We've moved!!

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

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

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...

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.

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!

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

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

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.

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

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

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!

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...

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

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...

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

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

Last Weekend

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...

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.

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.