Catch Up

Hey! What are you still doing here? We've moved and so has our blog. Read all about our new life in America at:



http://aaoreillyusa.blogspot.com/

Fourth of July

Although it would have been nice to actually be IN America to celebrate the Fourth, we did have fun at the "Liberty Fest" on base where we:

snapped this photo of the boys in front of Joshie's beloved A-10 tail:

got lots of freebies including this fab headband:

walked around some airplanes:

watched Andrew's favorite robotic demo:

saw strange Korean man with squeaky shoes:

and saw Mommy's favorite item of the day:

This crazy lady was really rockin' out before I started taping her (holding the camera the wrong way, duh.)

It was a bit of a challenge keeping the kids up until 9pm for fireworks so we let then run around like wild animals and fed them copious amounts of snow cone and funnel cake.

Korea Roundup

We are on our way! Here is the year's final stats:


Number of trips to the ER: 4

Number of car accidents: 1 (Ainsley)

Number of parking tickets: 1 (Ainsley)

Days spent on PEN: 365

Number of illnesses: too many

Number of Sopranos episodes watched: all 86

Number of trips to McDonald's: .5 (The kids shared some of Uncle's chicken nuggets in December, but we never did eat there. Hooray! But, that of course is all over when we get back. Ainsley's already talking about it, sigh...)


Number of blog entries: 121

Number of pregnancies: 0 (Victory is mine!)

Pounds gained: 8 lbs (Madeline)

Pounds lost: 8 lbs (Mommy)

Regrets: 0

Adios, Korea!

Things we are looking forward to

1. Grass! A yard!

2. Garbage disposals

3. Central air

4. Our car

5. Target

6. Shopping for clothes in a real store and not over the internet

7. Grilling on the BBQ

8. ICE

9. Drive-thrus

10. Seeing our families

Wordless Wednesday

Things we WON'T Miss

Yes, we will miss all the nice people, yada yada yada, but here's our top ten of things we WON'T be missing about Korea:


1. The smell: The sewers can be overpowering but nothing compares to the horror of Korean-Kimchee B.O. Hands down, the worst B.O. on earth.

2. The traffic: driving through Songtan on a market day and driving our van through the street behind our house was like running the gauntlet everyday.

3. Parking on base: 5,000 people and 30 spots

4. The pollution and yellow dust

5. Running the air conditioner for five minutes and then turning it off so we don't run up the electricity bill

6. The mosquitoes: a large colony lives outside our front door and lies in wait for us to open it

7. Our microwave: reheating one slice of pizza takes 6 minutes and don't get me started on the popcorn

8. Driving to Seoul: will it take 1 hour or three? Who knows!

9. Apartment living

10. Being 7500 miles from family

Gravy Train with Biscuit Wheels

Suddenly, Andrew is all about doing chores. On Tuesday, he swiffered the kitchen floors. Wednesday, he cleaned the windows. Thursday, he cleaned more windows. And, this morning, he loaded the dishwasher.

I LOVE summer vacation!

NEO Chicks

Last women standing: Kim, Annalies, Gretchen, Me, Cathy (everyone else passed out early;)

I'm not sure how to fully explain the NEO Chicks or how I got involved in them, but they are a fun group of girls.

NEO stands for non-combatant evacuation operation. That means, when all hell breaks loose here, this is how they get all of the families out of Korea as fast as humanly possible. It may involve the use of these:

The one for babies is totally horrific. It's like putting your baby in a giant Ziploc bag with a bottle attached to it. Oh, yes, it even has a lovely harness so you can wear your baby around your neck if you need to. And, chances are, if the sh*t goes down, I would probably have to wear Madeline around my neck in order to carry all the paperwork, food, water and diapers I would need to escape. So, without saying anymore than I should, it would be a terribly horrific situation and it's one that I don't really care to think about too much.

Howeva, we are required to think about it a couple of times a year when we "practice." So, in order to combat what would otherwise be a depressing exercise, someone (can't remember who) came up with the brilliant idea to pre-party before we process the NEO line. Imagine, if you will, 20 or so liquored up women carrying their assortment of paperwork and gas masks through a military processing center and you have the NEO chicks.

After the first NEO, it was decided that we needed uniforms (pink T-shirts that say: No Woman Left Behind) and more practice was necessary to hone our skills. So we had plenty of parties to build up our tolerance. Then, when we had perfected our mad drinking skills, we took it out for a night on the town about a month ago. I stayed out until 1am (curfew) and actually got stopped on my way home at the Korean sobriety checkpoint by my house. I, of course, passed, or I would be writing this from some sad Korean jail.

But, I digress. Two weeks ago was our last get together, complete with the requisite drinking and a couple of rounds of Twister (which proved a lot more difficult as an adult). Gretchen beat me, but that's okay, she's going to Alabama, too, so I couldn't start off any rivalry with her just yet or it would be a long year ;) Just kidding. I am glad she'll be in the same neighborhood as me when we get back to America because she is loads of fun! Here is a picture of our butts:

According to Gretchen, the other Twister pictures were not flattering. What? Twister pictures not flattering? Shocker.

Wordless Wednesday

Happy Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day to all the Daddies out there!

Today we celebrated with the traditional made-t0-order breakfast followed by gifts. Lucky for Ainsley, Andrew had drawn a dazzling portrait of Daddy at school AND did the Daddy Information sheet just like he did for Mommy.

My dad is "35" years old. (Correct!)

My dad weighs "200" pounds. (really 195 but who's counting)

My dad likes to eat "saek." (Steak -- correct!)

My dad's favorite show to watch on TV is "the news." (Yes, that's the only show Andrew is aware of his Daddy watching.)

My dad's favorite animal is "Gurela." (Gorilla -- um, okay...)

My dad's favorite thing to do is "go to work." (we have LOTS of fun around here)

My dad's favorite place to go is "The bolling ally." (hmmmm)

My dad always tells me "not to hit my borthr." (Correct!)

I love it when my dad Buys me toys. (Correct!)

We spent the day at the water park and came back just in time for the boys to see "Kung Fu Panda" at the movies.

Madeline - 15 months old

Madeline had her weight check this week and she now weighs 18 lbs 3.5 oz and is 31 inches long. That puts her in the just about the third percentile for weight and around the 75th percentile for height. Shocking, I know.
In other Madeline news, I thought you might like to see a picture of Madeline's first curl. It's in the center of the back of her head. If I have to make a prediction, I would say that her hair has Josh's coloring (duh) and Andrew's texture. It'll be another six months by our genetic calculations before she has enough hair to give a definitive answer.

At 15 months, she will follow a two step command like: "Go find Bunny and take her for a walk in your stroller." She will walk around the house calling for Bunny, "Bun! Bunny!" Which really sounds more like "Mun! Munny!" But she's into the calling for people thing because last weekend at the pool, Madeline and I were in the kiddie pool and the boys were in the big pool. She saw Daddy across the way and put her hands over her mouth and started calling, "Daaaaadddyyyy! Daaaaaaadddddy!" It was hilarious.

Calendar Men

Andrew and Josh keep their own calendars hanging next to their beds. They keep all of their important events on the calendars, like birthdays and pizza night. But there are some other important dates to remember:

For example, in March, Andrew was a dancing machine. As you can see, he was scheduled to "dans" everyday for about 2 weeks.

Or, the "Pig Mick" which was scheduled for yesterday. Andrew meant the Kindergarten "picnic" for the last day of school.



Our personal favorite is when the kids make an entry like on May 3:That is called "Mad Dad." Apparently, the kids got yelled at that day by Ainsley. Not to be confused with "Mad Mom" which happened on March 21 according to Josh's calendar which is on a boat to America.

Last Day of School!

So long, Osan American Elementary!

We'll miss Andrew's teacher, Mrs. Alcott. She's moving this summer, too. Check out Andrew's hat.
And the teacher's aide, Mrs. Tichota was super sweet, too.

So long, CDC!

Wordless Wednesday

When you have Big Brothers...

they share their clothes with you:

Lunch with Andrew

from l to r: Eddie, Andrew, Johnny (Andrew's best buddy), Marcus and Matthew

Parents can meet their children for lunch in the school cafeteria. Ainsley went a couple of months ago and today was my turn.

For $2. 05 I had cheese pizza, oranges, and chocolate milk. There was also a salad that came with that, but I passed. It was fun to get another peek into Andrew's life at school.

To the Tower, to the Tower....

Today we spent the day sightseeing in Seoul and went up to the top of the Seoul Tower. We did one of those sightseeing tour buses which is pretty much the only way to do it with three kids. (Even then, Madeline screamed in the car while we sat in Seoul traffic on the drive up there for forty minutes straight and Josh had a meltdown on the bus when it wasn't his turn to sit next to Daddy, but I digress.)

The hill to walk up to the tower is STEEP, especially with a fully loaded stroller. The pictures do not do it justice. Once we got to the top, we had a little picnic lunch . and then went up the tower.

There is a 360 degree view of Seoul and on each of the windows they have which foreign city you are looking towards and how far away you are. Here we are 9, 596.52 km from Angela's "home" (Los Angeles).

And, look! Only 193.60 km from Pyongyang! That's always reassuring.

When we were done, we went back down to the plaza from some pineapple on a stick, or as Everland calls it, pineapple coochi.

There are coin operated heat lamps:

And, Angela encounters her first squatty potty:

(which was thankfully across the way from a regular Western toilet.)

T-ball Awards Ceremony

Moving, Korean Style

The movers were here today! Hooray! We've had awesome weather up until this point and wouldn't you know it, today is POURING down rain. But, the movers were so great, they built this little tunnel so that our stuff wouldn't get soaked:It only took them three hours to get everything packed and crated. This left Ainsley and I enough time to have lunch together sans children which NEVER happens. So, I am most happy.

If you live in one of the high rise apartments around here, this is how they move you:

Granted, this is a picture of our neighbors moving and they only live on the fourth floor, but just imagine what this is like when you live on the 12th floor -- yikes!

Last Trip to Everland

I love Everland. This weekend we made our last trip to the funniest place on earth.

We began the day with the Christopher Columbus ride. It is one of those giant swinging boat rides and Andrew REALLY wanted to go on it. We missed it on our last trip so he was determined to go this time.

We walk right up since it is still early and there is no crowd. I chose the center seat since it is the tamest. Andrew's pumped and ready to go. As were watching the previous ride come to an end, Andrew gets more and more quiet. I ask him if he's scared. He says he's not but his face is much less animated. I tell him a few times that we don't have to ride this ride. We can skip it and do it another time, but he refuses.

We get on, get strapped in and the boat starts swinging. The first few swings he's completely enjoying himself. I see Ainsley down on the ground and wave at him and show Drew. But as the boat swings higher and higher, my little man gets quieter and quieter. I hold on to him and tell him that if he's scared he should either stare at his feet or close his eyes. He closes his eyes.

The ride stops and I ask him what he thought about it. This is when he begins to cry. It was so cute, I can't even tell you. "It was really scary." He is totally fighting back the tears. I console him and tell him to look around, he is the smallest kid on the ride and therefore, the bravest. I carry him down the ramp and he's feeling better but when he gets back to Daddy he starts to cry a little bit more. It didn't phase him, right after he was asking to go on one of the biggest coasters there, but we knew better :)

Then it was Mommy's turn to cry when she went on the BIGGEST roller coaster ever. It's called the T Express. The brochure describes it as "Picking and smarting sensation by world highest falling angle." I think it is referring to the way your neck feels the next day. It has the steepest incline in the world at 77 degrees. The initial drop is INSANE. Check it out:

My friend Maya and I sat in the very back and it was awesome. The g-force from the initial drop was so bad that I couldn't even hold my head up! It was so fun. I love roller coasters and this one is a monster!

Madeline had her first ride as well on "Flash Pang Pang." Who knows, but these seats just go up and down. Maddie and baby friend Curtis didn't like it at all. They both cried.

Everland has a giant rose garden in the spring, it is amazing as well:

While Madeline and Curtis napped in their strollers, we took turns on the Korean version of the roaring rapids water ride. It's funny because they have giant tarps to cover yourself with so you don't get wet. Isn't that the point?

It didn't work anyways, Josh even ducked underneath and we still got soaked:


At the end, the workers mop all the seats dry for you which is a lot nicer than America!

Oh, and, giant fans at the exit so you can dry off:


They also have a safari ride which takes you on a short trip around uncaged lions and tigers and bears, oh my! Most of the animals were sleeping, though.

Now for the funny stuff which all revolves around food amazingly enough. I ordered a hot dog for lunch since the ones we had last time were normal enough. This one, however, not so much.

It was inedible. I couldn't even look at it without wanting to vomit. I had to get something else.

Later for a snack, we had fruit on a stick. Here's the sign for that:

Farewell, Everland!