MudFest and More

Last week we went to MudFest (only in Korea, right?!) They bring in mineral rich mud and you're supposed to rub it all over your hair and body and apparently it's very healthy and will do wonders for these areas. Don't know if there's any truth to that or not, but we thought it would be fun to go and check it out. We are definitely glad that we can say we went and had a really good time. It definitely brings a whole new meaning to the term "muddin".

We went with some friends. That is Elaina, Ava, Aiden and Bodey. Please notice there is not a "W" in welcome....land of the not quite right!

Ahhh....MUD! Where else could you find a sign like that?

Notice that it's vanity's that they use to "paint" themselves with mud. Those oval things are mirrors. The Koreans can NEVER not look perfect. Most of the Korean girl's were even wearing heels....it's amazing.

Elaina paintint Mommy....we threw our clothes away at the hotel.

That's right....he's MINE!

Nasty, huh?! Elaina wasn't so sure about this at first (who can blame her), but she got into it after a couple times down the slide.

Aiden with the mud people.

The girl's and Hudson. Notice his leg's....even he got in on the muddin' action!

We went and played in the ocean and this is Hud sucking the juice out of a cutie...he's definitely a foodie!

Now for the "and More"

This pic was taken around the middle-end of June. I just wanted proof that Hudson plays with his feet. He doesn't do it like our other two. Just every once in a while, so it was hard to get a pic of it.

Ready, Set....

Get on your knees and ROCK! July 23 (At post time he has actually started crawling (Aug 1). Only one or two crawls (?), but I'm sure any time now it will all totally come together and our lives will be REALLY busy! Ah well...I could use the exercise!)

I can do it...I'm SOO close!

Aiden went to his first sleepover. It was so hard for me, but as you can tell he's completely ready and he was so excited. I'll be honest I was really hoping for the call saying he needed me to come get him. I was ready. I didn't go to sleep until well after 11 that night. Tyler's Mom was fbing me messages and she said around 9 that Aiden said "If I need to go home will you take me?", so I was ready to be needed, but alas my sweet little boy is growing up and I'm not as needed as I was a month ago. Oh how times they change.

We also let Elaina sleep over at our next door neighbor's house. Her name is Alayna, also. For some reason it wasn't as hard, but I think it's because she was literally 10 feet away from us and I saw her at 8 and again at 10 and we knew how close she was.

Directions for how to make pudding (a tutorial in pictures)

First you mix it up really good with a wire whisk. You also need to taste it to make sure it tastes okay.

Then you top it with whip cream.

Finally you eat it. Please note that when food tastes this good...you DON'T spit any of it out of your mouth and make a mess and you sure as heck don't let a drop go on your bib!

Happy Anniversary to US!

Our 9 year anniversary is in 2 days. Hard to believe. We sure have done a lot. If you had told me that by the time I was 31 I would have 3 kids, lived in 13 different houses, 6 states and 2 different countries I would NEVER have believed you. It sure has been one seriously FUN adventure and I can't imagine doing it with anyone else. Our anniversary present to ourselves this year was a trip to Borneo. When my Mom and Aunt were here they VERY graciously volunteered to watch the kid's, so that we could "go somewhere". Thank You! Thank You! Thank You! We are truly Blessed! Y'all are hand's down the BEST!
We first wanted to go to Bali, but P is not allowed to go there. Then we thought about Vietnam, but it's monsoon season there (it's monsoon season here, also and believe me we've had ENOUGH of that!) So, we thought Borneo. Sounds exotic and interesting and we'll never have this opportunity again. Let's do it! So, to be more specific we went to Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia on the island of Borneo.

It was a fantastic once in a lifetime opportunity. And not what we expected. We thought it would be fairly similar to Thailand. Boy were we wrong. It's got a very rain forest feel as opposed to the tropical feel of Thailand. So, here it is in pictures. The pics don't do it justice. Ecspecially because when we went out on our excursions we were too nervous to take our 'good' camera and just took our little water proof digital olympus. So, please ignore the quality.

We arrived at our hotel...so far, so good!

Mt. Kinabalu. They said we were lucky to see it so well.

Waiting out an evening rain shower at the beachside bar-we got WET!

Fresh fruit smoothies at the Phillipino Market.

mmm...nanas!

Stalls at the Phillipino Market...not much room in there.

LOVE infinity pools!

I took this from our bus (on our excursion to go to see the Proboscis monkey), so it's extra terrible quality, but those little tails you see hanging from the telephone wires are "common" monkey's. It was really neat. We have pigeons...they have moneky's.

A lot of the houses on this stretch of road were flooded. I asked our guide how often this happened and he said 4-5x a year. Can you imagine?

On our way out to get on the boat for a little monkey and bird watching/finding.

We saw A LOT of common monkey's!

And even a few Proboscis monkey's (they have big noses). They are pretty shy though, so this was the best pic we were going to get.

Reminded us of Lousiana. Just different vegetation.

Pretty sunset.

We went on an island hop/snorkeling tour and this was a mosque in a floating city. Malaysia is primarily a Muslim country although there government allows other religions. My point is that is a Mosque in the middle of the floating city.

Another shot of the floating city. Can you imagine living in one of those in a thunderstorm?

On one of the islands.

"The Bomb" This was on an island that we decided to skip the snorkeling at because there were SO many people and because we were told we could "Go on a hike and find the bomb." Well, we got all excited and got ourselves ready for what we assumed would be a nice little hike to what we thought would be a crater with some of the pieces of "the bomb" still in it. Were we wrong. It was about a 150 foot walk down a path and this is what we found. Apparently a diver found it a few years ago. We were too busy laughing to be truly disappointed and spent the rest of our time on that island just laying under a palm tree.

Muslim women going snorkeling. When in Rome, I did NOT do as the Romans do.

Coolest fish we saw while snorkeling...a puffer fish...unfortunately he never puffed.

I know it's not a great shot, but I just like the background.
Our last night in Borneo. What a great trip! So, there's just one burning question left...if this was 9 where are going for 10...that's double digits!!

Hudson's 7 months old!

Where has the time gone? I want him to stay this little forever. He started sitting up on 21 June and has recently started going up on his knees. I keep pushing him down...I'm SO not ready for him to be mobile. He is the sweetest little guy in the world. He loves his family to bits. His face just lights up when he sees one of us. He has also really started babbling and we've heard MaMa and DaDa a couple of times. We know it's just a fluke, but we still love it. He's got a super cute laugh and he loves remote controls. I used to get his big brother to crawl by putting a remote a few feet in front of him. It looks like he's going to follow suit. He is not happy if he's not being held and that can get tiring (on our arms)...he's a big boy! We just love our Hud to pieces and truly can not imagine him not being a part of our family. We were commenting the other day that we don't really remember what life was like B.H. (before Hudson). Funny how that works, huh? I also wanted to include his 6 month stats since I don't have a baby book for him yet (our poor 3rd child).

Weight: 20 lbs. 5 ounces 95%
Height: 29" 99%

He's so proud of his new skill!

Aiden is SO entertaining!

Hmmm...maybe having a big sister isn't so cool after all.

Hudson's first 4th! What a cutie pie!

Because nothing says freedom like Patriot Missiles! Gotta love Korea!

I know these are out of order. I've got a lot of blogging to do, but I wanted to put a few pics up. Look for Borneo, MeMe and Aunt Carolyn's visit and China to come soon!