4 Kids = Medical Issues

I interrupt these regularly scheduled posts about Korea to bring you this:

We had planned to have a really fun Saturday, but Saturday morning Madelyn woke up with a fever and spoiled everything. Just kidding. She did not sleep very good the night before (which means I didn't either). From midnight on, she woke up EVERY single hour, on the hour, and a few times on the half hour. I couldn't figure out what was wrong. She wasn't complaining that she felt sick, and she didn't develop the fever until the morning. She wouldn't eat anything. Then I noticed that the side of Madelyn's jaw was swelling up, so I looked inside her mouth. The gums around one of her lower molars was really red and gross, with a white bump. Why do my kids always have medical issues on the weekends when nothing is open. We've only been in Korea a few weeks, and already we get to go the E.R. That is sooooooooo us:)

So I walked with Madelyn in the stroller to the ER on base. We were the only ones in the waiting room, but we still waited a LONG time. They gave her some antibiotics, and told me to take her to the dentist on Monday to follow up, and to give her soft foods and keep her hydrated. For dinner she had a strawberry shake. Everyone else was jealous. Here's a picture of Madelyn on her soft foods diet of chocolate pudding.
On Monday I called to make an appointment at the dentist for Madleyn. They didn't have anything until the end of October. That obviously wasn't going to work, so they told me to just do a walk-in either that afternoon, or Tuesday morning. I chose Tuesday morning. So yesterday we walked on to base to the dentist. We got there first thing, so nobody else was there - a good thing. The dentist told us that Madelyn had an absessed tooth, and it would need to come out....right then....great. Madelyn doesn't have the best track record with dentists. Translation - she hates them. This time, though, far exceeded the drama of all previous visits put together. She was not happy. She was screaming, crying, and trying to get out of that chair the whole time. I tried to talk to her, to calm her down. She would not be calmed. She would not be calmed for a whole half hour AFTER we left the dentist office. But the tooth came out,

and now we have to go back and get a check-up (the one that was available for the end of October), and get a spacer so that her teeth don't move into the gap. I'm really looking forward to it. When we came out of the exam room into the waiting room, there were about 4 other children (with parents) waiting for their turns. I watched them watch Madelyn, and saw there eyes bulge with fear just a little bit. Sorry.

We got home from the dentist in time for lunch. Right after lunch, as I was about to put the kids down for a precious, and much needed nap, the phone rang. It was the nurse at the elementary school saying that Cora had fallen off the monkey bars, and landed badly on her hand/wrist. She was in a lot of pain (Cora, not the nurse), and could I please come and get her, and probably take her to the E.R. for an x-ray. I told her that I didn't have a car, but that I would be there in about 20-25 minutes. So I loaded up the kids in the stroller for our second trip to base....and our second trip to the E.R. Good thing I already knew where it was.

It took a long time at the E.R. - again. I know, it could be worse, but.... While waiting, we got to hear the guy in the room next to us moaning. It hurt really bad, apparently. I felt bad for the guy giving birth to a kidney stone (or whatever it was he was doing), but there was nothing I could do except distract my own children.....as if THAT was hard - there are WAY too many things in an E.R. room that little kids can get into, including pulling plugs that set off alarms. Code Blue!!! Gee wiz.

X-rays confirmed that Cora had not broken anything, so she was sent home with a splint for her sprain. We're glad it was only a sprain. You can take off a splint to do things like shower and itch your arm. You can't do that with a cast, ya know?

I'm waiting on the edge of my seat to find out what our next E.R. trip will be like. Hopefully we'll have our car by then. My next post will be about Korea......even if someone goes to the E.R.

Why I Love Our Apartment

The post you've all been waiting for - pictures of our new apartment:) This is not the nicest apartment in Korea, nor is it the worst. It is right inbetween, and we love it! Our apartment is on the lucky 13th floor - 13 is a lucky number, right?:) We have an elevator, but they test it once a month for about an hour or so. The day we moved in, they just happened to be testing it right after I went to pick up the kids from the bus stop, so we had to climb 13 flights of stairs. I assured them it would not be a daily occurance, and they were troopers. The way that apartments are set up here are that the apartment building is long and narrow, and on each floor there are four apartments in a line, so that each apartment goes from one side of the building to the next, with an elveator in between the first two apartments, and another between the second two. I feel I need to draw a diagram.

Not to scale, but you get the idea. Anyway because your apartment goes from one side of the building to the other, you get a LOT of windows, and a lot of natural light. This is what our building looks like.

I know you're jealous of the pink. It's great! Also, we can open up the windows, and the wind blows right through our apartment, in one end and out the other, cooling it down very nicely. We'll have to use the air conditioner through part of the summer, but we haven't had to use it yet, all through September. Of course, the best part of all the windows, and living as high up as we do, is the great view. Behind us, all the apartment buildings are only 5 floors high. This is only in a small section of the neighborhood, but we're lucky enough to have it right behind us. This allows for a great view of the river.

Here it is at night (out of focus -sorry).

I don't know how we'd ever get sick of looking out our windows. In the front of us are just a bunch of apartments, but off to the side of us we can see the museum, and behind that the base.

The night we moved in, the museum had fireworks, and we had the perfect seat. I'm pretty sure they were celebrating our arrival - see, I told you how friendly the Koreans are:) Looking down into our parking lot, you can also see a tennis court and playground that is part of our complex.

I love that there are rubber mats at the playground instead of sand or gravel or wood chips. Well, here's the indside of the apartment. Our living room.

Most of the furniture is borrowed from the base housing office. Our Kitchen/Dining room.

You can see we have nice wood floors through these main rooms. Master Bedroom.

Here is the bidet in the master bath that I think is amusing.

Are you disappointed that it looks like a regular toilet? I love the wall-to-wall closets in our bedroom. Some people have a craft room. I have a craft closet. It's the best I've ever had.

Girls room.

Boys room.

The boys room is just BARELY big enough to squeeze two twin beds in there, but you can't open the door all the way.

That's okay, because all they do in there is sleep and get dressed. We haven't put anything up on their walls yet, so it looks a little bare. We'll get around to that later. Here is the play room.

This room is a disaster. Normally the anal retentive side of me would bust out and I would either make the kids clean it or I'd clean it myself, making sure that everything was orderly and in the "right" place, and then not let them go in there for a few days so it wouldn't get messed up. But I'm ignoring that side of myself while we're living here - at least when it comes to this room. I don't care how messy it gets, as long as their bedrooms stay clean, and no toys come out of the playroom into any other part of the apartment. If they want to play in a pig pen, then have at it. We'll see how long that lasts. As part of our rent, which is more than I care to think about, we get free water.

I've never had one of these things before. I'm hooked. Another thing I like about our apartment is the doorknobs on every door.

It's just a little somethin' that makes me smile. They don't match with anything else, but they're....special:) We love our apartment because we are in a GREAT location. We are about 1/2 block from a subway station. And if you take a shortcut through that station to the exit on the othe side, there is a gate to the base right there. Within five or so minutes walk of that gate is the elementary school. If we don't want to walk to school, the school bus stops right in front of our building to pick up the kids for school. Our neighborhood is also great. Here is a picture looking down at our street behind our building.

Zoom in and see if you can see the Pizza Hut and 7-11. Yes, I'm serious. We've heard a few people say that this is a famous part of Seoul where a lot of celebrities live. I don't know if that's true or not, but we like to say we live in the Beverly Hills of Korea. It is a very nice area, well-mantained, and really family friendly. There is a Korean elementary school right next to us. This post is getting long though, so I'm going to have to tell you more about our neighborhood next time. It's really fun.

First Week in Korea

Our first week in Korea was spent in the lovely hotel on the army post (yes, we are at an army post, and not an airforce base). This is a really nice hotel, and it should be for the amount of money we spent to stay there. Lucky for us, the military will pay us back for that. We had to get two adjoining rooms to fit all six of us and all our luggage - Our luggage had a room of it's own.....J/K....kind of. Anyway, this was the view from our room.
They had several restaraunts in the hotel, all of which give kids a free buffet dinner with the purchase of an adult meal. So ALL 4 of my kids could eat free, even if if only ONE of us was with them and bought a meal. Crazy good.

They had a very nice playground there too.

The first day we played there my kids headed straight for the fountains. It was like Disneyland all over again, and they all got soaking wet. I only allowed that one time. One day we were down there playing, and Joe and I about peed our pants when a bunch of Korean kids came up to Madelyn, and pulled down the bottom of their eyelids at her, like this.

This is their counter to American kids pulling out the corners of their eyes to make "Asian eyes". We had heard about kids doing this to American kids, but we'd never actually seen it done. It was so funny. They weren't really trying to be rude, they were just mesmorized by her and how different looking she was. I'm not sure she knew what to make of it, but they ended up playing with each other, despite the fact that they couldn't speak the same language.

The Korean lady who cleaned our room each day was so nice. She was so nice that I felt guilty that she had to clean our 2 chaotic rooms (and she did a fabulous job, by the way). She loved the kids. She was sad when we left, and gave us hugs. Korean people are very friendly, and polite, service oriented, and hard working. Okay, not ALL Koreans are friendly, but MOST of them are.

Like I mentioned in my last post, we got to our hotel Tuesday night. By Wednesday morning we were up and running. Joe had to start his in-processing, and I went straight to the school to register the kids. They started classes the next day on Thursday. One thing we're doing differently this is is making the kids lunches every day. School lunches are a bit pricey, and I've been too busy to apply for reduced prices (which I don't even know if we'd qualify for anyway). So far it's been fine though. The kids are making friends, and they both like their teachers. We got Madelyn registered for preschool, but there's a waiting list, so we are waiting. She REALLY wants to go to school.

On Thursday I was wearing a BYU shirt, and let me just say, "Rise and Shout, the Mormons are out!" That shirt attracted Mormon's like....well, pick your own metaphor. Anyway, we were eating breakfast and I mentioned to Joe that we needed to find a chaplin so that we could find out when and where the LDS services were. Right after breakfast we ran into an LDS chaplin - he saw my shirt. After that we took the kids to school for their first day. We ran into TWO LDS teachers at the shcool (one of which is Cora's teacher) - they both noticed my shirt. At lunch we met another member - he commented that my shirt was the best shirt he'd seen all day. After church we crossed paths with another member - he saw my shirt and commented about BYU's great game over Labor Day weekend. So, needless to say, we found out when and where church services were. I told Joe I was going to wear my BYU shirt every day. I haven't though, in case you were wondering.

Right away on Wednesday we started calling realtors in order to find an apartment. You do everything through the realtor. The landlord, or owner of the apartment does nothing but collect their money from the realtor - the relator does all the work. They show the apartment, they collect rent and bills for the apartment, they set up all the initial things like gas, cable, interenet, water, etc., and then whenever you need a repair or whatever, you call the realtor. Anyway, every realtor we called about pooped their pants when we said we had four kids and needed a four bedroom apartment. "Oh my!", "Oh that might be hard to find", and on and on. Not ONE of them called us back with an apartment to show us. On Thursday a guy that Joe works with said he had a great realtor and would have her call us. She called us that night. The next day she showed us four apartments. Her name is Jean, and she is great. She's young, she speaks very good Enlgish, and she never made any comments about the fact that we have 4 kids. The first apartment she showed us had a great view, but was kind of run down, and we said no right away. The second one she showed us was newly remodeled, and we knew we'd never see anything that nice again, and we really wanted it. We looked at a couple of others, but we wanted the nice one. Jean called the landlord....who had just rented it out to someone who could pay more than we could afford.:( Dang it! On Saturday we looked at a couple of more apartments and chose one that was really nice, but also really small. Jean asked as to please look at the FIRST apartment again, knowing that we needed more space, and telling us that the landlord had just had the floors and wallpaper re-done. We agreed, and Monday morning we went to check it out. It was amazing the transformation that had taken place. We knew it was the place for us. We were very grateful to Jean because we really felt like she had our best interest in mind. She could have gotten more commission out of the smaller apartment, but she knew it was too small for us, so she didn't push it on us. We got to move in two days later. My next post will be about our apartment, and I'll include pictures of it then. However, if you go back to the first picture (view from our hotel room), and zoom in on the buildings on the left, you'll see buildings numbered 215, 209 and 218. We live right behind those buildings, in the same complex.

On Sunday we followed the directions we had been given to get to church. Church is not at a good time. It starts at 11:00, which means we had to leave the hotel at 10:00 to have enough time to ride the subway and make the necessary transfers. Which also means that we didn't get back until almost 4:00. When are we supposed to have lunch? I took a bunch of snacks with us to carry us through.....we BARELY made it alive:) Here's us at the subway station in our Sunday best.

We were pleasantly surprised by how big our "branch" is. Yes, it is a branch, but it's just about as big as the ward we came from. It is a military branch, and so it's English speaking. We've got military members from every branch of service, as well as people from the embassy, and contract workers. We saw all the people we had met through my BYU shirt, and then met a few others. It seems like a good branch.

We've been doing a LOT of walking, since we won't have our car for a month or two. The weather has been good. We're at the end of summer, so it hasn't been too hot or muggy, so we're actually enjoying all the walking. We've also been learning the subway system. We had ONE bad day (last Sunday) where I directed us the wrong way, not once, but TWICE! It added an extra hour to our already-hour-long commute to church. Nobody died, so I guess it was okay.

At the end of the week I asked Madelyn how she liked Korea so far. She said, "Good." I tried to clarify, "It's good so far?" "No", she said, "just one far."

Twelve Hour Flight, and then some

So, our flight over to Korea wasn't too terrible. We had a few ups and downs, but for the most part it was okay. Here are rtings that might cross your mind as you are traveling from California to South Korea:

It would have been nice if Delta had told us the right terminal to go to when we called and asked them last night, because then we wouldn't have to RE-LOAD all the luggage into the van.

Goodbye family! (don't cry, don't cry, don't cry)

Wow, everyone who works for Korean Airlines is so friendly and helpful.

Wow, everyone else who works at LAX is so rude.

Hey, be patient - it takes time to get four kids and all their crap through the security check! And no, they're NOT hiding any explosive devises in their shoes.

Alex sure looks cute lugging around his carry-on. Yes, his is the biggest one, but it has wheels, and its very light weight:)

I hope that our two hour wait here goes by quickly.

If you're running after your kids, does that mean that your luggage was left unattended?

I wonder if there are any other Americans on this flight.....yep, there's some military guys.

Thank goodness Korean Airlines has kid's meals with American-style food like chicken nuggets and pizza.

Its very cool that each seat has its own personally controlled screen with movies, TV shows, games, etc. to choose from.

It would be nice if Alex actually kept those earphones on the whole flight.

Dang'it, I knew Alex wouldn't keep those on the whole flight.

How many fruit snacks can one kid eat?

I hope the people around me don't think I'm rude for stealing Alex's food while he's asleep.

Hopefully they'll all go to sleep at some point.

Are you okay Alex - Where's the barf bag?!

If that barf bag hadn't had a perforated edge that I had to tear off first, I would have caught ALL of it in the bag!

I hope nobody else can smell this....it doesn't smell too bad.

Hmmmm, that's kind of dumb - when the guy in front of me leans his chair back, my cup won't fit in the designated cup holder.

Well, at least everyone else is getting some sleep.

We're here!

Okay, I know it's technically in the middle of the night for you, but I'm not going to carry you.

Wow, free luggage carts. Too bad they're not free in America.

Wow, we have a lot of luggage (yes, that's TWO towering carts)

No, I'm not going to sell kid's clothes on the black market. I have four kids, and all together they have a lot of clothes.

I don't care how old you are lady, I am pushing a gigantic load of luggage, and I am NOT going to get out of your way!

Oh, so when you said that the USO bus stop was at the other end of the airport, you meant THE OTHER END OF THE AIRPORT!

Yes, the soda cans are funny looking.

Okay, we're just one bus ride away from a bed.

Gee, I wish that the bus had stopped in front of the hotel we're staying at instead of the building next door. Now we have to get all our luggage over THERE!

I thought you kids were tired. Why do you have to act like crazy people in the lobby of the hotel? I hope that some day your kids embarrass you this badly.

Seriously, the rooms cost THAT much?

Oh blessed, blessed bed - so help me if these kids don't sleep the whole night through!!!

Just Whistle While You Work

Woohoooo, I can finally upload pictures - and there are LOTS! (I'm not kidding, there's really a lot). I know you're all anxious to hear about Korea, but I have to post about Disneyland first:)

Joe and I went to Disneyland on our honeymoon. It was a fun and carefree time. Before we left for Korea we took our four kids to Disneyland. It was a lot of fun.......not so much carefree. It is hard work to have fun with four kids sometimes, especially when you're doing 12 hour days at Disneyland. I was dumbfounded that there could be any whining at the happiest place on earth, but there was.

"I'm hot. I want a drink. I don't want to share a drink, I want my own. When are we going to eat. I don't want to eat that. I'm too tired to walk. I don't want to go on that ride. Why can't we go on that ride? Why do we have to wait in line? I want to go swimming. When are we going to go back to our hotel? I'm tired. I don't want to go to bed. I want to go home (Are you kidding me?!!!)."

Kids!!! It was all I could do to not smack them when they were sounding so ungrateful for all the money we were spending!:) However, these were only small moments now and again, and not the whole of our trip. We really did have a great time together, and we would do it all over again. I hope that my kids have some great memories from this trip. I know I will. Here are some of the things we saw and did.

The first day we ate at Ariel's Grotto so we could meet all the princesses. This was well worth the money, because I was not about to wait in huge lines to meet each princess. Oh, and we also went with my sister and her family. We were so glad to have those extra days with them at such a fun place.

The food was actually really good, and each child got a crown and some princess stickers. I love this picture of Alex poking his face through his crown.
Each princess came to our table, and we got to take pictures.

Strange how each princess was personified so well, in dress and mannerisms. Spooky:) My first year of college I applied for a job at DisneWorld. I really sucked at the interview and wasn't hired. I was very sad. Just think, I could have been a princess.....or a street sweeper.

JT wasn't interested in taking pictures with princesses at all.

But Alex was.

We met Alice and the Mad Hatter - again, I was not about to wait in long lines to meet anyone, so we didn't even bother if there was more than a couple of people waiting.

This was the Nemo submarine adventure. Very cool.

On the boardwalk at California Adventure.

Waiting for the parade to start. We waited for about 30-45 minutes, but it was worth it.

The kids got to dance in the parade. This was too cute!

Waiting in line for the new Toy Story ride. Joe and Alex have their 3D glasses on. This ride is awesome becuase it's very interactive, and because even the little ones can go on it.

This area was A Bug's Life Land

They had a splash area, so we went to cool down.

My kids got SOAKING WET! They loved it:) When we were done, I took each one into the bathroom, made them strip, and wrung out their clothes. I tried to get it all in the toilet, but we left a lot of water on the bathroom floor:)

A must-do photo-op with the mouse himself. He's the only one I'll stand in line for:) Unfortunately we missed Minnie, but that was Cora's choice for a souvenier - a Minnie Mouse doll with interchangable outfits. We told the kids that they could each choose ONE souvenier.

The one character that Cora most wanted to see was Goofy, so I might have actually waited in a line for him, but luckily we didn't have to because we caught him right as he was coming out to make his appearance.

The one thing that Madelyn wanted to do most was ride on the carousel...and then I didn't even get a picture of her on it:b

I can't remember what this ride was called, and this isn't the most flattering picture, but as you can see, we all got very wet. I was also soaked a couple of times on Splash Mountain. Cora and I always seemed to get the seats that got the most water.

Typical scene for the little ones, waiting and napping while Mom and Dad and the big kids got to ride the more exciting rides.

The thing that JT wanted to do most was Star Tours (He also got a "double-blasted" light sabor for his souvenier), so they all went while I stayed with the sleeping little ones. While I waited, I watched people. It's interesting the assortment of people you get at Disneyland. It is interesting that no matter what style of clothes you wear, Disney can accomadate you - whether it's punk, nerdy, heavy rocker, goth, white trash, or whatever - Disney has something for you. Also, at Disneyland it is perfectly okay to adorn your head with things that you otherwise would never be caught dead wearing. And yes, Disney has every kind of head adornment imaginable. So funny to people watch. Anyway, as I was waiting, I saw this woman across from me. I just stared at her forever, and snuck this shot of her - I thought she was so beautiful.

Our obligatory pose in front of Sleeping Beauty's castle. Behind the castle is a place called Bibbidy Bobbidy Boutique. Little girl's can go there and get there hair done, makeup, tiarras, dresses, the works. They have packages ranging from "It costs how much for that?" to "Well, I guess a second mortgage on our house isn't asking too much." Madelyn chose a Little Mermaid outfit for her souvenier - just a semi-cheap outfit, not a "package deal".

Here we are in front of the Indiana Jones ride, a personal favorite for Joe and I. Madelyn was very disappointed that she couldn't go on "Doctor Jones" (yes, that's what she calls it).

Here's Alex doing his impersonation of Doctor Jones - one of the best picture of the vacation:)

After seeing the crowds the night before, we wanted to get good seats for the Fantasmic show at night. We didn't realize at first what that would mean. After a hard day of rides closing, tantrums, and clothes being soaked with pee and coke, we staked out seats at a cafe for the 9:00 showing - we got there at 6:00! (and yes, there were people who were staked out before us). Here we are at the beginning of our wait.

Here we still are as it's getting dark, and after we've filled our tummies.

Below is how Alex spent his time waiting. Salt and Pepper shakers are SO fun! The show was amazing, and worth the wait (some of us thought). The crowds are crazy afterwards, trying to get to the front gates. You really have to be aggressive, especially when pushing a stroller. It reminded me of Black Friday shopping:)

The cones in front of the shuttle bus stop are also a lot of fun when you're waiting. I guess that's a big part of Disneyland - waiting, and finding things to amuse yourself while waiting. Joe and I think that the best time to go to Disneyland is January 10th - that's when we went on our Honeymoon, and there were NO lines!

Here we are waiting for Joe and Cora while they went on Splash Mountain with a switch-pass. We're watching the canoe rides, that we didn't go on.

Here are some more friends we met.

Ohhhhh.

T-I-double Gg-R

And that's all folks....at least, I can't think of anything else right now. We got our souveniers and headed to the airport - but that's for another post:)