday: 

Playing with mama:

Watching her wrap a gift:

Playing with the toothbrush my mom gave him (one of his favorite toys since we rediscovered it on Saturday):

Playing with (in the vicinity of) Logan:

We’d been trying to keep August away from the edges of the play mat so he wouldn’t pull them up. But yesterday we had friends with a 10 month old over, and pulling up the mats became a big game for both of them. So now August is totally into pulling up the floor:

The Kwangwoon University area is only about 15 minutes away by bus but we had never been there. It is a small campus, but nice, and the street connecting the university to the train station is pretty nice, with some decent restaurants and coffee shops. 

But first, we went walking around an apartment complex southwest of us for a morning walk. We walked through a small park, and had some fun on the swing:

He decided it was warm enough that he didn’t need a hat:

There is an open area next to the subway station at Kwangwoon where people feed the pigeons. This was August’s favorite part of the trip, and we probably spent 15 minutes watching them:

I then got an apple earl grey latte and we walked around the area and across the small campus. We ended up sitting in an outdoor amphitheater, each of us having our drink, while we watched people play basketball and that volleyball-with-their-feet game:

A nice, relaxed Friday.  

No big adventures today. We had fun around the house, visited Sarah, and went to APIS so I could go to PT. 

Cause and effect (and notice the wrinkly foot from the bath):

He was more fond of the beach ball today:

He played in the crib:

Got to meet Sarah. We visited her because she broke her ankle and has been stuck in her apartment all week:

Squirming before falling asleep:

When you move him to the crib during his nap, he has a tendency to scrunch up like this:

He got to hang out with Carly’s students again:

He now likes taking off the tray and playing with it:

Bouncy chair time:

Straw:

In his new pajamas and getting a drink from the spray bottle:

Morning:

I’m starting to see early signs of being able to play with August using an object together. Before this video, we both had ahold of the rope and we’re taking turns tugging on it. When one of us would tug, the other would laugh:

But he was very indifferent to be one dollar beach ball:

We then went for a walk and went to the Buk art museum in the park. We were looking around the museum at the same time as about three dozen girls from Changdong High School. They paid more attention August than the art. 

At one point there were about 10 of them gathered around us. One started speaking English and was quite fluent. It turned out that she had been and exchange student in the United States. In Washington. At Bonney Lake High School. it was kind of cool to talk to her although we didn’t talk for long. 

Before we left, I was feeding August and the students started walking to the entrance to return to their bus. There are 15 to 20 of them surrounding us in this picture, although you can’t really tell: 

Needless to say, August really enjoyed that trip to the art museum. He did spend at least a little time looking at the art:

This was the piece he was looking at:

Here’s the group as they moved outside to leave:

 

After his nap, we took the #9 bus, a bus we had never been on that goes right by our apartment, and went to the Seokgye neighbohood. We ended up walking along a stream. There were a lot of birds and fish to look at:

This was a cool tunnel that the path and stream went though for a couple hundred yards. It is S shaped, so you couldn’t see an entrance for most of the distance. The acoustics were quite nice:

In the evening we walked across to Home Plus and bought August some socks and warm pants. It was also an opportunity to show off his bear hat:

We took a long bus ride (90 minutes) to a complex of parks on the west side of Seoul. Kind of an amazing area on what used to me a landfill:

Waking up in the morning:

Sleeping on the bus ride over:

Lunch:

Walking:

We circled much of the park first, then found the long staircase (over 400 steps) to the top. We walked around, stopping in two places to rest, have a drink, and play. He really loved the second spot because of a broom that was swaying in the wind:

The view of the Han was quite spectacular and there were some cool sculptures:

Back down another side of the hill we came across a Seoul Art Museum residency program that has a little sculpture garden. We made our last stop to drinks/change/play:

We had fun tapping this sculpture with our hands to make noise and looking at our reflections in it:

And he enjoyed feeling the texture of the trees and other sculptures:

As August touched the last one above, I realized his hand was a foot and a half away from this spider and my head was closer. The spider was 3 to 4 inches long. We will practice looking before touching from now on:

On our walk back to the bus, we walked past a power plant (I think it might run off of gasses from the landfill – I need to look into that). We found one of August’s favorite things, a fountain:

Carly had beaten us home, so we Skyped with her for a couple minutes while walking from the bus to home. This was the first time we have Skype with August where he could really get excited about seeing the other one of us in the screen:

Stay tuned for our next exciting episode as August tours an art museum with three dozen high school girls. 

He has loved this thug ever since I first got it and I let him have a sip of water when we were up on Bukhansan with my parents. This is from Noeul Park, where we went today (Tuesday). Plenty of other stuff to post from today when I get that article done. 

We went for a nice walk in the neighborhood and shopping trip to Home Plus, but I apparently didn’t take any photos along the way. But there were olenty of highlights from our time in the apartment:

 

He lounged on the changing pad: 

We finally put batteries in the keyboard toy: 

And Carly cooked him his first tofu, which he ate with carrots:

And he made some good noises during the meal:

He wore this outfit for the first time:

Watched the washing machine:

Spent some time being silly and cute on the bed before a nap:

Zoned out on the bus because he woke up early from his nap and was still tired:

And wore his monkey pajamas for the first time:

We stopped at Toys R Us yesterday and Carly found these nesting/stacking/linking cups: