Happy Chuseok!

Chuseok is a national Korean holiday that is celebrated every year in September. It is Korea's Thanksgiving celebration in which the people celebrate the harvest. It is also a big holiday to travel to see family, like it is here.

We recently learned that our local Korean American association has an annual Chuseok festival. This year is was held at a local high school near our house. The entire day is free, so we took advantage and went for the first of what I hope is many celebrations.

They fed everyone lunch that was prepared by some of thewomen. It was delicious and authentic. Grayson really liked it and our Asian- well he picked around the rice and ate the noodles!

After lunch there was a program. We had heard there were lots of things to see like Korean dance, taekwondo demonstrations, singing, and karaoke. What we were not told was that the program starts with speeches from the important people of the association. And everything is in Korean! Since I'm not fluent yet, I don't have a clue what was being said.

We were having a very difficult time keeping our two entertained through the speeches (even with the ipad) so we moved from our seats to standing by the wall. I really wanted to see something entertaining, so with a little bribing, lots of entertaining, and moving around, we made it to the first "act".

The kids did a great job singing Korean songs and were very cute in their hanboks. We met some other kids who had been adopted who also got dressed up in their hanboks. Didn't even think to bring those along. But, now we know for next year. We watched their short performance and then left. It will be much easier to enjoy this in the years to come when the boys are a bit older.

We did get to meet two other families from the area who had adopted. One family traveled the week after we did and is on the forum we participate on. Had no idea! We also learned that there is a Korean Academy on Saturdays that many of the kids attend. They learn some language, music, culture, etc here and can start when they are 4 yrs old. We think this would be a great thing for the boys to do together once they are old enough. We had a good time and look forward to doing more with this association. They were very welcoming and excited to see Neylan.