Day three in South Korea: Seoul scenery, skyline and shopping

It really doesn’t matter that we didn’t have to be anywhere this morning first thing. I was up at 5 am again anyway. This lack of sleep is going to catch up with me, I’m sure. Today we took a really long ride on the subway to the center of of the city to visit Seoul Tower, […]

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Day two in South Korea: The DMZ and the Cheong-gye-cheon

Were it not for the unparalleled kindness of strangers here, we’d have missed out on our scheduled tour of Panmunjom and the DMZ I’d scheduled weeks ago, which would have been a huge shame. Jack wrote a blog yesterday alluding to that kindness (and has since said something about Koreans being the Canadians of Asia, […]

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One day in Seoul and we’re already having food issues

At about 3 am, I woke up in a cold sweat wondering what we’d gotten ourselves into. This was after arriving in Seoul yesterday afternoon, finding our apartment (first time in an airbnb), and mustering enough energy to wander around our neighborhood to find some dinner. The cool thing about airbnb is we were able […]

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Twelve simple steps to the perfect thank you note

We returned from a trip recently to a stack of newspapers on the counter and a pile of mail, on top of which were three hand-addressed note cards for me. It felt like Christmas. Oh, the art and tradition of the hand-written note, sent by parcel post with a bona fide, first class stamp. Proof […]

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Ten Realities of Family Travel

We’re planning a family trip! Okay, I’m planning a family trip and I’m periodically keeping people updated on details, which is sometimes how we do things around here. In a couple of weeks we’re bound for a conference in Korea and taking the boys. Mike and I are currently getting mileage out terms like “Seoul Brothers,” […]

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Learning to parent with a little more chill

There are people whose mouths write checks their bodies can’t cash, whose bravado is bigger than their brawn. Who can be guaranteed to bristle at the slightest confrontation. You know ‘em. People for whom the competition is a bigger deal than the actual feat, whose entire psyche is one, big button waiting to be pushed. […]

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Ten times I overestimated my teenager

Thought he could tell time. We have a big clock in the living room. The kind with a face and Roman numerals. I guess that could be hard to read on the fly. Too bad there are also only two to three additional clocks in pretty much every room in the house. Our youngest child has apparently […]

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Nothing against turtles, really, or hobos

I recently subscribed to one of those services that delivers a box of ingredients and instructions for dinner to your door every week because: True Fact #1: Parenting gurus say if you don’t sit down to a family dinner on a regular basis your children will one day be hobos. True Fact #2: There are people around […]

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