A Taste of Honey

We've moved!!

2009-09-12T05:32:00.002+09:00

Hey everyone!! We've moved the blog to wordpress. Eventually we would like to grow to having a few blogs, for different parts of our lives. Wordpress is much better suited for that. So here is the new url:

http://justinandcaroline.wordpress.com/

Change your RSS feeds or subscriptions or followings or bookmarks or however you read this blog. We'll see you on the new blog!!

Cravings

2009-09-05T12:39:00.001+09:00

I gotta say, pregnancy can REALLY change your taste buds. I have been on a sweet corn kick. For some reason, that organic frozen sweet corn with a little earth balance on it is heaven. Mmm.... At least the craving is no longer ice cream!

My Takei

2009-09-05T10:45:00.002+09:00

Takei is my kitty. He follows me around everywhere. I had to take a few pictures of him today to show where he follows me. I love my kitty.

This is what I woke up to this morning (yep, his tongue is sticking out):

This is what I see when I get out of the shower:

He likes to roll around on the floor (yep, tongue out again):

I try to get on the computer, but he thinks that's cat time:

Busy, busy, busy...

2009-08-28T09:07:00.003+09:00

Oh my gosh, I know it's been a long time. I need to update everyone on what's going on, though. I've been really busy. For about 2 weeks, I was staying with some friends of ours here in Fort Collins, Sharon and Jamie. They are awesome people, and so much fun to live with!! I had the opportunity to stay longer with them, but I needed to find our own place. The sooner I could get settled in and get my cats from Charlie (my brother), the better. So I found a great 2 bedroom place on the NW side of town. It is bright, sunny, and has a great feel to it. I am loving it already. The past two weekends were spent moving stuff out of storage and into the new place. The weekend before last was also New West Fest in Old Town. That was so much fun. Lots of good music, food, and vendors. The belly dancers were mesmerizing.

So now everything is moved in and mostly unpacked. Every day I get closer to having it the way I want it. I have been working at my previous job in the preschool. I'm spending every morning (4 days a week) cooking for 60 kiddos. It is a good job. I am riding my bike to and from work, about 5 miles round trip. I don't do it all week, because my boss is great about letting me borrow a van if I need to.

I found a great midwife. She is an apprentice for another midwife, so we actually get two midwives at the birth. They have an assistant as well, Lia. Lia is taking a course to become a Labor Doula, and our birth will be one of her certification births. My last appointment with Kim (the midwife), Lia and Lynette (the second midwife) were there. It was great to have all of them together. Kim also has a portable jacuzzi that we will be renting from her for our waterbirth. I'm so excited for that!!

So other than biking and working and going to appointments (midwife, chiropractor, dentist, etc.), I've been just trying to relax and take it easy. Lots of warm baths and reading. Just got internet set up a few days ago, so I've been catching up on emails and talking to people.

The baby is VERY active still. He doesn't have enough room to get a good kick in, but he stretches a lot. Both the midwife and the chiropractor say he is in the perfect position. I really think that the Hypnobirthing visualizations and affirmations helped, as well as stretches from spinningbabies.com.

I am so grateful to have such wonderful friends. They have done so much for me in the past month. So everyone who has helped me move, let me crash with them, and given me support, THANK YOU.

A good friend of mine, lisa, and her beautiful dog Clementine are on their way to my door right now to stay the night. I think I will go prepare for them!! Take a look at our flickr for some pics of the new place (still a little rough though).

The weekend so far.

2009-08-01T22:12:00.001+09:00

I went to Tim's promotion breakfast Friday. It was pretty cool but I felt really out of place. I was just about the only one there not in uniform and I was the only civilian. I know this because Tim knows this. Tim also happens to know that a few of the higher ranking people were extremely concered about my earrings. My earrings are slightly gauged you see. 14 or 16 gauge, I think. They were trying to figure out whose outfit I was in. :P Pretty funny to me. I knew it was going to happen eventually. I'm surprised something like it hasn't happened sooner in fact. I keep wondering when some officer is gonna come up to me and give me crap about not having shaved or some such. It was a good time. Afterwards, I hung out with Tim and our friend Mike. Good times. Today I also hung out with Tim and roleplayed. Much fun was had. Afterwards, we went to Sunghye's and she made some dinner for us. Very delicious Kimbap. Kimbap is kind of like sushi but sometimes they use ham and various other things you would never see in Japanese sushi. Generally good though. We watched "The Rocker." Fun movie. Pretty predictable but a good time for sure. It has Rainn Wilson in it. He plays Dwight on the office if you didn't know. Hilarious actor. Check it out if you get the chance.

Mudfest!

2009-07-23T13:54:00.001+09:00

I've got some pictures now so it's time to post about mudfest and last weekend in general. Here's the cliffnotes. Friday was a school sponsored "field trip" for the foriegn teachers to the DMZ (demilitarized zone), followed by one of th palaces and shopping in Insadong. Also a call to wish my wonderful wife a happy birthday :) Saturday meant getting up early to catch a bus to Boryeong and Mudfest. Sunday morning and afternoon in Boryeong with the night reserved for unwinding and recovery. Now for the details.

The those who dont know, the DMZ is the area between North and South Korea. It's a thin strip of land between the two where, excepting certain heavily watched roads, neither army goes and nothing is built (though apparently the whole thing is filled with mines). Its kind of crazy. Each side has various things just across the border. For instance North Korea has a "propaganda village" which means a nice tidy perfect looking little village with a huge flag pole and accompanying flag. South Korea on the other hand has tourist facilities. Shows the contrast between the two quite nicely doesn't it? There were a ton of restrictions on pictures sadly so we dont have any good shots. Part of this trip was getting to go into the "3rd invasion tunnel." The North Koreans are pretty determined it seems. They've dug three tunnels that we know of across the DMZ and possibly more. Of the three that have found two are now tourist attractions. It was a steep 11% incline down to the actually tunnel. We wore hardhats in the tunnel because of the low ceilings. Melissa was short enough it didn't really matter but Aaron and I would have been in a world of hurt without them. We each bumped our heads at least ten times. Afterward the field trip was supposed to go to one of the palaces followed by shopping in Insadong but the weather was really crappy. So a lot of people, including my little expeditionary group, opted out. Instead we went to Namdaemun. Namdaemun is the primary shopping center for the country. It is also the site of a burnt down national teasure. Seems "The South Gate", from whence the area got its name, was burnt down by a disgruntled citizen. See in Korea land is a huge and solid investment. This citizen invested a lot in land then had the government forcibly buy it out from under him at a fraction of its worth ruining him. He decided the correct nswer was to burn down a 600+ year old national treasure. I kinda can't blame him but I bet the jail time has made him reconsider his position on the matter. Len really wanted to check out some camera stores and Namdaemun has a camera district. We did so then vacated the premises and made our way to the much loved Smokey Saloon for burgers. This was a trickier than usual proposition due to a torrential downpour. The trade off was no line to get our burgers for once. I accepted this trade, ate burger, then headed home. Now Saturday was going to be a long day. In order to catch the bus to Mudfest we were going to have to get up at about 5 am. Instead of doing that we all opted for early naps at our respective home followed by getting up at 1am and hanging out until it was time to go then trying to catch some zzz's on the bus. Great Success!

After catching our bus then sleeping on it we found ourselves at the Boryeong mud flats. They gave us some snacks and free beer (mine was passed on to Aaron). We went and played for a bit on the well packed mud flats before being called in to change into some camo pants and long sleeved shirts. The whole time they were pumping some pretty crappy music out at us. I'm pretty sure they played "Toxic" by Britney Spear at least four times. Not sure if they were trying to tell us something or not. We got changed but missed the beginning activity; all the guys split into two teams and tryed to toss each other out of a "ring" defined by a rope. Kinda sad I missed it. The next activity was a game of mud rugby. The girls had their own seperate rugby game. It was a good time for sure. I did alright when I had the energy to do anything. I wore out pretty quickly. Afterwards we built me an impressive mud hump. No pics though, far too muddy for a camera. Though the Adventure Korea (the company I went through) people had cameramen wandering and they took pics. They may even be up on their website at some point. We built a mud castle but it's was pretty pitiful for the amount of work we had to put in. Afterwards we showered and reloaded onto the bus to hit Boryeong proper. The rest of the night was spent dinking around town and exploring. Our hotel was right next to the beach so it was quite beautiful. Then sleep.

We had until about 4pm to do as we wished. Despite it being mudfest and many mud related activities being available, we all decided we'd much rather play in the ocean and on the beach. We found a spot to set our towels out and the rented a couple inner tubes. Aaron and I spent a bunch of time playing around in the water while Mel relaxed up on the beach. Mostly we swam out past the breaks, got up into our tubes, and relaxed until the swells dragged us far enough in for the waves to break. Then we tried to catch the biggest and best break and ride it into shore so we could do it all over again. Mel joined us for a bit before going off in search of some lunch for us all.

After lunch we began the greatest achievement of the weekend. Our sandcastle! Heck yeah sandcastle. We just kind of went for it since we lacked the tools of true sand artists but we sure had a fun time! Mel made it lok all pretty and Aaron and I did the grunt work.

Good times. The trip home was more bus and more sleeping. It was a weekend to be remembered for sure. It was so nice to play in the ocean. I only wish we hadn't been surrounded by a thousand+ other people. Well worth the price, which included a wicked sunburn. I'm mostly recovered now and ready to tackle my 29th birthday weekend!

Home for keeps

2009-07-21T23:37:00.002+09:00

Ok, so if you haven't figured it out from the last two posts, or you didn't already know, Justin is coming home soon. And I am back for good. I figured we should make an actual announcement. We hadn't really decided whether it should be on the blog or not, but now we have.

Korea isn't really our thing. We had (and Justin's still having) fun. We are so glad that we did go. The experience was amazing. But we are ready to be home. We had some stress and issues with housing and the school Justin works for. Plus, everyone is pretty upset about N. Korea. Since I had already decided to come home for the wedding, we just planned on me not going back.

We don't have much of a plan yet, but it will work out. We'll be looking for jobs and living simply. I'll be staying with family until he gets back. It is so good to be here. I know we made the right decision.

Back in Texas

2009-07-21T23:15:00.002+09:00

We made it through all the wedding festivities. And we are back in Texas. It was so much fun! My brother's wedding was beautiful. The ceremony was in Sinks Canyon in Wyoming. Awesome setting. The reception was back in Riverton, WY at the baptist church. There was some silly dancing and amazing toasts. It was really neat to see Charlie's groomsmen there with him. We have known both Clint and Jeff for at least 15 years. Clint lives in Utah, and we had met him several times before. Jeff lives in California. We had never met him in person. To see all 3 guys together in the same place was crazy.

After the wedding was over, Mom and I went to Cody, WY. On the way there we stopped in Thermopolis. There is a hot springs there, and a bison pasture. We observed a large family of bison. A couple of them came up on the road near the car. We stayed at the Big Bear Motel. Great place to stay. I definitely recommend it to anyone wanting to go to Yellowstone or Cody. It was clean with nice beds, and the owner Bob was awesome. We spent one day in Yellowstone. That was all we could handle. We did see some deer and pronghorn, then Old Faithful!

The next day we spent at the Buffalo Bill Museum. It is actually 5 museums in one, and we made it through 2 of them. The Plains Indian museum and the natural history museum. It was so much fun. The rest of the trip was spent admiring the mountains and relaxing. Another recommendation is the Chuckwagon in Cody. They serve a breakfast buffet, lunch, and have a dinner show. We made it to a couple breakfasts and a lunch. Never made the show, but I'm sure it's entertaining. The owner of the Chuckwagon is extremely nice.

On Wednesday, we drove 8 hours back down to Fort Collins. The next morning we took my brother and his wife (!) to the airport and made a stop in Pueblo. Justin's mom lives in Pueblo. We spent several hours with her eating a yummy lunch and talking. This is the first time our moms had met! Then we drove 7 more hours down to Amarillo, TX. Friday morning (my birthday!), in the car again and 10 hours down to Austin. Not the most exciting birthday ever. In fact, I was pretty grumpy after a long day of driving and the HEAT. But we were able to fix that with an awesome dinner at Whole Foods (cheesecake....) and some sleep. Saturday we were up early and off to Blanco to set up for my brother's reception. It went very smoothly and it was so great to see everyone there! Rachelle's parents were there, all our family, and Charlie's friends from Blanco.

As you can imagine, we crashed on Saturday night. Sunday and Monday were laid back and easy. I am going to see my cousin Lacey tonight, then go to stay with my Nana tomorrow. Saturday is my baby shower here in Austin. I am so glad I have this time to spend with my family. I miss Justin though, and I wish he could be here sharing this with me. At least the time is passing quickly. He'll be home before we know it.

Me, Myself, and Justin.

2009-07-20T13:13:00.001+09:00

Being alone in Korea is tough. If I didn't have friends to hang out with I think I'd probably go crazy. I've had a couple freak out days to be sure but nothing I wasn't able to handle and it's getting easier. I'm glad the time between now and my triumphant return to the states is short. I've got the next two weeks off for summer vacation, then three weeks of summer camp, and a few more weeks before heading home. With all the things I have to do between now and then it should go pretty quickly.
This last weekend was pretty packed. Friday was a trip up to the DMZ. Saturday and Sunday hosted the much anticipated Mudfest. I'll be doing a seperate post for those once I round up the pictures for said events. To give you a little taste though, I will say this. Sandcastle. Oh yes, a magnificent sandcastle was built by myself and Melissa with Aaron's assistance. We did a mudcastle as well but it wasnt nearly as magnificent. More on this later.

Colorado

2009-07-07T09:54:00.002+09:00

We made it to Fort Collins. It has been one crazy week.

The flight from Korea went surprisingly fast. It was 13 hours, and there is a 13 hour time difference. So I departed from Korean on Wed., July 1st at 6:15pm and arrived in Atlanta, GA on Wed., July 1st at 6:15pm. There was a couple hours layover in Atlanta. It was timed perfectly because I still had to go through immigration, pick up my checked baggage, and re-check it. I checked in with my mom, and then had a 2 hour flight to Austin. I had a great seat-mate. She was very sweet. I hadn't slept well on the planes but it worked out. We got to my mom's house around midnight. I had a good night's sleep, and didn't really get off schedule.

That same night my aunt Karen was having problems and was taken to the hospital. The next day my mom and I picked up my grandmother and visited her in the ICU. She was unresponsive when we arrived. She had had a stroke. Karen has been fighting kidney failure and diabetes for years. She passed away the next morning. I'm so glad that I was able to see her one last time, but especially to be with my Uncle Fred. It has been rough losing such a wonderful woman. My aunt Karen did not want to have a funeral or anything at a funeral home. Her wishes were for us to have a party. So we will be having a Memorial/Party for her in August. For anyone who knew Karen, we have a memorial website for her at karenscottmemorial.com.

So we have now made the first leg of our July trip. We left Austin yesterday morning, spent the night in Amarillo, TX, and have arrived in Fort Collins, CO. We had an awesome dinner at one of my favorite restaurants. Nyala Ethiopian. Mmmm. We'll be in town until Thursday. Then we head up to Wyoming to start the wedding festivities!! We have so much we want to fit in these few days that we have here. I know it will be hardest for my mom. Normally she is able to spend a month or so every summer in Colorado. She only gets a few days this year. But at least she will be coming back to see the baby when he's born!

I'm full of yummy Ethiopian food and tired from a long car ride. I'm thinking nap time! Oh, and to everyone in Korea, I miss you so much already!! I hope you are taking care of my man!

A few more hours

2009-07-01T11:23:00.002+09:00

I'm all packed up and ready for my flight to the States. It leaves tonight (Wed. here) at 6:15pm. I will arrive tomorrow (Wed. there) at around 11:00pm. Around 19 hours of travel. Should be fun. I am prepared with lots of snacks, the ipod, book, and sudoku. I'm just hoping the two HUGE suitcases I packed won't be overweight. I'm sure they will be, though.

Sigh. Can't wait to be home. And see everyone I miss so much!

Another Day in Seoul and a Doctor appointment!

2009-06-27T10:31:00.003+09:00

I had a great appointment with Dr. Chung yesterday. I had to do the Glucose test and a couple other blood tests. We did another sonogram as well. If I can figure out the cd they gave me, I can show everyone the movie. The program doesn't like mac computers though.

The little Blueberry is SO big!! I mean, he's normal sized, but so big considering the last time we saw him. And he was moving and kicking during the entire sonogram. He is still head up right now. Hope he turns soon, not only for the correct birth position, but he likes to kick my butt too. It can get uncomfortable. He's doing it right now. It is strange that I'm able to feel his head. I figured that's what it was, but the sonogram confirmed it. It is just to the left and slightly higher than my belly button (well, just under my ribs). He is a very healthy baby with a strong heart. And still totally a boy!

Apparently Dr. Chung is also a skin doctor. I had made an appt. with the skin clinic there, not realizing that it is the same doctor! I have had a spot on my leg that has bugged me for years. I finally was able to have it checked out. It is just hyperpigmentation. Dr. Chung lasered it right off for me! Yay! It should be 95-100% gone. Such a relief.

I also had a great lunch with a friend from the Expat Moms Blog. We ended up talking for several hours in a deserted Indian Restaurant.* Very nice. She has two amazing children, and a lot of the same ideas about birth and parenting that Justin and I do. It was great to talk to someone like that.

So I'm doing the waiting game again now. 5 more days til I get on that plane home. At the moment Justin and I are hanging around the house, relaxing but bored. We are thinking about making a little trip somewhere, maybe Suwon. I'm just so tired of all the walking it takes to do anything here. We'll see. Hope everyone has a great weekend!!

*for those who might want to know, the Indian Restaurant was in Itaewon above the Smoky Saloon. I had seen their sign for a lunch special and wanted to try them. The food was very good, but not at all spicy. The 7,000won set comes with a soup, salad, samosa, 1pc tandoori chicken, chicken curry, rice, all the naan you can eat (or I could eat), and a chai tea or coffee to finish with. Very yummy and a great price. I was surprised there was NO ONE there. It is off the main strip though. The service was amazing. The waiter was SO nice. Again, only ones there though. Hehe.

Kicking away...

2009-06-25T14:00:00.001+09:00

We can feel our little boy just kickin' away these days. It's awesome. Developmental websites say this is the best time to feel little one's kicking since they are big enough to feel it and small enough not to be overly cramped. Night before last I think Caroline counted about 65 kicks. He reacts really well to my voice, going so far as to kick when I ask him to. He definitely knows his Daddy's voice. We are going to make a few recordings of my voice for Caroline's trip back to the states. I'm gonna miss my girl and my little boy.

Orientation

2009-06-25T13:53:00.001+09:00

Orientation was a couple weeks ago. I haven't posted on it cause I've been trying to forget about it for the most part. It was dreadfully boring. At least all the official stuff was. Lots of boring lectures. A few of which led by people who should not be speaking to hundreds of native English speakers. Fortunately I was roomed with Aaron, a teacher friend of mine. We managed to make the best of it. Mostly that meant reading books under desks and doing our best to do as little "productive" stuff as possible. We have a skit we had to do based on conflict resolution. Very little effort was involved. Then there was a co-teaching skit we were supposed to do. Unfortunately the teams that went before us took too long and we never got to go. Darn! We had decided to teach about zombies for our skit. It would have been pretty cool. The food was ok, though breakfast was very scant.

After the required stuff was over, then things got going. Man, people drink here! I wasn't drinking myself but everyone else more than made up for that. Aaron and I met a lot of cool people in no small part as a result of two large bottles of soju he brought and shared with everyone. So it wasn't a total loss. However...I was pretty resentful of being on "lock down." We weren't allowed to leave without giving them a good reason. I was unhappy, to put it mildly, that I was away for four days and three nights. Balls to that I say.

I know, I know...

2009-06-23T15:10:00.003+09:00

I know! Long time no posting! Well, we've had a lot going on. We've just been hanging out with friends mainly. The weekend of the 13/14th was pretty laid back. We went to see the 99 band again in Songtan on Saturday night. And Sunday was a BBQ for the Expat Moms Club Korea. There were quite a few moms and kiddos there. Got to meet several new people. The BBQ was held on the roof of an apt. building, and it was very nice. After the BBQ, my friend Debra hosted a Naked Lady Party. It is kinda like a clothing swap. You bring any clothing, books, electronics, accessories, etc. that you no longer want. It gets sorted and organized, then everyone "shops." It was also a great turnout. I got a couple great nursing tanks and some tea!

Last week was VERY boring. Just hung around the house. But Thursday started my "vacation". I know, what am I vacationing from, right? How bout this: KOREA. Hehe. So I went up to Incheon on Thursday evening and spent the night with Debra. We had some sushi buffet for dinner, got absolutely no sleep, then got up early to head to the BEACH! Yay! We caught a cab to the ferry terminal, then got on a "sea plane" (whatever that means. looks like a regular ferry.). It took about an hour and 15 min on the ferry to Deok Jeok Do. Awesome island that is technically still in Incheon. Very rural. No neon. We took a little bus to Seopori beach. We were dropped off at the minbok (kinda motel). We dropped off our stuff, took a 20 min. lay down, then walked to the beach. We had an escort too. We named him Gizmo. Scruffy little beach dog. It was beautiful. They have the most awesome little shells in all sorts of colors. We weren't able to stay out very long because it was noon, and the sun was directly overhead. So after walking in the water for a little bit, and hanging out on the mat with Gizmo, we went back to the minbok for a nice long nap. I slept SO hard. It was wonderful. We woke up hungry, so we walked back to the beach for a bit and then looked for food. The tide was out, which is so completely different. The restaurant the Debra had been to before was closed, but we just kept walking to see if we could find something else. There was a Beach Love Motel/restaurant/corner store. Debra was able to ask the guy sitting outside if he knew where to get food. He had food!! Our choices were pork and rice or beef and rice. We ordered one of each. As our food was being prepared, the guy showed us his garden. There was a trellis with grapevines, bell peppers, and lots of lettuce. He offered to pick some lettuce to go with our meal, so of course we agreed! The meal was actually very good. My pork and rice was very spicy, but I still liked it. When we were done, his dog cleaned up our leftovers.

We were SO full, so we went back to the minbok for more relaxing. Around 10 pm we started to get antsy though. We went for another walk. We found several more restaurants and corner stores. There were a few people out on the beach, but nothing really major going on. A few fireworks to watch.

The next morning, we woke up to pouring rain. By 10:30, we decided that it was NOT going to stop. So we called Justin, who was making his way to the ferry to meet us out there. He changed course, and went to Kkachisan (In Seoul, about 30 min away from Itaewon). He found a motel for us there. As he chilled in the motel, Debra and I made our way back to Incheon. It was very sad having to leave early. I really wanted more time on the beach, and we had planned to stay until Sunday afternoon. Luckily, it all worked out to get back to Seoul though. Debra went home, and Justin and I got to spend a night in a different tiny room than the one we live in! It did have a widescreen tv, cable, and a computer though. The next morning (Father's Day!) we went to Itaewon. It was mostly a good trip. The only thing that brought it down was halfway to Itaewon, my hip stopped working. I have had troubles with it in the past. Between sleeping on the floor for 3 nights, plus having gained weight with the baby, it was bad. I was not able to walk for a while. I did get it loosed up a bit though, and we made it to Itaewon. We got some amazing burgers at Smokey Saloon (of course). We met up with Debra again, did a little shopping (got some books for the trip home), and then went to get massages. They do such a great job at Healing Hands. Sadly, I didn't have the best time due to my hip. I had asked for extra time on my feet, because that is and add-on. Justin had also asked for a hot stone massage, which was extra time. They did the regular massage on me. First one side, then the other (preggo massage), then put me on my back to do my neck/head/arms. Then she left the room. I figured she was going to get the hot towels for my feet. But when she didn't come back for 10/15 min., I got worried. I asked the woman doing Justin's massage if she was coming back. She brought her back in, and she had no idea that she was supposed to do extra time for me. She said that another client was waiting. I was SO UPSET. I needed my feet done. I got so upset, she went ahead and did my feet! She did a wonderful job, but I was still laying on my back. Even I didn't realize how bad that would be. When she was done, I couldn't move. She told me to sit up, and I freaked out because it was so painful. I tried to explain where the pain was, but she couldn't even get to it because I couldn't move. I almost agreed to go to the hospital. I was stuck!! She did help me get on my side, and she rubbed everywhere she could to loosen it up. I moved my leg around to stretch it out. Finally I was able to sit up and then get dressed. As I was sitting there, the next client had come into the room. I can only imagine what she was thinking with me sitting there in tears. She said, "so how was it?"

The people at healing hands handled the whole thing very well. They were not able to understand why I was in so much pain, and what I was explaining about it being like that before the pregnancy. They figured it was just because I was pregnant. They didn't even charge us for the extra time though. Not even Justin's! I would still highly recommend them to anyone looking for massage in Korea.

Justin and I were SO ready to go home after that weekend. We grabbed some Sultan Kebabs, and got on the subway. Thankfully, an uneventful ride home. It was a good weekend, in all.

Go to my flickr account for more pictures: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sweet-caroline/page2/

Wednesday...That's all I can say

2009-06-05T10:23:00.002+09:00

Wednesday was an amazing day. We got some stuff done, and we got some news. But Wednesday was also a really bad day. It's never good when a whole country turns against you.

Ok, good stuff first. So if you don't want to read the bad stuff, you don't have to. We started out the day by making a trip to the Embassy. We had all the paperwork finally, and were able to get our marriage license. We walked over to the Ward Office and got "officially" married. All that entails is having the license stamped. Then we went back over to the Embassy to have it notarized, and the Consular Officer said "Congratulations, you are married." Yay!! It's official! It is so much easier to get legally married here than it is in the States. We still plan on having a ceremony and reception at some point when we get home.

Other good bit, we had a dr. appt. in the afternoon. It was the "body check." A much longer sonogram with a special sonographer. She took measurements of the brain and head, checked the heart, stomach, bladder, kidneys, and counted fingers and toes. We got to see lots of movement from the baby. We got to see something else too. An unmistakable something in between his legs. Yes, his. IT'S A BOY. Crazy. We were so sure it was a girl. Now we need to think of some names!! Any suggestions? We have a couple that we like, but are still very unsure. We are open to hear anyone's ideas. Thanks!

Ok, the bad stuff. I don't think I need to revisit that, actually. I think I'll just try to put all the bad from that day out of my memory. I'll just say that there was lots of going the wrong way on the subway, a preggo not getting the food she wants, and some yelling at a Korean man. We made it home safely, and that's all that matters. Really, what counts more than getting married and finding out the sex of your baby, all in one day?

Hope everyone has a great weekend.

Belly Pic! 20 weeks 3 days

2009-06-05T10:21:00.001+09:00

Last Weekend

2009-06-05T09:59:00.004+09:00

Last weekend was actually a little "cultural". Not Saturday, really though. We spent Saturday night in Songtan hanging out with some friends. We happened across a bar that had some live music pouring out of it. Justin and I aren't really into bars and nightlife, but we decided to check it out (we do like live music). They were playing a song we knew. Turns out, the bar was not bad at all. Not too crowded, and not smoky. We stayed until the band quit for the night. They were awesome! We knew every song they played. The bassist had a really nice 6 string and a beautiful 7 string fretless. The singer could do so much with his voice too. The band is the 99 band, and they were playing in the 99 bar just outside the main gate of the base. We plan on going next time the play, June 13th.

Next day the plan was to go with a few people bungee jumping. Not me, of course. I would be the photographer. By the time we were out of bed and able to get others on the phone, it was too late in the day. Apparently the tickets sell out early. It also takes 2 hours at least to get there. So we decided to go to Suwon instead. It is about 6 stops away on the subway. We went to see the Hwaseong Fortress and Palace. It was very cool. The steps going up to the fortress wall were so scary!! They were huge! There was an awesome tree that is over 600 years old. It was badly damaged in a fire in the 80's(?) and rehabilitated.

So after a long day of looking at Korean history, we went back to Osan to play some Rock Band. We have also found a decent pizza place. They had hawaiian, so I was happy. It was a good weekend with good friends. I have spent a lot of time at home lately, but prefer it that way. The baby is growing so much! All my energy is used up. It has been great spending so much time with our Osan friends. I found out about the river here in town too!! It is very nice. Has a good path alongside and stepping stones to cross.

Another day another dollar...

2009-05-29T16:30:00.002+09:00

Kinda fun day at work today. It was my sixth graders today, which I look forward to. As my oldest class they have the most advanced speakers and the most rambunctious attitude. Tons of fun. We started a new lesson today entitled "Can I have a glass of water?" Enthralling stuff. All the curriculum I've been given is pretty formal stuff and sometimes nonsensical. For instance. Two characters are sitting at a lunch which they, presumably, brought or bought. The conversation between them goes as follows...

"What's that?" Says Character One pointing to a box of chicken.
"I have no idea" says Character Two as she forks a piece of chicken and sticks it in her mouth.
"Mmmm...It's good. Try this." Says Character Two pointing to the chicken.

Seems a little off, doesn't it? As such, I've been trying to give the kids examples of conversations as they might actually happen. Less formal, some simple slang like dude, or saying go for it instead of "Help yourself , please." They seem to like the bee's knees which makes me happy. Good day today so far. Let's go and see what the night has in store.

Gotta go clean and I'm not sure how to access the draft. I'll edit this in a sec :P

Today, this very fine day.

2009-05-27T19:17:00.001+09:00

Now that I've bitched a bit, I suppose I should tell you about our day. I took the day off after lunch so we could hit the Suwon Immigration Office to see about getting Caroline a short term visa since her 90 days is almost up. We went on down to the subway where we picked up a delicious chicken stick for me and started traveling. It was a short trip and we were soon at Songkungkwan University (Which I was actually able to identify in Korean). A quick Taxi ride later we were at the immigration office. Fortunately the lines weren't long and moved at a decent speed. They told us to just go to the Embassy and get marriage papers processed and then come back. Also, its gonna be 60,000 won (50 bucks or so). The ride back was less fun, mostly because we had trouble finding a seat for Caroline and she was getting hungry. We found a seat eventually (though we almost missed getting it) and the hungers were corrected with another chicken stick :) Pretty chill day over all.

On another note I'm going to be running a 4th edition Dungeons and Dragons game for some of the other teachers here. Maybe Tim as well if I can get him to play. Should be a lot of fun. 4th Ed is pretty cool. I'll let you know how it goes. Laters.

My Co-teacher.

2009-05-27T18:26:00.001+09:00

Hello all. I thought I'd post some thoughts regarding my work. Let me start off by saying that I love the kids. They are great. Unfortunately my co-teacher is driving me batty. She has a large English vocabulary and almost 0% ability to use it in a useful way outside of basic "Hi/Hello" conversations. Her ability to effectively convey concepts is nil. Furthermore, her voice can get really high pitched. It grates on my nerves. But wait...that's not all! Act now and you can also get her to interfere with my lessons! Today's lesson had a game and the review of the lesson. the first class it all goes very smoothly and ends on time. The second class she seems to have decided that I was allowing them too long to play the game and starts the review ten minutes early, leaving us with a gap at the end of the class. What fun! Also I decided that when the class is doing prep for an activity, like cutting the cut-outs the book provides, that I'd play some western music. the Beatles seemed like a good idea. Apparently not so. She turned it off because it was "noisy and not relating to the lesson." Balls to that, says I. I'm going to have to have a talk with her about this soon. It is 100% not ok.

Home for July/Baby Registry

2009-05-14T11:19:00.005+09:00

I wanted to post on here for anyone who doesn't yet know, I will be coming back to the states for most of July. I'm flying in on the first to Austin. My mom and I will be driving up to Fort Collins on the 5th/6th, and then to Wyoming (for my brother's wedding!!) on the 9th. We will be in Wyoming til the 14th, then heading back down to Texas. Charlie's (my brother) reception in Texas is that Saturday. After that, I'll just be hanging out in the Austin area til the end of the month. I will be having a couple of baby showers in that time as well. If anyone is interested, we have already set up our baby registries. We can't bring a lot of stuff here, just the essentials. Whatever we bring here, we've gotta get back home too. And we really don't have much space. So here are the registries:

http://www.babiesrus.com registry number:65449029

http://www.target.com Search for: Caroline Glass or Justin Long

http://www.amazon.com/gp/baby/homepage?ie=UTF8&*Version*=1&*entries*=0
Search for: Caroline Glass or Justin Long

There are some duplicates between them. I have noted the duplicates and price differences on Amazon.

I can't wait to see everyone back in the states!!

Hypnobirthing Class #3

2009-05-14T11:03:00.003+09:00

Had a great class last night! A good night altogether, actually. Justin and I decided to head up early, and check out the buses. There is a bus that goes right from Osan to a terminal about 5 subway stops away from the clinic. It was perfect! And it took less than an hour (50 min. actually) to get there. We met up with Debra and a friend of hers at Hooters. Neither of us had been to a hooters before, and we thought it was hilarious to be going in Korea for the first time. The food was ok, and it was a little expensive. Probably won't be going back there. Too many other good restaurants in the area to try. We got to class early, so we relaxed and talked with Trish, the instructor, and Dr. Chung. It was a nice relaxing class. We watched a couple births then did a really interesting exercise. It took us very deep and we were able to numb certain parts of our body. I know I'm not explaining it well, but it was very cool. We are also starting to write our birth preferences. Next time we will be having a fear-release session to help with anything that might be counterproductive to our easy birthing.

Justin and I left class about 30 min. early to catch the last bus back to Osan. We had planned to stay the whole time and just take the subway back, but the class was just going over a sheet of birth preferences, and I was falling asleep! The bus ride home was even faster (40 min.). It was definitely worth the couple extra bucks. We will just be getting to class early again next week and talking to Trish about what we "missed." I was able to talk a little bit this time to Amanda. She had a home-water-hypno-birth with Dr. Chung. She gave me a book on EC* to read on the bus home. I have already been reading about it online, and I am very interested. I can't wait to talk more with her about this and her birth.

*EC is Elimination Communication. It is a way of communicating with your child that eventually allows you to be diaper-free.

Score!!

2009-05-13T14:26:00.006+09:00

I went over to the World Mart that I had heard about. There was quite a bit of useful ingredients. The only thing I bought today was a lychee drink. But they did have fresh herbs, lots of coconut, and curry pastes. There was also another international food mart across the alley, but it was mostly a little cafe/restaurant with a few shelves of the same stuff as World Mart. On the way home I stopped by the school to grab Justin. It is market day, so we went looking for some plants. I've been wanting at least an aloe vera. We were in luck. We found a huge aloe for only 5,000 won ($4.04), and a nice size rosemary for 3,000 won ($2.42). Then, on the way home, there was a hoddeok (think that's the name of it) vendor. They are these awesome little pancakes with gooey cinnamon goodness inside. They were nice and hot and only 500 won (about 40 cents) apiece!! We totally scored!!

Barefoot and Pregnant

2009-05-13T11:25:00.007+09:00

The best part of last week in my opinion was Sunday. Mother's day. For my first Mother's Day, I wanted to do something really fun. I found out about a Barefoot Festival going on in Daejeon. Debra used to live in Daejeon, so she knows the area really well. So she decided to come with us. It was quite a journey to get there. We got up about 5am, traveled by bus to the subway station to take the train to the bus terminal. The train was late, so we missed our bus. We took the next bus, ended up at the wrong place to catch the shuttle to the mountain. We did find 3 very helpful Korean campus police at the University. We used their computer to show them where we wanted to go, and they decided that we could get a cab there easily. They argued over which way to tell the cab driver to go, then started calling cab companies. The whole time, there were cabs driving by on the road outside. They finally realized this, and 2 of them ran outside to catch one. No more came, so one of the guys jumped into his tiny campus police car and drove away. He came back a minute later with a cab following him. They put us in the cab and told the driver where to take us.

30 minutes later, we were at the mountain. We started walking (UP the mountain) to the festival. We came to a set of booths where people were registering and getting numbers for the marathon. They told us to just keep walking. We came to another set of booths, and they told us to keep walking. We came to ANOTHER set of booths, and they held our backpacks for us, but told us to keep walking. Finally we came to a booth that said "Foreigner Information". There, they just gave us some numbers. They didn't want to deal with trying to get us to fill out registration forms. Hehe. So we pinned on our numbers as they photographed us. Then we set out for the starting line. We were going to be walking the 5k. There was also a harder, 13k. And yes, it was all barefoot. So we walked along through the forest. It was beautiful. A nice warm, sunny day. About 3/4ths of the way along, there was a large inflatable pool filled with mud. There was a crowd of Koreans stomping around in it, so we decided to do that on the way back. We got to the 2.5k turnaround point, where they were handing out chocopies. They had just run out though. So we found a shady spot and sat to eat our fruit. We had brought watermelon, oranges, grapes, and apple. Then we headed back down. Justin and I were excited about getting all muddy!! Debra was not too thrilled about the idea, but was too tempted anyway. The Koreans took so many photos! There were stealth photographers in the bushes!

Once we got back to the bottom, we were handed a snack of vitamin C drink and rice cakes. Then as a finishing prize, they were handing out gift boxes of Soju. Soju is the very alcoholic rice liquor. They even handed one to me!! We had to get a picture of that one. There was entertainment including breakdancing and women in schoolgirl outfits pretending to play stringed instruments. We took that as a cue to leave. We caught the shuttle back into town, and headed over to a Chinese restaurant for dinner. It was a real Chinese restaurant too. Not American Chinese, not Korean Chinese. It even had Chinese writing on it. I was not too into the food. I was really hoping for some chicken, but the dish they said had chicken in it turned out to be pork. It wasn't too bad though. They are most famous for their lamb skewers. There is a grill set into the table, they put the burning coals into it and you cook your own skewers over it. Then they give you a saucer with coarse salt, curry powder, ajwain (parsley) seeds, and chili powder in it. You mix them all together and roll your meat in it before you eat it. I am NOT a fan of lamb, so I spit it out as soon as it was in my mouth. Everyone else seemed to enjoy it though.

After dinner, we made the long trek home. Justin got on a train heading towards Osan (he had to work the next day). Debra and I got on a bus back to Incheon. We actually didn't get home that late, considering the day we had. I had a nice long bath and slept very well. I didn't have any soreness at all the next day! All I had was a couple blisters from wearing my flip flops up the mountain! I'm just made to be barefoot though. Justin and Debra didn't have it so easy. They got pretty sore. It was a great day. Looks like we have a tradition developing!

Ok, I've gotta get going! Gonna get over to that market, then we have class tonight! Yay!

안녕

Last week recap

2009-05-13T08:50:00.003+09:00

Ok, I know it's been awhile. I got home on Monday. It's really nice to just be alone and have naps after a week like last week. Every single day was doing something. I did get to spend lots of time with Debra, my belly buddy. Justin was even able to spend most of the week with me. He had Monday, Tuesday, and Friday off. Lots of holidays.

I will post about my favorite part of the week (Sunday) separately, since it will most likely be long. Justin and I went up on Sunday and met Karin and her daughters in Itaewon. We had a brunch at Rocky Mt. Tavern. Not near as good as the last time we had it. I don't know if I would recommend it anymore. The food was small portions and was all cold. The bar is also very smoky. I was glad to leave.

Monday we met up with Debra for dinner. We decided on sushi, and were heading that way, when we say a couple foreigners with a map. They were trying to talk to a Korean. Debra asked if they needed help, and the Korean waved us away. So we walked away. A second later he was running after us. He said the foreigners did need help. We said hi and introduced ourselves. They were Mexican, just got into town, and were only in town for a couple days. They are on a boat. Debra also knows Spanish, so she started talking them up. They were so surprised. She asked if they had eaten yet, and they said no. So we brought them along for sushi. We went to a great all you can eat sushi buffet. YUM. It was funny to watch our new friends eat sushi. Especially when they didn't know how hot wasabi is. One of them dipped his sushi in it, and started coughing really hard. He had to run for the water fountain.

We found out more about them. They travel all over on a huge boat. They showed us some beautiful pictures of it. They had just come from Shanghai, and were headed to Russia next. They had no idea that Koreans really speak almost no English. So they had been really lost. How lucky are they to find someone like Debra? Someone who not only speaks English, but also their language and the language of the country they are in. After dinner, Justin and I headed home and she showed them to a PC bang, so they could get on the internet. Such an adventure!

Monday night Tim was over, stayed all day Tuesday, and we had lasagna that Karin made us before she left. It was amazing, of course. It was Tim's only day off, so we just hung out all day with him. Debra and her friend Tina came over for a little while in the evening. Wednesday, I met Debra at her University so we could head over to hypnobirthing class together. We caught a bus right from the University to the bus terminal very near to class. It didn't even take an hour. We even had time for ice cream before class.

Class was great too. We got to meet a doula and a mother who has had a homebirth here in Korea. I'm excited to talk to both of these women soon. Debra spent the night that night and made some awesome banana pecan pancakes the next morning. Justin came back up Thursday night and we hung out for the rest of the weekend. Saturday we took the Karin's dog over to the park in Incheon. They had a couple really big fountains for the kids to play in. It was so cool.

It was a good week, but very tiring!! I'm glad to be home. We had some dinner at a friend's house here in Osan last night (Tim cooked). Afterwards the boys met up with some Osan English Teachers to go see the new Star Trek movie. Justin says it was AWESOME.

Well, I will post about Sunday, then I'm off to the market. Found out there is an International market here in Osan. Gonna go check it out. 안녕

Belly 17w 2d

2009-05-08T15:51:00.003+09:00

I am house-sitting for our friend Karin in Incheon right now, so I'm not going to do a better post until I get home. But for now, who wants a belly pic?!

The rest of wednesday...

2009-05-01T15:36:00.001+09:00

Awesome as the hypnobirthing class is, it's also in Apgujeong, which is 2 hours away by subway. As such, we decided to see about trying out the bus and/or train in hopes of speeding the whole process up. The process was not sped up...maybe in the future it will be since we won't be checking this and that and wondering where exactly we need to go, but in the mean time it sucked. It was worth it though since I got to see the baby for the first time on the ultrasound. It was an amazing moment getting to see our baby for the first time. As Caroline said I smiled a lot. I also came pretty close to tears.

After we decided to go check out this area nearby that supposedly had some pretty sweet food options. Supposedly is the key word here. I suppose they may actually exist and we simply managed to find none of them. We walked up and down hills tried a couple subway stops and it all came to nothing. Though we did see a mouse come out of the subway and scare a Korean woman half to death. That was kind of funny. Eventually we just hopped in a cab and managed to explain to the driver that according to our map a T.G.I Fridays was just up the block. We arrived and ordered. Our drinks came out with our food cause that's often how it goes around here. Both of us were very hungry so conversation was light. After we ate though all was well. We then hopped into another cab and got back to the clinic for the hypnobirthing class. For more on this see Caroline's post.

Getting home was another ordeal. We were essentially catching the last trains of the night. No buses were available. Our final train didn't actually take us to Osan. We had to catch a cab. The cab had some others in it who were also going to Osan. That was cool. One lady spoke good English and had zero accent. That was really cool in fact. However when we got out the cab driver cheated us. I handed him 15,000 won for a 12,000 fare and he switched the ten for a one once I handed it to him. I hadn't been paying that much attention and assumed I had accidentally handed him a 1,000 instead of a 10,000. I gave him the money and moved cause really I just wanted to be home at that point. Caroline is 100% sure I handed him a ten though. So that's pretty upsetting. It was about 1 in the morning at that point and for two who usually turn into pumpkins around 10, sleep was a welcome friend.

Hypnobirthing is amazing!

2009-05-01T09:41:00.003+09:00

The Hypnobirthing class on Wed. night went very well. There were 3 other "couples" there. A couple from Australia, a woman from the Phillipines and her Korean mother, and a couple from Germany and New Zealand. Our instructor, Trish, is also Australian. I love meeting people from around the world. It was a very relaxing class. We were introduced to Hypnobirthing and the person who created it. We watched 2 hypnobirths, and had a self-hypnosis session. The book, Hypnobirthing, The Mongan Method, comes with the class. We are also given a cd with our birth affirmations and relaxation on it. I have already listened to it twice, and am quite a ways through the book. I really like this program. It incorporates everything I already feel and believe about natural childbirth, and it gives me the tools to get into that meditative, relaxed state that I need.

Other than the class, we had another sonogram. Most of you have already seen the pictures, I'm sure, but here is the link to the set on flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sweet-caroline/sets/72157617404462447/

She is 10.6 cm long and very healthy. We still don't know the sex because she is still too small. Our next appt. is Sat. May 30th. It will be the major time for screening her body. She will be large enough to check all her organs. I can't wait! Justin was so excited to finally see her. He had a BIG smile on his face!

The rest of our day on Wed. was not so much fun, but I will let Justin post about that. 안녕

Another busy weekend to recover from...

2009-04-29T09:32:00.001+09:00

Yep, another one. There was another BBQ at our friend Karin's house. I went up to Incheon on Thursday to get a couple good night's sleep and help out with getting ready. Karin's daughter Katrina is in town. Her sister Laura also came in Saturday night.

Friday, Katrina and I met up with my new preggo friend Debra for lunch. We were also hoping that my Korean friend Stella would be able to make it. We met at the Incheon bus terminal and set out for a Chinese Restaurant. Called Chinese Restaurant. As soon as we were seated, Stella called me. She was at the bus terminal and needed directions. I handed the phone to Debra, who handed the phone to the waiter for Korean directions. When he handed the phone back to me, Stella was laughing. It is her favorite restaurant!! She is regular customer!! So besides having a good friend and great company, we had someone who speaks Korean who knows the owner of the restaurant! The owner took care of us. Being the one who has to make trouble, I was the only one who didn't order the luncheon set. I got my own dish, but I ended up with everything from the set too anyway. It was all so yummy. I will definitely be going back there. I don't remember everything that came with the set (so many courses), but I know it started out with a crab soup and salad with sea cucumber. Dessert was 2 lychees with a slice of pineapple inside in syrup. Yum. They even brought us coffee. We were there for at least 2 hours. I brought out the brownies I had brought. Katrina had made them the night before. The owner gave them a try and said that they are her favorite. She loves chocolate! By the time we were done with lunch, it was raining pretty hard outside. The restaurant lent us some umbrellas.

Katrina and I got on a bus and went into Itaewon. Probably a bad idea. I needed to buy some things at the International Market though, and there was really no other time for me to get into town. It was pouring rain, but we got to the market. We decided to take a cab back to the bus station to get back to Incheon. That was our worst idea. We really should have taken the subway on a Friday evening in the rain. It took us three hours to get home. Traffic in Korea is insane. Incheon is only 20km from Seoul!!

We did get home though. We helped Karin out with some cooking, then crashed. We were exhausted!! The next day Karin, Katrina and I went to Costco for BBQ stuffs. Costco on a Saturday is also insane. Koreans are really not good at shopping either. They like to just stop anywhere with those huge carts, and stay right in your way. Surprisingly, we made it through Costco in 45 min. Grabbed some lunch, went back to the house. Karin had to get out to the airport to pick up Laura, her other daughter.

The BBQ was great. There were quite a few people who didn't know other people. Justin and I met some new people as well. We had invited some English teachers from Osan. Nicole, who brought her friend Delia, and Melissa and Aaron, who are married. It is nice to meet another couple. Seems like everyone we meet here is single. Now we have couple friends! And they are nerdy like us! They even stayed at the house with us when everyone else decided to take the party to the bar.

Next day was a lot of laying around, napping, watching movies, and eating. Justin and I made the trek home about 5pm.

Coming soon:

Today I go to my next Dr.'s appt!! Hopefully we will find out the Blueberry's sex. We also start a childbirth class today called hypnobirthing. If you haven't heard of it, it is a kind of natural childbirth preperation in which you kind of self-hypnotize. It involves meditation and breathing. I will be able to explain it better once I go to the class, of course. It is 2 and a half hours once a week for 5 weeks.

Also, this weekend Justin and I plan to go to the celebration of Buddha's birthday. There are ceremonies being held at all the Buddhist temples. Then starting Sunday evening til the next Monday, I will be house/pet-sitting for Karin.

Sorry for the lack of pictures. I need to start taking more. I think I'll go back to using my old cell phone for the everyday stuff. I take a lot more pictures that way. Then I can take the camera for major events, like Buddha's birthday. Oh! I should feel ashamed to say this, but I'm in Korea so it's ok. I went to lunch at McDonald's yesterday!! And it was good!! They actually have french fries. Oh, so good.... Sometimes, you just need some real American. Even if it is McDonald's.

안녕

Banking...

2009-04-22T13:46:00.001+09:00

Through a combination of unfortunate circumstances I'm on the verge of losing my mind and punting some Koreans! I'm trying to transfer money to our account in America and it seems to be some arcane ritual as difficult as one would suppose raising the devil himself might be. What in the world is a swift code and why can't they understand me when I say, for the 5th time, that I have no idea what a swift code even is. Let alone what my American banks swift code might be. I'd like to think that it's a routing number, but the swift code for the bank here is letters not numbers so la dee dah! Ok...done ranting...time for a deep breath and internet research rather than being upset and relying on my co-teacher. The tubes have the answers...

Posting...

2009-04-21T11:24:00.002+09:00

Sorry I haven't been posting much, everyone. Caroline tends to have more time and, to be frank, she's better at writing than me in all ways. I've never been very good at journals and the like. She covers the big truly interesting stuff. I'm mostly interested in silly little things like seeing Korean midgets and a statue made of legos we found. I do apologize. I shall have to fix this bad habit of mine.

Meeting new friends

2009-04-20T13:44:00.003+09:00

We've been meeting lots of new and interesting people in the past week. Especially Friday! While Justin was at work on Friday, I spent the afternoon in Songtan getting pampered. I met a couple new friends there, Debra and Tina. They live in Incheon and came down to get their nails done. So we had some wonderful pedicures and ate lunch at a Thai restaurant that I hadn't tried yet. I think it was called Sawatdee. Debra is also pregnant (that's how I met her) and is due the same time I am!! It was great to be able to talk to someone who knows how I feel!! Unlike me, she has quite a few ultrasound pics of her kiddo.

After Justin got off work, we met with the Osan English Teachers group from Facebook. There was about 17 of us altogether. We had some great Korean dinner, then went to the Garten Bier. We really like everyone in this group. And the crazy thing is, they all live within a few blocks of us!! And we never knew it. They are from all over the world. South Africa, London, Manchester, Australia, Michigan, etc. It was so much fun getting to know these great people!!

Smokey Saloon

2009-04-14T19:45:00.002+09:00

I don't know how I forgot to mention this!! Justin and I found the BEST place to get hamburgers. REAL hamburgers. Those of you who know me, know that I don't eat beef. Well, this is different. This has got to be the best burger I've ever had. I saw this place, called Smokey Saloon, on someone else's blog. She mentioned that they had sloppy fries, and that's what really sounded good to me. So Wednesday, we were in Itaewon and tried it. I ordered the fries, and Justin got the Cowboy burger. I took a bite of his, and called the waiter back over to order one of my own. Oh my gosh. So juicy and yummy. The Cowboy burger has sauteed mushrooms, a vidalia onion, and monterey jack cheese. The place is really tiny, just a few tables and the kitchen. There is always a line out the door, but it is worth it. There is a great atmosphere too. When we were there, the place was filled with Koreans (of course). It was so funny to watch them eat burgers. They would take the top bun off and eat the rest with the knife and fork! Don't worry, though. We showed em how it's done.

First Doctor Visit!!

2009-04-14T16:52:00.002+09:00

I went to the Doctor for my first prenatal visit today. It was great! I am going to Dr. Jung, who is the only natural childbirth dr. in Korea. He was very nice and willing to work with me. All he did today was the sonogram. I got to see the Blueberry!! Man she is active. Kicking, jumping, crazy! Dr. Jung pointed out her heart, her brain, her eyes, nose, fingers, and genitalia! He asked me if I could tell what it was, and when I said, "nope", he said "exactly". Next appt. he should be able to tell if it is a boy or girl. He said she is very healthy looking. Next time I will be doing a bunch of lab work.

No pictures this time. He gave me a cd, but it ended up just being the heartbeat. I will ask him for pictures next time. I am so excited!

Easter Weekend

2009-04-14T16:24:00.002+09:00

It was a wonderful weekend. Friday I made a trip to Insadong for some shopping. I ended up getting the best deal ever on some beautiful dresses. After, I went over to Itaewon to meet up with Karin, Wil, and Justin. We had a nice long dinner at Pancho's, a "Mexican" restaurant. Better Mexican than I've had here so far, but it really isn't Mexican food at all. The best part of the restaurant was the entertainment. It was this guy who is part Chilean, part Phillipino (I think), and he is a belly dancer. They lowered the lights, he wore a candelabra on his head (it was lit), and he danced around to Shakira. It was good fun!
We walked over to Spy Club after dinner for some pool. They had a huge bowl of sliced apples that were just yummy.
After about 3 games, Justin and I decided to call it a night and make our way back to Incheon. That is when the adventure for the night began. We took the subway to Seoul Station to catch a bus. There is a bus that stops right in front of Karin's apt. building and it comes every hour. There is another bus that goes out there, but not that stop. It comes every 15 minutes. So we make it to the bus terminal right on the hour but get confused as to where our bus should be. By the time we figure it out, it is pulling away. So we get on the other one instead of waiting an hour. Traffic was crazy, and it took about 2 and a half hours to get to Incheon. I was carefully listening to the stops for the ones that sounded right, but none came. We got off at the 2nd to last stop and caught a cab. We were much further from Karin's than we should have been. We are dropped off at the apt., but I'm completely disoriented. I know the building number though, so we start looking. There are several buildings in this complex, and they are all 20 stories high. As we are walking down a path, we see a mysterious animal ahead of us. It keeps just far enough ahead that we can't make out what it is, but it stays on the path. My best guess is a raccoon, but we aren't sure. It's bigger than a large cat, walks like a raccoon, but doesn't have raccoon markings. Finally it disappears into the bushes and we find the building (at the same time, really). We make it upstairs and crash.

Saturday was relaxing. We took a walk and waited for everyone to get back so we could start prep for the BBQ we were having. Karin, Wil, Tim, and Tim's friend Boyd all show up about the same time, and we start grilling. There was so much food!! Steak, chicken, Brats, shrimp, mashed potatoes, homemade applesauce, salad, cheese and crackers, chips and salsa. We put quite a big dent in it too. We met some new friends. Monica, who is a friend of Karin's, and she brought her Korean friend Stella. Lots of fun!! There was quite a bit of wine drunk (not by me, don't worry), and it was a great night. The next day everyone just slept in and watched movies. Of course, we ate quite a bit of the leftovers. My favorite part of the meals was Karin's Key Lime Pie. Oh....so good. She even whipped her own cream. Yum!!
It was such an awesome weekend. A great Easter spent with our Korea family.

Children's Grand Park

2009-04-14T16:06:00.004+09:00

Last Thursday, I made my way up to Children's Grand Park in Seoul. I met with two other women from the Expat Mom's Club that I belong to. They have a meeting once a month or so. Not many were able to make it to this meeting, so there will actually be another one this Sunday. Sarah and Rebecca both have 3 month old kiddos. Cute!! It was a lot of fun strolling around the park, hanging out in the shade, talking. The cherry blossoms were out, so it was just beautiful. They even have a small zoo there.

Afterwards, I headed out to Incheon to see Karin. And there is where I spent the rest of the weekend!

REAL Indian Food

2009-04-03T14:37:00.003+09:00

Last night Justin and I made Chana Masala. It was SO yummy. It took a while to find all the ingredients, and Justin even had to make two more trips to Lotte Mart, but we did it. There was some guestimation, and some substituting. I was able to make raita as well. The yogurt that I found is a little too watery though. At least it all tastes the same. Here are some pictures.

Weekends are Busy!!!

2009-03-31T13:08:00.004+09:00

It seems we really only do things interesting enough to post on the weekends. During the week, we are pretty boring. Justin goes to work, I stay home and do laundry and dishes. Justin comes home. Some nights (but not many), we go out to eat, mostly we cook dinner. Sometimes Tim comes over, the boys game. We watch movies. Pretty low key.

The weekends, however, are interesting enough to write about. This weekend was no different. We had a great time with Karin and her friend Will. We met them and a couple more of Karin's friends (Rusty and Gail) for a yummy lunch in Itaewon on Saturday. It was a pub and they serve English/German food. Justin had a steak. We walked around Itaewon quite a bit. Then we went back to Rusty's apartment to pick up Karin's dog and car. Rusty has a very nice apartment filled with beautiful furniture. My favorite was the mother of pearl inlaid coffee table. It was stunning. There was a huge peacock made of mother of pearl on the top. Rusty and his wife didn't bring any furniture from the US when they moved, so all of it was from Korea.

Afterwards, Karin, Will, Justin and I took a cab to Insadong. It is another very tourist-y place. They actually have clothes that will fit westerners there. I am planning a day-trip to Insadong very soon. Great shopping, and there are several temples to visit. Between those two, you can spend a whole day there. I want to wait until the trees bloom more to go back though. It will be much more beautiful.

By the time we had walked through Insadong, we were exhausted. We cabbed it back to Karin's car in Itaewon, then drove through some crazy traffic to Karin's apt. in Incheon. She also has an awesome apartment. Three bedrooms, a couple balconies, a loft, and the roof. She even has a bathtub!! Yes, I got to take a nice long bubble bath. With rubber ducks!! We watched a couple movies, made some gingerbread, then crashed. I am so jealous of her bed. The one we slept on in her guest room was infinitely softer than ours. She has 2 kitties too!! Kitty is a typical cat, not really wanting to be touched. But the other one, Xander, is a lover boy. So sweet, and so big!! He is a VERY large kitty. I love him already.

The next morning we hung around watching movies and playing wii. Ate some delicious banana bread. Then we drove back into Itaewon for Rocky Mt. Tavern's breakfast. They serve it until 3, but we just barely made it. It was great; eggs, bacon, toast and hash browns. Very laid back. Only 6,000 won, and very large portions too. It is a tradition we might have to continue. After some napping on the booths there, we went to the International Market so I could pick up some things. I have all the ingredients to make Chana Masala now. Not so easy to find. Also to make banana bread in the toaster oven Karin gave us.

After that, we drove through even more crazy traffic to Songtan to see Tim. He is working weekends right now. So we met him and some friends at a German Restaurant. It was real german food. I had the bratwurst. We even had apple strudel for dessert. It really amazes me that we can get such a variety of food, and eat out often, and it is cheap!!

We went to Tim's friend's apt to finish off the night with some Rock Band. A great end to an awesome weekend. I took all day yesterday to recover. Naps are fantastic. Tomorrow we will actually be deviating from our regular weekday schedule. I will be subbing at a daycare in May, so I am going to meet the kids. And Justin has the day off!! I hope we will be able to make it by the Embassy to get some paperwork done.

Day off!

2009-03-31T09:55:00.002+09:00

Tomorrow is the school's "birthday" so I get the day off. Woot!

Quick note from work today.

2009-03-25T10:31:00.004+09:00

I thought these were too funny not to share. Linda (My co-teacher) brought in this picture book "My First Dictionary" and we were quizzing the students from it. We did dentist which turned into telling the kids a whole bunch of technical names for different kinds of doctors. Including Gynecologist. I got to teach 12 year old Korean kids gynecologist. We also do this simple game with them sometimes to help them with left and right since they still mix those up. Raise your right arm, touch your left hip, et cetera. Linda added a new command to it today. Touch your right knee. But she had started with touch your left hip. So I'm standing in front of the kids doing the Captain Morgan's pose. My job is so weird sometimes.

Another good weekend

2009-03-23T10:58:00.004+09:00

Lots of coffee shop time and good food. I think I'm not taking as many pictures anymore because things are becoming familiar. We spent most of the weekend in Songtan. Spent quite a bit of time in The Coffee Tree there. Yum. Really awesome drinks and smoothies. Some gaming for the boys, some internet surfing for me.

Yesterday was an adventure/ordeal. Justin and I really just wanted to stay home, but ended up making the trek to Songtan again. The promise of Karin coming from Incheon and real breakfast burritos lured us there. We finally got the burritos around 2 pm. But they were worth it. Real bacon, cheese, hash browns, SALSA. Mmmmm....

The rest of the weekend was relaxing. Movies, reading, sudoku. Another week is here. Looks like we've got some big plans for this next weekend though. More to come.

안녕

Weekend Update, a little late

2009-03-18T10:35:00.004+09:00

I've been recovering from the weekend, so I'm finally ready to post again. It was very busy.

Friday night, Tim came to visit. We got pizza!! It was actually pretty good, even though it had corn on it. Why? Why corn on everything???

Saturday, Tim came over and we took the subway for the first time. We went to Itaewon, in Seoul. It is the "little America" of Korea. We had some very odd sushi. There was ham, mustard, and ketchup on some of it! We met up with some people that Tim knew, Karin and Lexi. They took me to get some pampering. Pedicure! It was awesome. I got green toes, cuz they celebrated St. Patrick's Day on Saturday. After that, we headed over to the !English! bookstore. Used and new books. A little expensive, but can you get them anywhere else? No... There is also an international market that we stopped by. Lots of Middle Eastern food. I was so excited to see all the spices they had there. Garam Masala and Turmeric! I'm going to be making some Indian food, for sure.

Sunday Justin and Tim had the morning to themselves for some gaming, and I met up with them later for lunch. Again, amazing food. We had Thai. AMAZING. Love that place. Then we hopped on the subway to Suwon to see Watchmen in the theater. We also got to meet a couple more of Tim's friends, Stacey and Michael. I really hope I'm spelling everyone's names right!!

There was lots of walking and busyness this weekend, so I had to take a couple days to recover. So far, a good week. Maybe we will try out hiking or the hot springs soon. It is definitely warmer than it has been.

안녕

Uptown Girl

2009-03-18T09:45:00.001+09:00

I gotta post this real quick between class. I got to teach my kids "Uptown Girl" by Billy Joel today! Freakin sweet. I was not expecting that at all. Also when the class ended I think one of the girls blew me a kiss and four of them did this little dance thing that I assume is from some Korean video and said "That's so hot." I gotta find out what that's about.

Me, Myself, and I

2009-03-16T15:16:00.005+09:00

Sorry I haven't posted lately, everyone. Work has been a mental drain and when I get home I just want to relax instead of post or anything. You want the scoop on me? Here it comes.

I'm adjusting a little more every day. Having Caroline here with me and Tim nearby is awesome. Tim keeps introducing us to new people he knows. Between getting time with my Girl (and thereby the blueberry), my Tim, and the new friends he introduces us to I'm keeping sane. Also, Tim and I are playing some scion which is awesome-cross. His character is a Scion of Odin built around becoming the Norse God of Wolves. Dad is hoping he will be able to cast down the fenris wolf come ragnarok and change the fate of the Aesir. Oughta be an interesting game.

Not being able to communicate is stressful. This especially comes up with my co-teacher. Sometimes she is trying to explain things to me that I can tell are important for my job but she doesn't know enough English to do so well. It really stresses me out. Other than that things are good at work. The kids are cool, though crazy. One day I had to do an autograph session for them. Seriously...almost a whole class came up to me and asked me to sign their workbooks. That was really weird. Another class all wanted me to shake their hands. A bunch of students gave me candy one day. Its always an adventure with them. The material I'm being given to teach them is very pre-school bubblegum crap though. I'm going to need to really get together a some decent material here soon. Lunch is another adventure. We get Kimchi everyday, which I like though it can sometimes be to spicy or too fermented. We also get a soup dish which has usually been pretty good. Also a dessert which has been bananas, a yogurt drink, strawberries, dumpling things, and cherry tomatoes. Everything else is a crap shoot. Our meat one day was fried fish which I couldn't eat cause it was full of bones. It's like they fish for bone fish here or something. Then today it was a tasty chicken thing. Notice how I often can't give you a good description of the food. Like I said lunch is an adventure.

I'm sure things will continue to get easier bit by bit, day by day. I'll be adding some pictures to this post later and editing it for grammar. I'm not feeling up to the task just yet.

Food!!

2009-03-12T10:51:00.004+09:00

It has been...different...trying Korean food. I think I really don't like it that much. A lot of red chili, red pepper, and fermentation. We have gone to a couple restaurants so far. The first one was right across the street from the apt. building. It was strange. The traditional Korean thing is to have pork or beef ribs that they grill for you at the table. There is a grill set into the middle of the table. Then they give you about 3 million side dishes. These include kimchi, of course. Usually several different kinds of kimchi. There is a salad made with cabbage and soy sauce, another salad with lettuce and I think asian mayonnaise. There was corn and crab, seaweed soup, and a few others. When the meat is cooked, you can wrap it in a piece of lettuce with some garlic and red chili paste. That meal my tummy was off, so I stuck to the meat and lettuce only. It was pretty good.

Night before last we went to a welcoming dinner for all the new teachers at the school. That restaurant was MUCH better in my opinion. The meat (pork ribs) tasted better, there were better sides too. There was some sausage slices, salads, crab legs, kimchi, broccoli, pickled radish, rice noodles with different sauces, and my favorite, a scoop of something like yams with golden raisens with a kiwi sauce. Yum. There was lots of food, lots of soju, and lots of teachers taking shots. Afterwards, they dragged us across the street for some Korean Karaoke. Hilarious! Even at the karaoke place, there was some strange snack of strips of dried squid w/ peanuts and mayo dipping sauce. And of course, more beer.

Last night, Justin and I went out again to a Japanese place. More my kind of food, for sure. We got a platter with over 20 pieces of nigiri and 2 rolls for 20,000 won. It also included some kimchi and miso soup. Very yummy. We will definitely be going back there soon. It is also flanked by Dunkin Donuts and Baskin Robbins. There are so many sweet shops around here. It surprises me. Pastries, cakes, ice cream, candy, SO much junk food. According to Justin, if we are checking out the Korean culture, that includes the bakeries!! I guess that's ok with me...

That's been most of our food experience so far. Otherwise, we eat simply at home. Eggs and rice. Hot dogs for me. Had a craving. :) That's about it. Justin eats Korean lunches at school, he'll tell you more about that in his post about school, I'm sure.

안녕

Battery low

2009-03-10T14:38:00.002+09:00

Ok, I've been here awhile. And my battery is in the red now. I will save the other posts for tomorrow. It has been great being able to update this finally!! Hope these were some interesting reads!

안녕

Fresh food every day! (warning: dog meat)

2009-03-10T14:17:00.003+09:00

The market is so wonderful. It is in the "alley" behind the apartment building. There is really about 6 alleys that make up the major part of it, and smaller offsprings from that. There is just so much to see and buy here. Plenty of fresh fruit, veggies, fish, seafood, and meat. Anything you could possibly want. There is also lots of shoe and clothing stores. Not that any of it would fit us.

On the weekends the market is very busy and crowded. But I went yesterday and it was just a few people. Very laid back and easy to walk through. The pictures I was able to take really say more than I could. The fish is one of the most amazing things. There are humongous fish in little buckets just flapping around. There are large tanks containing live octopus, squid, more fish, and eels. Only once so far I saw some dog meat. It is pishon here. We are learning the symbol for it so we don't ever make the mistake of ordering it.

We already have our regular places to buy in the market. There is a nice little supermarket for frozen goods, detergents, etc. There is a shop that I have gone to several times already. It has almost anything you could want for the kitchen or bathroom. Even bowls and cups and toilet seats!! It is so stuffed with things that you can barely walk down the aisles. Everything is much cheaper there.

As I was walking through the market yesterday, I came across a little llasa apso dog. It was wearing a t-shirt, jeans, and it's tail was many different colors. Obviously a very spoiled little dog. Not the first or the last spoiled dog that I came across yesterday. Several tiny dogs in girl's arms or in bike baskets. Cute little mutts.

Along the same lines as shopping, on Sunday we went to Sung-ton. It is the town that was built up around the Air Base. Mainly for foreigners. We got the most softest blanket in the whole world, as well as the cheap dvds there. Tim got us on base. We had some American food for dinner and hung out with him in the dorms. This probably bad, but I now know that Cheesecake Factory cheesecake is available to me for 4 american dollars. Mmmm.....

Speaking of food, that will have to be it's own post too.

Studio living

2009-03-10T13:41:00.005+09:00

I was surprised when we got here on Friday to find that we are in a studio apartment. They had made it sound like a one bedroom. It is an awesome place though, and the building is well-situated. We are on the 8th floor out of 15. The school says we should be getting a bigger place once I am further along in the pregnancy. We are hoping for 2 bedrooms. We do have a midwife coming to stay with us!

It is a very different apartment than I've ever seen. To open the front door, there are no keys. You type in the pin number and it beeps at you then unlocks. If you aren't careful, it will slam behind you as you walk in. Beeps again, then locks. It is korean, so you remove your shoes at the door. There is a nice little bathroom with a shower, sink, and a toilet that has a LOT of buttons. Not sure what they do yet. I'm sure when Justin figures it out he will have a post dedicated to it. :)

We have a nice little kitchen with a toaster, fridge and microwave. There is the tiniest dishwasher, no oven, and a very nice gas stove. We went all over the place this weekend to get the necessities for the kitchen; rice cooker, knife, cutting board, kettle, etc. We were able to find everything very cheap in the market behind us. But that will be in the next post.

Our bed is SO hard. You cannot find soft mattresses in Korea. We've already gotten used to it though. It helped that our friend Tim brought us two mattress pads. There is a tv, we just bought a nice little dvd player for those cheap movies we bought!

There is an enclosed balcony that has a washing machine. It took me several tries (I won't say how many) to figure out how to use it. No dryer, gotta use a drying rack or clothesline. The wooden floors are heated. That is the heat for the whole place. Even when our apartment's heat is off though, it gets warmer from the other apartments around us. It is really nice.

I've already gotten my first couple plants. I have an idea that I will be getting at least a few more. During the summer, the balcony is going to be great for growing all sorts of things. My first plant I got at the Lotte Mart down the block from us on the first day we were here. It is a very tiny succulent. Yesterday I got a medium/small sized Rosemary plant in the market. Very good price for 3,000 won. Rosemary is my favorite herb, so it is no surprise I already have one. Even though I brought seeds to grow my own. I actually brought quite a few seeds, but most of them got lost on the flight inspection, it seems. Only the rosemary, chamomile, and snow peas made it.

I think that is most everything about our apartment. I really like how centrally located it is. Haru coffee and 3 pc bangs across the street, the huge market behind the place, Lotte Mart down the block, and the school just down the alley. I will post about the market next.

2009-03-10T13:32:00.003+09:00

Hello! I am finally posting again! I have not felt "comfortable" posting yet. We don't have internet in our new apartment yet, so I've been going to one of the local pc bangs. It is a bunch of pcs that you pay about 1,000won per hour for. Mainly set up for gamers. I found a coffee shop right across the street from the apartment that has free wireless. That is where I am now. It's called Haru Coffee. Good coffee, nice place, and I can use my own computer for free. The coffee names are in english too!!

So, as for me, I've been good. I had a little bit of a rough time at first. Jet lag + 1st trimester = icky. I've been getting better each day. The food and smells are pretty hard to get used to, but I'll get there.

It is a cool sunny day today. Past couple days have been warm. Nice clear weather. No yellow haze yet. *crosses fingers*

I've got so much to talk about, I'm going to break it up into seperate posts. The next post will be about our apartment.

Movies...

2009-03-09T09:36:00.002+09:00

For 25,000 Won (which is about 16 dollars) we bought Harry Potter 4 and 5, the first season of the Office, and the first season of Weeds. Pretty good deal aye?

First days in Korea!

2009-03-08T08:38:00.003+09:00

Hey everyone. So no pictures for you yet but I thought I'd give you some idea of how things are going here. Lots of funny little details are different here. They have a lot of back alleys for instance. At least that's what I thought at first. Upon further inspection I realized that the "back alleys" are actually the roads. They have big just for car roads but most of the roads aren't like that. At least not where we live. Most of the roads are very small and don't really have sidewalk. People walk on them, cars drive on them, its a kind of free for all really. And there are nooks and hidey places all over. For those of you who roleplay it's the very world of darkness. Lots of little shops which are packed as full of stuff as possible. We also have a market nearby which is freakin cool. Most business is done out front of the shop. The market streets are covered which makes sense. Tons of fish both alive and dead for sale. Its hard to describe the market. I knew it would be when I saw a tank of octopus and squid on the street. Sick people wear masks like a doctor in surgery would. Since there are so many people and no conception of a "personal bubble" its about the only way to keep from spreading germs. the sidewalk often has "braile" paths for the blind. Right near our house he have a PC bar and a massage parlor. The massage parlor, according to Tim, is the sort of place where the "endings are very happy" and the massages kind of suck. I'm sure he's not talking from personal experience on this though. Apparently the massage parlors are marked by barber poles. If there is one, it's actually a massage parlor. If it has two poles...well you know. PC bar is kind of cool.They bring out out a little ash tray with some liquid in it for washing oils of your fingers and a little cup of really delicious coffee. Also it's open 24/7 so until we get the internet at our house, which will be soon I hope, this is our connection to you guys. Went and ate with Tim and some linguist friends of his at a nearby restaurant (and there are a bunch of nearby restaurants). They have a grill built into the table where they cook the food, you get about 6 different sides, they cut the meat with scissors. Its a pretty cool experience. I'm really looking forward to really getting our feet around here. So far its been a very cool experience. More later.

Hi from South Korea!

2009-03-07T12:25:00.003+09:00

We are here now safe and sound. I'm gonna keep this post short for now since im at a PC bar. Once we get some pictures of our place and some details figured out we'll make a bigger post. I just wanted to let everyone know Caroline, I, and the blueberry are here.

News

2009-03-05T02:18:00.003+09:00

Here is the skinny my friends. We are currently in Reno, NV and heading out to California. Due to baggage issues we determined that it would be cheaper, easier, and more fun to rent a car and drive out to Cali stopping in Salt Lake City and Woodland to visit Caroline's friend Clint and my Grandma respectively. We have hit a small snag in the weather though and had to stop in Reno as well. However we are getting ready to head out to Woodland now.

This all leads up to catching a plane Thursday around noon and arriving in South Korea on Friday. We can't wait!

The Big Date!

2009-02-20T10:05:00.003+09:00

It looks like March 1st is the magic date. Assuming my visa is in order by then. If it is then shiny. Otherwise we will be heading to Korea asap. That is the skinny on our departure date. In other news packing continues as planned and near completion. Should be interesting to see how much stuff we end up bringing with us. Also Caroline has been a sickly girl. She got a pretty bad case of pink eye actually. It is clearing up though glad to say.

Dust off you top hat and tux because February 27th is our Lafayette going away party. Should be sweet. It also a birthday party for a few people if I'm understanding correctly and a welcome home party for Jenny. So it should be quite the affair. (Don't actually worry about a Tux :p)

The big news...

2009-02-16T03:10:00.002+09:00

I'm just going to get right into it. Caroline and I are Pregnant and we couldn't be happier about it! Our kid is going to be born over in Korea so we have to figure some things out of course like what paperwork needs to be filled out to ensure American citizenship for our little bundle. But this also means our kid will be born with adventure and mischief in her (sure it could be a boy but we both think it will be a girl and Deva agrees) blood. We approve of this though it will probably be worth a whole pile of trouble as she grows up. I wouldn't have it any other way though.

Back Home

2009-02-16T02:48:00.002+09:00

Hello. I am back in Colorado. I got back on Friday, but it has been pretty busy. Spent some time with Charlie and sicky Rachelle. Yesterday was full of walking and running errands. We walked down to the bank, over to Walgreens, down to the tattoo shop (scheduled Justin's touch-up), then took the bus down to Rei to get some Keens for Justin, Barnes and Noble, and Whole Foods.

For those who don't know about my addiction yet, I love Sudoku. I have gone through one series of books that go from white belt to black belt. I am about to start the second degree black belt. They seem so easy now, although I'm glad I made that progression. So I am starting on a new series that is Mensa approved. It is called Absolutely Nasty Sudoku. There are four levels. After that, I will try the book of 500 championship-level ones. I also bought another book with very challenging ones, including 25 x 25 squares. It looks crazy, but so fun. There is also a book of Mensa How to Solve Sudoku that I want. It explains all the patterns. I only know 3 or 4, but there are quite a few. They have funny names like the Gordonian Rectangle, swordfist, turgot fish, jellyfish, etc. Justin studies chess, I guess this is my chess.

Last night we went to Nyala Ethiopian restaurant for dinner. We only had to wait about 15 minutes for the table. The food was amazing, although the waitresses aren't really used to handling a crowd! We had the lamb wot, chicken alicha, and engudai tibs (button mushroom). It comes with yellow lentils, salad, collard greens, and green beans and carrots. The spices are awesome. I love that place.

Justin will be posting next to share some great news with everyone. 안녕

Down in Pueblo...

2009-02-12T03:20:00.002+09:00

So being down in pueblo has been surprisingly relaxing. Normally being in Pueblo just puts me off. Something about the town has just felt...wrong...for a long time. While this isn't any kind of indication of wanting to settle down ere it has been nice.
I've mostly been spending time with my mom though I also spent time with Jake, Kiera, and Jeff. Jake has gotten really good at painting his miniatures and the Keeper of Secrets ( http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/kosecrets3.htm ) Mom and I got him for Christmas is impressive. Kiera is doing well and Midori is, of course, amazing. Janet (Kiera's Mom) took us out to dinner at an excellent Mexican place. Midori got a kids margarita and , upon drinking it, got very tired and cranky. She didn't even touch her food. Silly kiddos. Jeff is also doing well. He lost a lot of weight and is getting an excellent promotion at work. That should go well considering Jesse is about ready to pop out her first pod person.
Beyond visiting I haven't been doing much. Studying chess of course. I made some excellent strides in my tactics training acheiving a high rating of 1626. I won't be going to any tournaments or anything but it is very nice to improve. I also bought some movies I've been wanting including the A&E Pride and Prejudice miniseries. So chess, movies, and visiting has been my last few days. Nice but I'll be happy to be back home and getting ready for Korea.
Speaking of which...My paperwork should be just about done being processed and will soon be winging its way back to me. Once thats done I'll send everything off again, this time to the Korean Consulate in San Francisco. Their the final touches will be put on everything meaning I'll get my visa. Then tickets and packing, then long flight, then adventures with my co-pirate! Good times will abound.
Co-pirate is still in Texas. Her exploits are recounted below. I miss her many muchos. RAWR!

Texas update

2009-02-11T01:27:00.002+09:00

Past time to blog again. I'm in Texas. It's been a lot of fun.

Saturday I flew into Austin. Mom picked me up and we went for lunch at my favorite bubble drink place. The rest of the day was just relaxing. Sunday was my Mamal's birthday. We went to a great Austin restaurant and then back to my uncle's house to play with the youngest of the family. She just turned a year old and is so smart (not to mention cute).

My friend Deva is letting me borrow the car that I sold to her a few months ago, so I have transportation while I'm in town. I drove over to my Dad's house to have some hang-out time with my little sister (who's 16 now) and my dad. The next morning my step-mom had come back from working out of town, and I got to catch up with her for a while.

Mom and I met back up for lunch, then we went to meet my ex-husband for some final divorce paper signing. Yay! I am now officially divorced! It's good to have that done!

That's what I've been up to. I will be seeing my friend lisa this afternoon, Deva tomorrow afternoon, and then Thursday I'm going down to San Antonio to see the Nana and Granddad. It has been a good week so far. I'm not sure why, but I'm happier than I usually am when I visit down here. I think a part of it is the weather. Yes, it's still humid, but it's not 100 degrees like it is in the summer when I visit. It's tolerable. Also, I've got the whole week to see everyone, and I don't have to go back to work when I get home.

The only down side to this week is not being with Justin! He's in Pueblo visiting his family and friends. Just a few more days apart though, and we will be inseparable for a year!! Rawr, Justin!

안녕

Ups and Downs

2009-02-07T12:30:00.005+09:00

It was a rollercoaster day. Started out great. Had beverages and treats at my favorite coffee shop with good friends Sharon and Kendra. Headed over to Eco-thrift (best thrift store EVER) with Kendra to say hi to the eco-people. Good stuff. It went downhill when I got home. I can't find one of my favorite cds, The Darjeeling Limited Soundtrack. Then I had to call the airline I'm flying on tomorrow to try to fix a mistake that they made on my reservation. I talked to the highest supervisors in two departments and then filed a formal complaint. I usually don't bother with that, but I was MAD. Never did get the reservation fixed. I have to just exchange the flight on the day of. :P
I did eventually get in a better mood after a great conversation with my mom. She really cheered me up. Now I'm all packed for flying to Texas tomorrow, and my ipod is full of great music (except Darjeeling...grrr).

Yesterday went pretty well overall. It was my last day with the Daycare. I trained my replacement cook, which was the least exciting part of the day. Then I had some Bubble drinks with my co-worker Tabitha. Good fun. After that headed over to the elementary school to say good-bye to all my school-agers. It was sad, but we had cookie cake and they gave me tons of farewell cards and hugs. They are an amazing group of kids.
Yesterday evening, our friend Matt came over for several hours and there was some great conversation. We were all exhausted and ready for bed by midnight.

Update on Korea: We may be leaving as late as the 27th now. It could still be around the 19th though. As soon as the school decides on an orientation day we will know. There is still a couple more bits of paperwork that I have to get, but those are waiting until we get plane tickets. It's starting to feel real now!

It has been great getting time to hang out with all our friends so much. The aforementioned Matt and his gf/my co-worker Shauna are on the way over for more good times. I should definitely go brush the garlicy pesto dinner out of my mouth before then. 잘자

In case anyone needs some cute

2009-02-05T03:39:00.001+09:00

Tibby and Takei
Originally uploaded by poodia2002

I'm alive!

2009-02-05T03:03:00.005+09:00

Hi everyone! Yay, my first post! I am feeling much better. Got some yummy rosemary bread and tea in me. Mmmm.
We are getting closer to Korea. It's coming up fast. Will be visiting Texas this Saturday. I can't wait to see everyone down there. I have my last day of work tomorrow. I'll be training my replacement and then popping in at the school-age program to say my good-byes. I see some tears in my near future. It has been so great working with these kiddos. I'm gonna miss them a lot. I hope I get to work with some awesome kids in Korea too.
Dozer is crazy right now. He's been stuck in the house with the rest of us, which apparently leads to "playing" with the cats. It will be good when we get him into his new home. He'll have 2 other dogs to mess around with, and a bigger yard. It is sad, but we really don't have time or energy to enjoy him right now anyway. He's been a great foot warmer the last couple days though!
Now that I've checked in, time to finish my tea and maybe work on some Sudoku.

korea

2009-02-03T04:28:00.001+09:00

Also another snag out of the way. Apparently some check list I was supposed to send wasn't given to me. But now its filled out and sent on. All should be well.

Drunk visitors and other unexpected complications...

2009-02-03T01:29:00.000+09:00

So Caroline is pretty sick. This makes me a sad Panda. Probably a flu. She is currently resting in bed with a full supply of ginger drinks, medicine, and soon rice for breakfast. So hopefully she will soon be on the mend. However, between that and a little visit we received about one a.m. last night I didn't sleep overly well. See the story goes something like this. Our roommate Jake didn't have a key for a while. We made him a key but it didn't work for some reason and he said he was going to get a new one but I'm honestly not sure he has. So we started leaving the side door open for him since he often comes home late. So last night I woke up with a midnight thirst. Proceed to the kitchen, leave lights off so as to protect eyes, consume milk, all is well. Heading back to the bedroom I got an eerie feeling like I was being watched from the darkness. I shrugged off said feeling cause yes I believe in ghosts but I know this place has a ghost and he's pretty quiet. I must be freaking myself out right? So I just go to bed. Once in bed we start hearing noises. At first we think it might be someone downstairs. We hear the bathroom door open and the fan/light turn on then quickly turn off followed by the spare room door sliding open. We are trying to figure out what it could by. Maybe Jake or Charlie? Charlie doesnt seem likely. He has his own bathroom and why would he be going into the spare room this time of night? We didn't hear Jake's door open either and he wasn't in the living room when I went to the kitchen. I start to get worried though as details begin to fall into place despite my half awake state of brain. Caroline gets up and leaves the room while I start throwing pajamas back on. Just as soon as I get my pants on I hear her open the spare room door and some quick movement followed by her popping back into the bedroom with a freaked out look on her face. I look out the door and some guy who I've never seen is staring at me. The following conversation was fairly akward. I'm hoping their is a reasonable explanation for this unfamiliar face in our house. A friend of Jake's maybe? He says yes but follows that up by heading for the downstairs door and making readily apparent just how drunk he is (which is extremely btw). The guy is having trouble with the door. Great. Caroline suggests I go help him with the door. I'm, still being freaked out, understandably hesitant. As I head down the stairs he begins to head up the stairs. I block his path and ask again if he is Jake's friend, "yeah sure I'm Jake's friend" he says with a sort of hesitancy of his own. Determined to be sure I move to Jake's door and start knocking. "Jake do you have a friend staying in the guest room tonight?" "No" is my answer. So that's that. I tell him in its time to go. He, seeming to think we are somehow friend by this point, beings insulting me for being a bad friend, but has the decency to make for the door. Problems with the door still. Now knowing where I stand with this guy and being fairly sure he has no weapons let alone the ability to use the in an effective manner open the door for him and let him out. Lock doors, Caroline calls police. I'm sad we had to do that last bit but really? I don't have a way to take him home nor the patience to find out where said home is anyway. I'm not going to just let him hang out on the porch (which he did until the cops arrived) to greet the daycare parents in the morning. Furthermore, it is cold out. I'm not going to just let him wander the night hoping he manages to make it home safe. He might just wander into someone else's home again. Needless to say the cops handled it. Freakin wierd though. I certainly couldn't get back to sleep for a number of hours nor sleep well the rest of the night. Drunker visitors...Do you have a key Jake? Hope so cause I'm locking the house up from now on.

2009-01-29T10:05:00.000+09:00

So my paperwork got dropped off in Korea today. Very pleased about that. As I sort of expects I've been informed that while working in Korea my tattoo will have to be covered and my earring will need to be taken out. No big deal imo. So we draw ever closer...

Also I made a great breakthrough in chess today. I've been using the tactics trainer on chess.com for a while and managed to start consistently solving problems of a higher rating than before. So thats extremely satisfying. Also the guy who wrote my book "Learn from the Greatest Games of Gary Kasparov" plays in chess.com. I sent him a message thanking him for all he has contributed to chess, most especially the book I bought. He and I have messaged back and forth a little. That pretty cool.

Thats about it for now. Later.

2009-01-28T04:47:00.000+09:00

So things are coming along nicely for Korea. My papers have been sent off to Korea (They are in Incheon as we speak) and should soon be winging their way back to me with a visa appiontment slip. Then we send our final visa paperworks to the Korean consulate (The one in San Francisco I think), buy our tickets, and finally hop on a plane for our grand adventure. As such, a word about other preparations follows.
We got most of our extraneous belongings packed up and stored in Lafayette. Big furniture will just stay where it is and peoples can use it. Also, we've found a home for Dozer in the interim. A friend of Caroline's who she worked with at Camp Bow Wow looks like she will almost definitely take him while we are gone. We just have to do an introduction with her dogs at her house. Shouldn't be a problem considering how well the dogs got a long at the dog park. Harry Potter paperbacks books are on their way. I don't want to be without them and I don't want to bring those bulky and heavy hardcovers. Caroline's car is sold and my car will soon be Jenny's to do with as she pleases.
Between now and then some hanging out clearly needs to occur. Caroline is heading down to Texas for a week and her last day of work is the 5th of Feb. I'll be heading down to Pueblo for some of that week in a rented car after dropping Caroline off at the airport. Not the whole week though. At some point I'll make my way back up to the Denver area and hangouts will ensue. A party needs to be planned.
Thats all the major detail I can think of just now. I'm probably forgetting something. No worries. Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo.