Aloha! Welcome to Kim Family Life!

About Us

Thanks for stopping by! This blog has actually been through MULTIPLE rebirths – unfortunately, in the beginning, I didn’t think about backing up our stories so when we neglected to blog, or changed the website, or moved platforms, the previous blogs disappeared too. Oh well, live and learn. It wasn’t until we realized how fast the kids were growing up and how much we’ve changed as well, that we decided to buckle down and build our blog and YouTube channel. It’s always a work-in-progress, but I’m getting too old to keep changing it around (LOL). So what we put out there is who we are and I’m really not planning on hopping around platforms or anything anytime soon!  Thank you to our family and friends for always supporting us – even when we do something bizarre like leave Hawaii to move to Korea! Ha. For all our new friends, we look forward to getting to know you, and thank you so much for visiting our site and watching our channel.

Much love and aloha, 

Lym and Faith

Our Story

Lym(sung) is originally from Korea and I’m from Hawaii. We ended up meeting in Minnesota after moving to St. Paul to attend Macalester College. We went to college, got our first jobs, bought our first home, and had three of our kids in St. Paul-Minneapolis. And after we had our third child, we started thinking more seriously about moving closer to family. For us, that meant either moving to Hawaii (or at least the west coast) or moving directly to Korea. We were actually leaning to Korea but, in 2012, we found out that my Grandpa had terminal cancer. To have the kids spend time with their Great-Grandpa, we decided to move to Hawaii for a few years but actually ended up staying for almost 7 years.

The move to Korea came as sort of a “now-or-never” kind of moment. It wasn’t exactly an ultimatum, we could always visit or move later – especially if we decided to home school – but if we wanted to send the kids to public school we felt like we had to do it soon or it would be too difficult for Namhoon once he started high school. 

So here we are in Korea, living in an apartment complex near Lym’s parents. We moved right before Covid really hit South Korea so it hasn’t exactly been what we were expecting but we feel really fortunate to be here and to share our journey with you. 💗

Meet the Kims

Let’s get to know each other better!

Lym Sung

Dad

I was born and raised in Seoul, South Korea. I moved to Minnesota in 1996 to go to college and eventually met Faith. We’ve been together ever since. I’m usually the videographer/photographer of the family. Also, since moving to Korea, I’ve also become the family translator until everyone else learns Korean (ha.) Thanks for being a part of our journey!

Faith

Mom

I was born and raised in Oahu, Hawaii…mostly. I also lived in East Lansing, Michigan as a young child. The memories of living in Michigan actually gave me the confidence to choose Minnesota for college many years later! Growing up in Hawaii was fun and pretty safe – at the time, Oahu wasn’t as crowded or congested. But living on an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean does has some disadvantages. For me, it was the cost of living and the cost of leaving (traveling).  Even as a child, I never wanted to get “stuck” on the islands, and because of this, we chose to raise our kids in Minnesota for a while and we always hoped to live either in Korea or somewhere outside of the US (at least once). Even though 2020 wasn’t at all what we expected, I’m still happy we’ve been able to experience this journey together as a family.

Namhoon

Kimlet 1

Hi, I’m Namhoon. I’m 14-years-old and recently moved to a new country – Korea. It’s a weird experience since I can’t speak the language well at the moment but I am able to understand a few things while reading or listening to my friends. The main thing I’ve been doing besides studying Korean is playing games, I really like playing games and thought it would be interesting to create my own, I also thought about being a virtual reality developer as a possible idea in the future. When I’m able to, I create videos and upload them. I make videos because I think it’s pretty fun, seeing how something you record can change so much. These are a few things about me and if we ever meet in the future say hi!

My YouTube channel is Phantom Fire

Bohoon

Kimlet 2

Hello. My name is Bohoon. My dream is to be a well-known YouTuber. My hobbies are playing games like Minecraft and Puyo Puyo. I also play soccer with a soccer club in Cheonan. When we moved to Korea, I started Korean school in 6th grade even though I was already in 6th grade in the states. I hope everyone has a great time!

My YouTube channel is Awesome Crazy Boy

Esme

Kimlet 3

Hi, I’m Esme but my middle name is Jiyoon so, in Korea, I go by that. I like soccer (I play soccer in a boys soccer club here), my favorite food is 삼겹살 (Korean pork belly),  and I like to game. I was born in Minnesota but spent most of my life in Hawaii – now I’m learning Korean in Korea. I am the only girl out of the kids.

My YouTube channel is Electric Sparkle😊

Sunghoon

Kimlet 4

Hi, my name is Sunghoon Kim. I love playing Roblox and Among Us with my sister and brothers. I also like watching cartoons in Korean even though I don’t know a lot of Korean yet. I don’t like spicy food so sometimes it’s hard to find food I like in Korea – I miss mac and cheese because they don’t have any here.

My YouTube channel is Kimtastic

Thanks for stopping by!

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