We just finished up our second session of soccer.  She improved a lot and enjoys the warm ups and exercises, but when they scrimmage she is a bit lost.  We will skip the winter session and see if we want to enroll again next year sometime.

My mom generously agreed to watch Beanbean in Daegu while Tom, Grace, and I went to Jejudo, a subtropical volcanic island to the south.

The island is dotted with hundreds of volcanic cones called oreum.  We visited one called Sangumburi that has gorgeous fields of silver grass and a hike to a view of the crater.

We also went to Minsokchon, a kind of recontructed traditional Jeju folk village.  We thought it would be hokey, but it was very well done.

Not sure what this arena is for, but Beanbean would have been all about it:

Wishing tree:

Pictures don’t do justice to our beautiful hike on Hallasan, the mountain that dominates Jejudo.  We chose a course that took about 5 hours, but next time I want to summit!  That would take more like 8 hours.

Of course, we ate lots of yummies.  Our first night we had an amazing and inexpensive barbeque feast.

Jejudo is known for its tangerines.

Cuttlefish bread on a stick?  Don’t mind if I do.

Tom wanted 수제비, a soup with pieces of rice dough, so we found this little hole-in-the-wall one-woman-does-it-all restaurant.

What are these?  

I’ll ask my mom.

Sea squirts!  Tom almost embarrassed himself by asking the restaurateur if it was a peanut.  They were definitely weird and I won’t be seeking them out to try again…

We walked along the beautiful coastline next to our lodging before heading to the airport to go back to the mainland.

I hope we will be back!

We returned to Cleveland for Thanksgiving this year.  It was overall much easier with a 3 year old than a 1 year old!  Thank goodness, because as lovely as all the relatives and festivities were two years ago, it was sooo tiring for me because the baby was incredibly clingy and also not sleeping very well.

This time, Maia especially enjoyed playing with her cousin Sofia.

These are not the best photos, but how cool is this family tree?  Even Maia is on it!

I don’t have any pics from the main event, but once again there were lots of people, maybe 50 or so, and so much yummy food.

We visited the very cool Children’s Museum, and also a fun holiday event at Farmpark.

We stayed a few days in Daegu where my grandmother lives.  We visited the new Shinsegae department store and checked out their (free!) play area.  Maia enjoyed herself so much, we went back two more times!

She insisted these were bunnies and just adored them.

Maia exercises at the playground of the apartment complex.

Grace and I hiked Apsan one afternoon.  It was challenging but so pretty.  There were two beautiful temples along the way and a cave.  We got a little lost at one point and had to backtrack, and also we chose a trail that I thought was a loop but part of it was missing.  We found a rope that helped us climb over some boulders to reach the trail to the summit.  We watched the sunset and caught a cable car down.  Thumbs up, would do again!