I thought I had a system for keeping track of the 14,000 passwords I need to keep my life humming along, but somewhere along the line Google thinks I changed it and they insist on sending my password information to my old e-mail address that no longer exists. I seriously have spent at least 2 hours clicking on a million different links that claim they will help me, but really, they don't mean it. The whole process of trying to figure out a forgotten password can be so frustrating that it ranks up there with trying to teach the grammar rules of quotation marks to fourth graders.
As you can tell, I gave up on my old blog and I'm starting fresh...too bad I can't give up on the grammar teaching!
We've been keeping busy lately with bringing Jacob to ice skating lessons on Monday nights; dinner at the Ellisons for American Idol night on Tuesdays; TeamKid on Wednesdays; Life group on Fridays; and hanging out with Peter, Paula, and Michael on many weekends! My brother, Pete, and his family have been frequent guests at the "Rose Inn" because they have found a cool church they like in northern Minneapolis. We went with them today to "Hip Hop Sunday." I got "down with my jiggy self and busted a rap." My favorite line from one of the raps was, "He made me to be beautiful, but I pushed Him back like a cuticle." We probably won't steal any of their material to use at Grace, but it was truly cool to see such a vibrant, multi-cultural, young congregation worshiping in a way that allowed them to express themselves in a way that was authentic to who they are.
How is the adoption going, you ask? If the timeline holds true, we still have about 10-14 months to wait for a referral, but that means that our baby girl is probably in existance in a Korean woman's belly right now. That's cool... :) We recently had our fingerprints done as a part of the process to get the okay from the US government to adopt internationally. The last time we talked about the baby with Jacob, he said he wanted to name her Jill. We told him not to get too attached to that name (no offense, Jill).
Today I learned a little bit about the language of our daughter's birth country:
"Koreans are primarily one ethnic family and speak one language. Sharing distinct physical characteristics, they are believed to be descendants of several Mongol tribes that migrated onto the Korean Peninsula from Central Asia. All Koreans speak and write the same language, which has been a decisive factor in forging their strong national identity. Koreans have developed several different dialects in addition to the standard used in Seoul. However, the dialects, except for that of Jejudo (Province), are similar enough for native speakers to understand without any major difficulties. Hangeul (the Korean alphabet), which consists of 10 vowels and 14 consonants, can be combined to form numerous syllabic groupings. It is simple, yet systematic and comprehensive, and is considered one of the most scientific writing systems in the world. Hangeul is easy to learn and write, which has greatly contributed to Korea's high literacy rate and advanced publication industry." Here are a few examples of words:
나무 (na-mu) "tree"
사람 (sa-ram) "man"
손님 (son-nim) "guest"
나무 (na-mu) "tree"
사람 (sa-ram) "man"
손님 (son-nim) "guest"
Check out this quick video of Jacob on skates!
