My sweetie got me a lifetime of xanga premium!  eek~ now I have to update more often and I have to figure out how to use this thing!

These pics always make me laugh!  He doesn’t have a drinking prob~ he just likes to pose for the camera! 

I need to save at least $5,000 for airplane tickets for my grandparents and my mom’s aunt!  I didn’t know that tickets from Korea to the U.S. are so much more expensive than tickets from the U.S. to Korea!  It is all worth it though…so I can show my appreciation to these wonderful people who raised me when I was little.  

My mom’s parents used to live on top of this big hill in Kwangju in the Big House along with my aunt, uncle and cousins.  I used to live at the bottom of the hill with my dad’s parents while my parents were in the U.S. – just the three of us.  I guess I was always getting into trouble…sneaking off to the Big House.  There was a busy road that separated the grandparents’ houses and I was only 4 or 5 at the time so I was too afraid to cross it myself.  I’d ask a lady who sat on the side of the road selling fruit to walk me across the road.  So she’d pack up all her fruit, put the bin on top of her head, grab my hand, and end up walking me all the way to the Big House.  Of course, my grandma would feel bad so she’d buy a ton of fruit from the lady and take me in.  She’d scold me and tell me that my other grandparents would be worried and I shouldn’t be wandering around by myself but she loved having me over.  Unfortunately, my cousin and I would always get into fights…the hitting and biting kind of fights…over silly things like who got to use a certain spoon.   

I’d always end up back at the bottom of the hill at my other grandparents’ house…bored and lonely…so I’d find a way to do the whole fruit lady taking me to the Big House routine again and again.  My grandma said that one of those times she was on the second floor and happened to look out the window when she saw me in front of the house…too afraid to knock…afraid I’d get in trouble…just playing with rocks on the ground.  She said that she cried and cried…seeing how much I wanted to go inside and feeling so sad that I couldn’t be with my parents.  She tells me she still cries whenever she thinks of that day. 

For the tears and hurt they experienced for me when I was too young to know, for giving my parents the opportunity to start our new lives in the U.S., for loving me so much when my parents were away…I am so thankful to all of my grandparents!

For all the struggles my parents had to face coming to this country with absolutely nothing…for all the difficulties they experienced not knowing the language or culture…for the endless number of hardships they endured to give me the life I have today…I know I’ll never be able to fathom the depth of their sacrifices but I have my whole life to show them how thankful I am!

I’m sure you know the feeling…