Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

In our grand tradition, we went to Seoul for Christmas this year.  Well, the weekend before Christmas.  Besides enjoying the Mexican food and cute decorations the Dragon Hill lodge has to offer, we went to Seoul to visit the Coex aquarium.  As an added bonus, said aquarium is in Gangnam-gu.  Since Gangnam Style is a global sensation, we thought it only appropriate that we visit.  We found a disappointingly vanilla looking area.  The aquarium had some neat exhibits, but man was it crowded.  Xander enjoyed the first few tanks of fish, then turned all of his attention to the people around him.  Bobby and I liked the undersea tunnel the best, but the sharks made Xander a little nervous.

Christmas was a blast.  Xander loved his new toys, and we had a nice dinner with Jin.

This was at the train station

all is loot laid out on Christmas Eve.  We may have overdone it

Are these for me?

Wait, dad, I can do it!

Christmas cake!

Parental cons

Xander's mac and cheese always has vegetables in it.  So do his grilled cheese sandwiches.  He happliy eats them, unaware of how I have altered a time honored kiddie food.  He has been watching his daddy drink Mountain Dew from a can for awhile now, and he finally started demanding to hold the can.  We filled an empty can with water, and he happily sips from it, going "aaah" when he finishes, just like his daddy.  It's really stinkin' cute.  We're wondering how long we can lead him along like this, convincing him that water is soda and all food has vegetables in it.  One day, he's going to go to a friend's house and realize that his parents have been conning him all these years.

Baby in the Snow!

That's right, it snowed!  It's supposed to be a harsh winter here, so I guess we'll get tired of it eventually.  In the meantime, I'm enjoying the sight of Christmas lights against a snowy background.  I don't think I've ever seen that before.

So of course we had to take Xander out for some exploring.  He was intrigued by the snow, but not pleased when it touched his bare skin.

In other news, I was rear ended.  That would be wreck #2 in the past year, neither of which was remotely my fault.  This time, the other driver preferred to deal without insurance, which was fine with us.  We ended up with some cash which we may or may not use to replace our bumper.  Sometimes I feel like a hardass requiring the baby to always be in a car seat, especially when we are stalling a cabbie while Xander screams and fights to avoid being strapped in.  Incidents like these reaffirm my resolve.  Koreans are notoriously bad drivers.

On the mountain

I'm not sure how I feel about this