On Saturday, Insoo and Elliot and I went to "SEAQUARIUM"! This was Elliot's first encounter with LARGE FISH. He was not so sure about them...we went straight to the dolphins, and the first time one came out of the water, Elliot screamed and clung to me for dear life.
He kept screaming every time a dolphin would come up out of the water...and when he gave me the "Mommy, please get me out of here" look (left) we decided to take a step back and try the smaller fish and then work our way up again. He enjoyed this much more. (right)
After a little while he warmed up to these sea animals and was ready to try the dolphins again. (It helped that the 2nd dolphin show we went to had MUSIC and BALLS.) Elliot even started to dance once he calmed down a little bit. All in all, we had a wonderful day seeing beautiful fish, dolphins, alligators, parrots, sea lions, more dolphins and a killer whale. If you'd like to see more photos, you can click on the "Pictures" link on the left side of the page and go to the album "Miami Photos"
When we got home Elliot got to spend some time playing ball with Komo, and playing with the trash--this became one of his favorite pasttimes...for some strange reason.
Sunday Halmonee got to show off Elliot to her church family and make us some of my absolute favorite Korean food: Mandu!
Elliot liked it too!
That evening Kun Komo taught Elliot how to play the piano...
this quickly became his favorite activity (even more than playing in the trash) and he worked on his piano playing skills for the rest of the weekend.
Monday was Labor Day and we went with Halmonee to her church picnic.
Elliot had a great time taking her all around the park.
That afternoon we had a 3rd birthday party for Elliot, but this one was a bit different because the 1st birthday is very special in Korean culture! Halmonee and Komo put out a very big spread for Elliot and we dressed up in our Korean clothing (Hanbok) and took lots of pictures. Elliot was most impressed with his third boquet of balloons (which are now called "baila") and he also got to enjoy his 3rd piece of cake...he's getting better and better at eating things which are very bad for him.
After Elliot was completely hyped up on sugar, he gave us piano concerts, quickly turning around to receive his applause after playing a few notes at a time. He got quite the thrill out of this.
After such an exciting (and sugerfull) day we tried everything we could think of to get Elliot to sleep...going for a long walk outside--pushing him in the stroller, carrying him in the bjorn, singing, stories, nursing, watching Baby Einstein DVD's (for a LONG time)...but nothing could get him to sleep...finally I resorted to wrestling him to sleep. I won...kind of...but we both fell asleep, my arm wrapped around him with part of my body pinning him down and his hand clawing my mouth...Insoo got evidence.
Please know that this final picture (with me looking absolutely hideous) is a reward for all of you who made it to the bottom of this post. :) I thought you deserved a bit of a laugh, even if it is at my expense.
*Also, for anyone who has wanted to post a comment in the past, and was unable, I THINK I have fixed the settings so that anyone can post a comment now. So Please do--I'd love to hear from folks who are viewing :)
Good night...time for this old lady to get to bed.
