Sae hae bok manhi baduseyo!

(It means: "New year happiness plentifully receive, please")

January 26th began the Year of the Ox for those that use the Lunar Calendar. In Korea they celebrate for 3-4 days with their families, honoring their ancestors and elders, and wishing each other a year of happiness.

I, Abbie, learned all this by attending the Korean Cultural Center of Iowa New Year's Celebration on January 24th. It was a wonderful event with a bit of education, a ton of delicious food, and a great chance to meet people of Korean heritage and others who have adopted from Korea. It is a wonderful culture to learn about with great respect for tradition. I tried all sorts of food (they loaded up your plate for you so you had to try some of everything...no one got out of it!), and really enjoyed the bulgogi (bbq beef) and dumplings. I'm still acquiring a taste for kimchi (pickled cabbage) and dduk gook (rice cake soup), but as I tell the kids I work with as an OT, it takes our brains 10 times to decide whether or not it likes something, so I'm not giving up yet! The rice cake soup was important to try because in the Korean tradition you must eat this dish in order to turn one year older. Everyone celebrates growing older as part of the New Year's festivities. I'm excited for Kevin to have a chance to try all these foods too, as he was unable to attend the festival due to his work schedule.

My next goal is to start to learn how to make some of these foods. We are meeting up with my good friend Alisa in MN in a few weeks and hoping to get some recipes from her. Her sister is adopted from Korea and she says they like to make Korean food throughout the year. As Alisa told me once, "I am as much Korean as she [her sister] is Norwegian." I can't wait to learn all I can from them!

We are traveling up to MN for Pre-Adoptive Classes on the 19th and 20th of February. This is our next step in the adoption process. After we go to class, we can meet with the social worker and start our home study. They say this takes about a month. Once the home study is finished and the social worker writes up the report, we send our paperwork to Korea and begin the wait for a referral. We are slowly moving forward, and getting more excited each day!