An eventful Easter!

Well, with all the family in town, we had an eventful Easter to say the least... it was not, shall we say, a picture perfect day!

The day before we dyed some Easter eggs.  Notice that N is the only child participating in this activity.  e and Uncle T were both still down with the flu, so Grandpa and N decorated the eggs.  N did a great job and was very patient!

Easter morning we had a little egg hunt before we had to take Grandma, Grandpa, and Uncle T back to the airport.  N really got into it this year, and e was so cute carrying around the couple eggs he found.  At one point, N had all the eggs he found neatly lined up on the ottoman, sorted by color.  What a kid!

And check out those Easter Tupperware bowls.  I think the Easter Bunny might have forgotten to bring baskets to Korea... so she had work with what she had...

Then we headed to the airport to say goodbye.  But not before getting an adorable picture of e and in his Easter finest!Then the real adventures began.  When we got back into the car and turned it on, we heard an unmistakably bad sound.  E got out, popped the hood, and thought it looked like one of the belts was loose.  Now, bear in mind it's Easter Sunday, and our plans did not include going home for several more hours.  We were headed to the Dragon Hill for Easter brunch, then back to the airport several hours later to pick up Aunt EJ and Uncle E.  Also, keep in mind that Seoul is a gigantic city, so this involved lots of driving in a now really bad sounding van.  

So we limped the van to the Dragon Hill for brunch, but when I went to get e out of his car seat, I discovered problem number two of the day.  His diaper had exploded on the ride across town.  And was Mom smart enough to bring spare clothes even though he was just getting over the stomach flu?  Nope.  So I very ungracefully changed him in the bathroom and washed out his pants as best I could before we ate.  At this point I was hoping to take a nice family photo of everyone all dressed up, but oddly enough, that didn't happen.

But we had a nice lunch none the less, until I picked up e to leave.  Yup, you guessed it.  His diaper had exploded, again!  Argh!  At this point the pants were unsalvageable, so we had to make a trip to the BX.  Luckily, Easter outfits are on sale on Easter afternoon!  So, problem number two was dealt with... back to the van.  

While in the BX I got directions to the auto hobby shop.  Let me tell you, the guy I asked gave me a funny look when I said I need to get to the auto hobby shop on Easter, in my good clothes, holding a new Easter outfit for my kid.  Ah the joy.  Anyway, we found it.  And there were actually mechanics working!

Hold on tight while I break out my best car lingo... apparently the AC compressor was on it's way out, which didn't seem like a big deal to me because it was March and quite rainy chilly, so I didn't see any need for air conditioning.  However, the belt around the AC compressor also went around the alternator, and I am smart enough to know we needed that.  So eventually the compressor was going to seize up, melt the belt, an then the alternator would stop spinning.  Great.  The guy said he didn't have the parts, and that the car was not safe to drive, and he seemed to look at us like we'd lost it when we said we had to drive to the airport and then back home.  Not good.  Since at this point, it was becoming evident I was not going to get that perfect family photo, I snapped this one of the boys while the mechanics were looking at the car.

Then E broke out his mechanical engineering degree and noticed that there was a way to reroute a different belt to bypass the AC compressor, so there would be no AC, but the alternator would spin and the car would be safe to drive.  Always a bonus.  The mechanic said it would work if he had the right sized belt.  After several minutes of looking, he found it!  I have never been so excited to see a belt in my life.  We really couldn't figure out what we were going to do.  Here is a photo of E and N along with our "minivan car" as N calls it, being fixed.  He was very curious as to why it was up in the air!

After this adventure we returned to the airport to pick up Aunt EJ and Uncle E, who we were very happy to see after such a long day.  Happy Easter!