New skills

Sorry about the delay in posting new entries... I have no idea where we've left/put the camera cord so I can't upload pictures at the moment - at least ones still on the camera.

I should also take this moment to say what a great time we had visiting everybody. Ben certainly enjoyed the attention that was lavished on him, and we enjoyed watching him interact with family for the first time. Also, we apologize for the wake of things we left behind after our departure. I think we left things to be mailed in each city we visited! If there's anything we can send you from Korea...

Colin's first day of the school year was yesterday. The school hours have been changed so that on Tuesday and Thursday classes go to 5:00pm. I'm sure you can imagine how excited the teachers are about that!

Ben has begun mastering some new skills. He can suck his toes, has discovered splashing in the bath, and... will give a high five when I say, "Give me five!" I suppose I should teach him something more useful, but that action is easy for him to do. He looks so proud when we applaud him and tell him what a good boy he is. He grins from ear to ear, pants breathlessly, and flails his limbs in excitement.

The Jolly Jumper fits on the door of our bedroom and Benjamin has been jumping almost every day. Yesterday he jumped with a rattle in his hand and was so excited about hearing it shake with every jump that I thought he was going to jump right out of the harness! Of course he also dropped the rattle a hundred times or so. I told him to pick it up with his toes, but all he did was kick it!

Since we can't post new pictures I'll put up some of the very first pictures of Ben that people might not have seen. And if anyone finds a spare Sony cord that doesn't seem to go with any of their gadgets we'd be much obliged if you would add it to the mail pile.


Me, right before heading to the hospital. Our first photograph together.












Benjamin in the hospital bassinet right after birth, and at 1.5 days old.

Photos from Canada

Family portrait

Grandpa John

My, what big hands you have!

Object of desire

Halfway "Home"

Only one more flight to go. What a long trip - from the man at the check-in counter who didn't know how to use the computer and took 30 minutes to get us processed, to the waiting around for the garment bag that never came. (We think someone with the last name Farber has all Colin's new work clothes.) Oh, and then there was the crushed car seat box. Luckily the car seat (and the Bumbo) survived. It would have been rather worrisome if it hadn't, considering that it's built to withstand a car crash.

Aeroplan was a whole other story. We decided to use some of our air miles to rent a car while we are in Vancouver. Colin did everything online in advance, and then called on Wednesday to check the details. The person he talked to said they sent a voucher - which we would have to bring to the car rental agency to get the car - and we were supposed to have called the agency ourselves. So there is one car rental voucher on its way to Korea. Funny, so are we... At this point we thought we didn't have a car, but the miles had been subtracted from our account. I called back to see if I would get the same story. I explained how we couldn't get the voucher because we weren't in Korea. I asked if we could cancel the arrangements and get the miles reinstated since we didn't have a car. The lady said no. This was bizarre to me... I'm not allowed to cancel the car I haven't rented? Finally Colin called the car rental agency directly and they said no problem we could just ask Aeroplan to fax a copy of the voucher to them. The rental agency turned out to be great - not only did we not need the voucher, but they gave us a minivan for the same price as the car!

We've recovered from the first leg of the trip and are safe and sound. Now if we can just get Colin's new clothes back.