One More Day

I'm writing this Friday night, so we have one more full day before we make the trek home. We're not sure how we're going to spend the last day. We've been trying to balance everything for Simon. He's had a lot of "business" to put up with, and we want him to see some of the "sites", but lets be honest 5 year old don't care about that. We want him to just plain have fun also, which to him means swimming in the pool and other things. I think we've struck a pretty good balance so far. I also think returning home and to the real world may be a little bit of a transition for him. But seriously I can't say enough about how well he has handled everything we've been through this week. He was delirious with exhaustion tonight and so funny we kept videoing him. It will definitely make an appearance at a graduation down the road.

Yesterday we had our court appearance, our main reason for being here. I don't know if I've been in denial of everything about this trip but I hardly let myself think about it. Mostly because it made me nervous to think anything could go wrong. We had been assured plenty of times that if there was anything concerning about our case we'd already know, but we had the "new" judge and really nothing to go off of. Sooooo, I basically did not sleep the night before. Like up at 2am for good. Awesome. We had set our alarm for 6 because we needed to be at our agency by 8:30 for the drive to the court house for our 10:10 appt. There were 10 families in all that had court times with us, and we'd met some of the the day before. 4 of the 10 families had another child with so Simon had some company and apparently I'm the only freak that thinks they should bring a bunch of toys or entertainment with. Simon got along really well with the other kids and I was so proud of how he shared his toys during the several hours we spent together. First he shared them at the agency and then again at the court house. He actually remembered that one girl like his decepticon from the morning and when seeing her looking a little worn out on her mom's lap later went and got his decepticon and took it to her. Her mother looked at me with wide eyes and mouthed "So sweet". Um yes. He might of received a million kisses from me after that.

We were the second family to go, which meant no information from previous families about what to expect but that also we could get it out of the way. We were happy to get it out of the way. It honestly lasted about 5 minutes, we answered about 4 questions that had already been answered in our home study and that was it. I'm hoping that means there are no concerns. We wait to hear about preliminary approval now and then there is a 14 day waiting period and after that the judge needs to give us final approval. Because she is new we do not have a good idea of how long she is taking to make these steps. I should hopefully return in 1-2 months and get Archie home before his 3rd birthday.

Simon and I had both not had enough sleep the night before so by the time we were back to our hotel we were both in a bit of a meltdown. We took a nap and Steve woke us up at 5:30:) It was REALLY hard waking up, but we finally decided to head to the pool for a bit and then we walked the streets near our hotel for some shopping and food. I may have accidentally eaten pigs feet and every time I think of it I throw up a bit in my mouth. The street food around here is great, if you know what you are getting. I've had some hit and miss luck but Steve and Simon are doing better. After the pigs feet we decided to sit down at this pub looking place and after looking at the menu forever and saying we shouldn't get the nachos because I knew it wouldn't be good I finally just said nachos because I had no idea what the Korean dishes were. BIG MISTAKE. We received chips with squeeze cheese on top, tomatoes and raisins. Why in the world would you put raisins on nachos? And the chips were stale since obviously everyone else knew not to get the nachos. It was terrible. Tonight I grabbed some things and I specifically said, "Chicken?" and the guy said "Chicken" with a nod. It was octopus. Which whatever, I'm the one not speaking the language. But we had fun walking around the neighborhood and doing a little shopping. Simon picked out a Korean version of a Lego Batman figurine which may be the death of Steve. The pieces are microscopic.

This morning I slept until 4:30 which felt quite refreshing since it was a solid 6.5 hours of sleep in a row. But still it's a long time to lay awake before starting the day. Simon was up at 5:50 and ready to party. He has been sleeping in the cot we brought him by our bed with the agreement that when he wakes up he can climb into bed with us to sleep a little longer. It was working well when he was waking at 2, and awake for 1-2 hours and he sleeping again until 7 but now that he's sleeping straight through until 5 its a little more difficult.  This morning he climbed into bed with me and after a few moments said, "It's going to be so fun when my brother is home." Agreed buddy.

Today we had made plans to go to Lotte World, which is an indoor amusement park. I think its the biggest in the world or something. We had originally thought it would be a good day because it was supposed to rain, but since we've been here the rain has kept pushing out and instead it was like a hundred degrees. And the humidity here is no joke, so regardless it was a good day to be inside even though things aren't really as air conditioned as we are used to. LW opened at 9:30 and we were there right away which was awesome because no one else was. We stayed a good 7-8 hours and it was busy when we left but there weren't really lines anywhere we went. Simon was in a tough spot where he is just below the cut off of height to try a bunch more rides (105 out of 110cm) but he didn't seem to care. There was still plenty to do and today beat out his previous favorite Korea trip event which was Korean BBQ. He really liked a boat ride that was frankly kind of creepy, a ride that sorta drops you down (that I had to bride him to try) and then a play area that had this really cool room where you could blast foam balls all over. I love big thrill rides, and Steve and Simon decided they would watch me try one since the slow moving pretend hot air balloon rides were boring me to death but then my heart about stopped on the ride I went on and I got over that. Dear Lord. I just looked up the stats and It is a 70 meter drop at 100 mph. I actually got a little nervous in line and started to think I may be crazy but I figured I shouldn't chicken out. I think Simon may have been a little scared for me because he didn't look so thrilled that I was doing it. Steve took a few pictures and is face during it all was quite priceless as well. UGH. It was SO SCARY. We started free falling and I almost immediately had to close my eyes (the view before that of Seoul was great though) and I seriously was like OMG WHEN AM I GOING TO STOP FALLING and right before I thought I may cry we finally started to slow down. I'm glad I did it because I do enjoy that type of ride but it really was on the edge of my comfort one.

We are home now and it's 9:15 and I can barely keep my eyes open and Steve and Simon are already in bed. We'll see what tomorrow brings. I'll post some random pics of our last couple days here.