Double Digits

Today we celebrated Robert's 10th birthday.  Well, actually, we started celebrating it yesterday.  Elysabeth started this tradition by extending her birthday celebrations for up to an entire week.  Yesterday's festivities included a trip to the theater to see the new Hobbit movie.  We originally planned to see Wreck It Ralph.  That didn't work since American children's movies in Korea are dubbed rather than using subtitles.  Young kids can't read subtitles.  The kid's Korean isn't yet good enough to follow the dubbing.  So we elected to see The Hobbit: Unexpected Journey instead.  Since it isn't a kid's movie, there is no dubbing.  Subtitles aren't a problem since you hear the English dialogue clearly and hardly notice the subtitles at the bottom of the screen.  Mary didn't want to go because her earlier movie experience with The Lord of the Rings was scary.  With some coaxing, she agreed reluctantly to be see this movie.  I made a point of watching her from time to time during the show.  She was as absorbed as the boys.  The boys were exuberant afterwards and Mary allowed that is wasn't the worst movie she had ever seen.  If it matters, Susan and I both thoroughly enjoyed it.  It will be a blockbuster here in Korea.  The local 8 screen multiplex theater devoted 5 of its screens to this movie.  After sharing a tub of popcorn flavored like cracker jacks (do they do this in the US?) during the move, we set off for McDonald's for some dinner.  The kids ordered Chicken McNuggets and Susan slipped across the street for some kimbap (Korean burrito with rice and vegetables.)  Dad settled for a Big Mac set (set is the Korean term for a combination.)  Today we continued the birthday celebration with home made french dip sandwiches, home made birthday cake (delicious, but no threat to Jeannie Scott's wonderful creations) and opening his present (a remote control toy helicopter) and a surprise extra present of a BB gun from one of his buddies in the faculty housing.  The helicopter has been flying around our apartment for much of the evening.  Robert's had 5 pieces of his birthday cake, and the BB gun will wait until tomorrow for play in the woods.  Susan will rehearse her "don't shoot your eyes out" speech tonight to have it ready for the morning.  In the midst of all this celebrating, we managed to slip in a trip to downtown Pohong to join with others from our fellowship and another local church in singing Christmas carols for the shoppers as they walked by.  Somehow the little guy manipulated us into still another surprise birthday outing in the next week or so.  All in all, a pretty good haul for a very happy 10 year old.  Mom and Dad are pretty proud of the little guy and delighted he had a very special celebration of his special day.

Ken

Cake baked by mom, frosted and decorated by the kids!