New friends

So excited!

On Saturday we attended a Chusok celebration held by Families Through Korean Adoption-Madison. I've searched and asked, but have yet to find an adoption group here in Milwaukee, so it was awesome to meet other families like ours.

This was such an awesome event. There were beautiful children running around everywhere, many wearing hanboks. Everywhere we looked there were kids! Giggling, eating, laughing. It was hard not to just stare open mouthed and we couldn't stop smiling.

There was lots of great Korean food too. The wonderful women from the women's group at the Korean Presbyterian Church prepared it. I wanted to hang out in the kitchen and pick up a few cooking tips, but there was too much excitement happening outside of the kitchen. The sweet pumpkin soup (Ho-bak-jook) (호박죽) was our favorite, and the salad mixed with hot and sweet pine dressing (Jat-nang-chae) (잣냉채) was second best. There was some spectacular Korean noodles with beef and vegetables (Jap-chae) (잡채) which looked amazing. We didn't try it since we are both veg but I'm going to hunt for a vegetarian recipe and try making at home.

We also loved the performance by the UW Korean Drumming Group Ulssu. The performers were amazing percussionists and it was a blast to watch the kids shimmy and shake to the beats. (I've tried several times to post a short video clip, but Blogger isn't cooperating. Maybe I'll try again later.)

OK...sorry for the long post, but there was one other really cool thing--meeting so many friendly and helpful adoptive parents! I got to meet several other adoption bloggers, which was really fun to put a face with the names/blogs. First was Yvonne at Our Korean American Family, who told us about the event (thanks so much!). She was there with her husband Paul and their three children. Wow! Their household must be a very exciting and busy place with three kids under 4 years of age. I can't believe Yvonne actually has time to blog, much less help organize things with FTKA.

Brad and Dena from Brad & Dena's Adoption Journey were super sweet and fun. They are a few months ahead of us in the process and also using AIAA. Dena was really helpful in sharing lots of information when we were trying to decide whether to switch agencies earlier this spring. They are awaiting a referral as well. Keeping our fingers crossed for it to come quickly.

Shawn and K-Daddy blog at Tweet Tweet. Hopefully we'll be able to meet up with them again soon. Their sweet  Ivy was content to eat her pumpkin soup before she ran off to join in the tug-of-war. Ivy is about to become a big sister! They are waiting for that travel call and hope to bring the newest addition to their family soon.

And lastly, we met Emily. I wish we had more time to get to know one another because we seem have a lot in common from what I've read on their blog. She's super energetic (she has to be to keep up with those boys) and super nice. You can meet Emily and her family at This Family Squish.

Meeting all these great people who have had the same experiences was really energizing and we left the event feeling on top of the world. We are looking forward to the next time we can join this fun and wonderful group.