Kim Family Life

Lym and I met in college – a small liberal arts school in St. Paul, Minnesota. A few years later we graduated, tried to find decent jobs, got married, bought a house and were raising one, two, and then three Kimlets when we got this itch to move out of Minnesota and closer to our families. That took some time to decide – I’m originally from Hawaii and Lym’s from South Korea, so it’s not just a few-hour drive to another state. Well, long-story-short, we moved to Hawaii in the spring 2013 and dove right into school activities, (having a baby), dance classes, gymnastics, (working full-time), and soccer, soccer, and more soccer! While we originally thought to stay in Hawaii for three to five years and then move to Korea – it took us almost SEVEN years to make the jump overseas.

We moved to Cheonan (about 90 minutes from Seoul) in January 2020. We spent the first month doing all the regular expat things – registering as resident aliens, enrolling the kids in school, and looking for activities for them to do. In addition, we were figuring out how to expand our online income (mostly affiliate and SEO-related) into something bigger and sustainable. Then suddenly – WHAM! – the Covid pandemic hit. By the end of our first full month in Korea, things were shutting down and we got stuck in limbo. Not only were we living in a pandemic, but we were also living in a foreign country (well, except Lym). We were living here but not LIVING here, you know? 

Anyhoo, here we are now, 4+ years into this expat adventure. The kids are picking up Korean, our daughter is boarding with a Korean Middle School soccer team, and our oldest ones are in Korean high school. Whoa! Time flies. 

Thank you, friends and family, for all of your support and for watching us in the next phase of our Kim Family journey. Here we go!