Dreaming of Korea

Do any of you watch Top Chef? If so, you'll know that Kristen won this season (finale was this past Wednesday). She was a Korean adoptee, and you know what she plans to do with her prize money? Take a trip to Korea. She said, through her tears, that she needs to see the people and country who made her. She is seemingly a well-adjusted adult. Her parents were present at the finale and they seemed to have a wonderful relationship. But it is still important to her to experience her roots. Her comments kept me up on more than one night because Camden recently told us that he is going to stop spending his birthday and Christmas money to buy Legos and Wii games because he wants to save it all up until he has enough to take the family to Korea. Hello, tears.

I'm not sure if we've mentioned it here, but we are in limited contact with Camden's birthparents. It happened as a result of visiting Eastern when we were in Korea 5 years ago to adopt Rory. And while Camden does not spend much time talking about his adoption experience, birth parents, or Korea, his plan to save money tells me it's pretty important to him.

But, seriously, does anyone want to tell me how to plan a $10,000 trip to another country? Because that's about what it would take for a family of 4, and that amount is just not anywhere in the budget. It's not even a matter of just buckling down and planning for it because I can't imagine how long it would take us to save that much money. It makes my heart hurt for him, and we'll keep doing our best to encourage him. And I hope that one day, he (and Rory) will get to experience Korea.

In other news, our weekend was busy, but good. We celebrated Rory's family day Friday with "scabetti" and game night (she chose Pick Picknic) and ice cream. Of course. 

Saturday involved a meeting in the morning for Brian, appliance shopping for several hours, trip to the library, and lots of chores around the house. Rory woke up with a fever Sunday, because we can't seem to go more than a couple of days without someone in this house running a fever. Brian had an early meeting, then he and Camden went to church while Rory and I stayed home. Sunday night, Uncle Jon babysat the kids while we went out to eat with a church group. 

The weekend was kind of over in a flash, and now it's the start of what is shaping up to be a busy week. I say, "bring it on."

A few phone/Instagram pics.

I think Camden decided staying home sick wasn't so bad after all since I let him have free rein with the iPad for most of the day, even while eating a bowl of soup for lunch.

Rory decided to dress up as a witch for family night; her baby was Snow White. She's so silly. She also insisted on a candlelight dinner, and her baby ate with us.

Why, yes, we did wake up to snow on March 2. It snowed most of the day, although nothing stuck.

My sick girl camped out on the floor Sunday morning (no fever today, by the way, so I sent her to school).

And I am ridiculously excited to use my new washer and dryer this morning. For the past several years, we've had to run each load through the dryer 2-3 times, so I have a feeling laundry day will be much easier from now on.