>We had fun with nature today. We found a spider in her web eating a fly!! I hope you can see it in this picture! Then we found an old hornets nest that Frankie is holding in her hand. And then there was the playground and the hike around the fields with Ms. Cho!

>nice fall michigan day!

>Here are a few fun pics. Bee at the ND football game. Frankie and her friend in our backyard by our super huge puffball mushrooms! (they are edible, and people cook them up in olive oil with garlic. not me though!). And Bee with a picture she drew while waiting her turn at the doctors office! And the Cho Cho after going running! And Scott and the girls when we were at Mackinac Island.

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Frankie has been waiting for this day for over a year! She is a big kindergartner and marble muscrat just like her big sis! Needless to say she woke up at 5:45 and was so excited she could not get back to sleep!! Bring on the school year!

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After visiting Gyeongju (the old capital of the Shilla Dynasty, 57 BC – 935 AD) on Wednesday we rode up the eastern coast to Mt. Soerak (Seoraksan National Park), which is at the northern tip of South Korea and borders North Korea.

Then we stopped at a local seaside restaurant for some traditional korean soup. We sat on the floor at the little tables. The girls ate the noodles from a noodle soup. While the woman gave the girls a fork to use, they made it through the meal with just the chopsticks. Korean chopsticks are metal and rounded at the bottom, so they took a little getting used to. Im used to the wooden chopsticks that are more square at the bottom. They seem heavier and slipperier. The woman who owns the restaurant went out to her garden and picked fresh tomatoes for us to eat. She also said the girls were “beautiful” and “well behaved”. Of course all of this was said in Korean but that is what our friend Miyoun told us she said.

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We will have lots of other pictures from our adventures today but we thought we would put a few of our bus trip into Gyeongju (where we ended up renting bikes to get all around town). One of the bus stops had a lake with lotus flowers in bloom. It’s the big summer lotus flower festival here since this is their peak season.

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Running through the market area is the Cheonggyecheon ( 청계천). the stream runs from downtown Seoul into the eastern neighborhoods, and until recent urban renewal work in 2005 was covered with roadway. Along the stone wall that runs along the river are five artists’ works dealing with the subject of nature and environment. Lots of local children play in the stream. there is stone bridge across that we walked along, and also we we let the girls take their shoes off and dip their feet in the water to cool down.

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Looks like Frankie won the vote! Run Frankie Run!

OK, here are a few pics from our garden. Its sort of pathetic looking this year. Its a combo of Cho Cho digging up alot of the greens, and me experimenting with new things to see what will grow and what wont. The Swiss Chard did really well this year, but we ate it all. The kale. Not so good. Not sure why. We love kale, too. Oh well. the tomatoes looks good and the cucumber looks good too. The broccoli grew but the heads so small and then they turn to flower. Any idea on how to make those things grow a bit bigger? The eggplant wilted a bit. the onions, lettuce, basil and pumpkin were either eaten by visitors or dug up by cho cho. We are enjoying the cucumbers now. I think you can grow those in your sleep so i wont take any credit for that!

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Can you guess which picture goes with which vote?

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Pictures to follow!