Jin Family

After leaving the Smoky Mountains, we headed to Mammoth Cave National Park, which I had never heard of before. Part 5 Summary: Only some of us think caves are cool, stargazing is awesome. At the entrance to the cave. Since it's an enclosed space

Last post about the Smoky Mountains part of our trip! Part 4 Summary: Slow vacations are the best. Overall, we LOVED this part of the trip. It was so restful to stay somewhere for so many days and being able to cook and eat

Part 3 Summary: The fall is definitely a better time to see the crowded parts of the Smokies; seeing early pioneer buildings makes history much more interesting. Kids (and adults) apparently love watching water mills.Well, one of the most popular things to do

Summary of Part 2: We love waterfalls! M is a serious hiker. At Laurel Falls (my favorite hike)We spent our second day in the Smokies doing waterfall hikes, which we all thoroughly enjoyed. The first hike was to Laurel Falls and it was

Summary of Part 1: Clingman's Dome is not worth doing; I've never really seen a forest in the fall. At the top of Clingman's DomeWell, after an adjustment to G's meds in October brought him a lot closer to being potty trained (but not

Well, I have done a terrible job of keeping up with blog posts in 2020, and it seems like the further we got in the year, the worse I got. Art night to teach the concept of overlapping. It was really easy!So, before

The kids had their first Halloween in the States that they can remember, and let's just say that they're fans. The kids in their costumes. Can you tell who they are before you read it in the next paragraph?We dress up and go

I mean, I've lived almost my whole life on the Gulf Coast, so I know what "fall" is like here. But after having lived in a place with four seasons for a few years, it really feels like I'm getting ripped off

You know, back in the day I decided I didn't want to be a full-time home school mom. And now that I am one involuntarily, it turns out that I definitely don't want to be one! Watercolors!I mean, okay I'm not miserable or

Turns out I still don't like the beach very much. But the kids have had a change of heart. We didn't bring G's life jacket down from H's parents, so we had to make do with arm floaties. I didn't even know they still

After staying apart for so long because of the virus, we felt like it was probably safe enough to drive up and spend some time with H's parents. I think everyone enjoyed the trip! Turns out E didn't really need the life jacket. But

With all this time in the States, one of the biggest changes to our day to day schedules is all the extra reading! E reads to EVERYONEOf course, there are lots of other changes too, but this one is more interesting for being less

The kids got invited by my sister's in-laws to come see the baby cow on their small farm. It had only been born about 24 hours before! G was shocked that the milk in his cup is the same as the milk the calf

We usually skip our regular monthly family art night when we're in the States because it's too hard to find time and supplies to do it, and also random kid crafts happen here. Which actually I can't really figure out why that is. That

I can hardly believe the little boy is getting so big... E and I had a coffee date in the park (it's decaf)If we had gone back home when we thought we would, I had already decided to start teaching G to read

One question we get A LOT is: What's going on with the girls' schools? The girls have discovered Grandma's jewelry boxWell, the short answer is that M's school started several months ago and she's the only one not there. They've made some changes to

Well, we're still just trucking. But we had a very exciting weekend that I have to tell you about. Picnic!The exciting thing wasn't Mothers' Day. Mothers' Day did happen last weekend, and it's the first time in a long time that we got

I mean, nobody just expects a global pandemic except maybe public health policy makers. But man, I just never thought we'd be here this long. Trying to still have game nightsWe're still just trucking along, doing our home school and now making sure M

This is our first time to spend Easter in the States since we moved four years ago. It was kind of a funny Easter, what with the shelter-at-home thing and all, but it was nice to get to spend the day with family! The

Then after two and half weeks or so of quarantining with our friends, we decided to move to Honey and Pops's place. We figured since we're clearly going to be here for the foreseeable short-term future, we may as well spend some time with

We were a bit surprised when we got back from Louisiana and found that the world was a different place. There were no mandatory restrictions yet but our hosts wanted to be more cautious because of their grandparents (wise choice) and since social distancing

We made a trip to Louisiana last week, which was just what I needed! It's so peaceful out there on the old farm and I love reconnecting with my past. My uncle planted fruit trees that are just starting to bloom!Because of G's

A bonus of our trip into Baton Rouge to see my grandma is that we had just a tiny bit of time on our way out, so we stopped by an old plantation! We're always rushed seeing people when we're in Louisiana, and actually

Since we haven't left yet, we got to go see the Sleeping Beauty ballet! I had looked up the performance schedule before we came here, and was devastated to see that Sleeping Beauty (the girls' second favorite ballet, after the Nutcracker) was scheduled for

Of course, it wasn't G's first birthday in the sense that he turned one. But it was his first birthday in our family! Which means it's the first time there has been a big party with presents involved. Look at my beautiful cake (shout