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.)