UW vs. Ohio State

photo by Jeff Miller

After a day of the Indian Trail Run and celebrating Chusok, Justin and I dropped the kids off at Brian and Sarah's and headed to watch the UW vs. Ohio State game from the AT&T suite. Ohio State was slotted #1 and expected to beat #18 UW. What a game!!!

Chusok celebration

Chusok, the Harvest Moon Festival, is one of the three biggest holidays in Korea. It is celebrated on the fifteenth day of the eighth lunar month, which usually falls in September or October. Chusok is a time for families to give thanks for the year's harvest.

We celebrated Chusok with our Korean Adoption Group. The event was held at the Korean Presbyterian church on the west side. We look forward to our events with the group and the delicious Korean food prepared fresh by the Women's group at the Korean church. We enjoyed food such as Sweet Pumpkin soup, Chop Chae, Mandu (Korean dumplings), Sweet and hot salad with pinenuts, and two different kinds of rice cakes.

The buffet of Korean food

When families arrived, the children were able to make Korean flat fans or learn how to write Chusok in Korean.

Korean fan making

We all enjoyed the special entertainment by the Ulssu Korean drumming group. The kids were dancing and clapping to the music.

Ulssu Korean drumming group

Indian Trail Run

We headed out early for a beautiful morning at Justin's Indian Trail 12K race. The race started with kids races of a 100m dash and 1000m race. Ian chose to do the 100m dash and Ben and Cami opted for the 1000m race. All of them finished their races and were awarded medals. The kids were VERY proud of their medals, which was a piece of hardened clay with a leaf stamped on it. They were most excited about being able to paint their medals while we waited for daddy to finish his race.

Justin finished 7th overall in the 12K. He finished 2nd in his age group and was awarded an Ice Age Trail coffee mug. We stayed around for the raffle, where he won a 1 year membership to the Ice Age Trail Alliance. We had a fun morning being outside at this beautiful sunshine filled park. We were sad that Justin's mom and dad were unable to join us due to his dad being sick. We are praying for a quick return to health for him and hopefully an opportunity to visit them soon.

This was the start of our busy Saturday morning. We are heading off to our Korean Adoption Group's Chusok celebration then off to the UW vs. Ohio State football game. The kids will be spending the evening with the Hackmans while Justin and I enjoy an evening out watching the game from the AT&T suite.

Jerry's Apple Orchard

Ian is proud of his caterpillar

Ian posing with the pumpkins and gourds

Today I headed out with Chloe, Ben H, Mimi, and Ian to go to the Pumpkin farm. I decided to try somewhere new. We headed out and followed the signs 10 miles from our house down Hwy TT. The pumpkin farm was just that...a farm with pumpkins. I had thought with all the great signs they had up everywhere that they would offer a little more than just pumpkins. We walked around and looked at the pumpkins, took a few pictures then headed back to the van. We headed to a place off of TT and Hwy N called Jerry's Apple Orchard. We went there late in the season last year and enjoyed looking at the animals. The kids enjoyed playing in the wagon, looking at the animals, and checking out the apples. We enjoyed our morning out and picked up a few treats for the afternoon, including caramel apples!

Mommy check out the donkey. Her name is Suzy.

Look at the bunnies

Ian loved playing with the wagons.

Ian is proud to show off his caterpillar

James 1:2-4

What a great reminder of the parent that we should all strive to be, not one who shields their child from pain, but one that helps them with it.

I received an email from MOPS today with this message...

Tough Love

By Jen Hatmaker, author of MOPS devotional "Out of the Spin Cycle"

Caleb, my eight-year-old, came home from a tackle football scrimmage last week and reported his grievances right away:“Mom! The boys on the other team kept hurting me, but it was all in secret so they never got a foul! I told Dad, but he said football was for getting hurt, then sucking it up.”

"More than anything,
I want my children
to become mature in Christ"

Sounds harsh right? But maybe not so much if you know where we’re coming from on this. I don’t know if this is inspired parenting or not, but the hubs and I decided early on not to raise – ¿cómo se dice – whiners. After ten years in student ministry, we’ve seen plenty of overindulged kids who believe the world should revolve around their agendas and bend over backwards to protect their happiness. Likewise, we’ve counseled kids whose parents cushioned every blow, fought every battle, and paid for every mistake their kids made, so when they encountered trials as college students or young adults, they were incapable of handling stress or conflict in a remotely healthy way.

Instead, we’re seeking to raise our children under the instruction of James 1: 2-4: “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” More than anything, I want my children to become mature in Christ, but rescuing and coddling them through every small struggle ensures that they’ll never develop perseverance for the big ones that will come later. And I know that isn’t inspired parenting.

Busy Weekend

In our tradition of filling our weekends, we put our time and sanity to the test as we headed up to the Wilderness in Wisconsin Dells with our friends, the Glassfords. We headed up on Friday after stopping at A&W for some dinner. We played in the waterpark until late and got a good nights sleep. On Saturday, Justin and the kids headed to the water park while I enjoyed a morning to sleep in until 9 (yes a luxury!). We relaxed for a while then Justin and Cami headed to the play area while Ian napped, Ben watched Animal Planet, and mom got to read 3 chapters in my book (yes, another luxury). After lunch, we headed back to Madison to attend a friend's retirement party. Mstr. Sgt. Roger Elliott is retiring from the Air Force after 21 years of service. The kids had a fun time playing with Sean and Chloe, while Justin and I chatted. After the party, we headed back to Wisconsin Dells. Another night of playing and time at the play area, then heading to our room so the kids could have snacks and watch Scooby Doo.

Sunday we left a little after 8am to head back to Madison to church. We took a different route so we could surprise the kids with a ferry ride in Merrimac. They got a kick out of going across the water. We made it to church a few minutes late. We were happy to see our friends, Casey and Debbie and their 3 kids joining us for church. They use to be members until they moved to Appleton 2 years ago. We enjoyed a nice brunch at Perkins after church, giving us a chance to catch up. After an hour back at home, our friend Marcia came to babysit so Justin and I could have a few hours out. We met up with Chris and Jim. We enjoyed a quick trip to Costco and then off to see the movie The A-Team.

The weekend flew and now we dive right into the week. Another busy week of school, a quick visit from Mike, swim class, piano, and a spine stabilization class for Dana. This week will fly by, but hopefully we will get some good family time in.

Self Portraits

Our sassy and silly little boy