Thanksgiving

I grew up in Utah, so I never heard of Popeyes when I was growing up. Only when I moved to Texas for the first time was I blessed to experience the delish Popeyes. Also known as Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen, Popeyes Chicken and Biscuits, or as Madleyn calls it, Popeye the Sailor Man's eating place, toot, toot (yes, she says it just like that). This is a fried chicken fast food restaraunt chain. Second only to KFC, they are different because of their great New Orleans' cajun flavoring. Soooooo yummy.

What in the heck does this have to do with Thanksgiving? I'm getting to it.

This is the first year (since we first got married) that we have celebrated Thanksgiving all by ourselves - no extended family, and no friends. On top of that, we couldn't celebrate on Thursday, because Joe had classes and finals all day on Thursday, and again on Friday. I just didn't feel like preparing a whole Thanksgiving feast, all by myself, for just our family. I would have anyway, but then I got a flyer from Popeyes. A fully prepared Thanksgiving meal, and all I had to do was pick it up. That sounded good to me.

So on Saturday, Joe picked up our meal just before lunch time. I used a nice lace tablecloth of my grandmother's, and then set the table with paper plates and the provided sporks. We had turkey (cajun flavored, juicy and perfect), mashed potatoes and gravy (again, cajun flavored - but not enough of them), green beans (I think they had bacon in them), biscuits, stuffing, and a pumpkin pie (which seemed a little undercooked). I'm not sure I'd do it again, but overall, not too bad. The turkey was really, really good, and we'll be enjoying the left-overs for a while.

After our feast, we stuck to tradition and put up our Christmas tree (It's so dang cute - I can't wait to make more ornaments this year), watched It's a Wonderful Life (get's me in that Christmas season mood every time), and ATTEMPTED to put together a puzzle (Let's just say, two year olds and puzzles don't mix).

After that I actually started to feel a little homesick. I was missing our families, and thinking back on fun Thanksgivings we had had with family and friends. I didn't want to just sit around and feel sorry for myself though, so Joe suggested we go bowling. Sure, why not. We went to the aquarium on Halloween, so why not go bowling on Thanksgiving? It makes perfect sense. Even though Alex lost interest after the 4th frame, and even though we had to keep the bumpers up the whole time, we had a good time, and I didn't feel sad anymore.

I have so much to be thankful for this year, but particularly the opportunity to be here in Korea. Even though we are separated from many of our loved ones, we still have each other, and that is the most important thing. Together we are having amazing experiences in this amazing country. We want to make the most of our time here, and that includes the holidays. Wherever you may be in the world, we hope that you enjoyed your Thanksgiving too.

Precious, Precious Nap-Time

When Cora and JT were at the ages that Madelyn and Alex are right now, they were really great about taking naps still. They would consistantly go down in their beds, without protest, and Cora (at 4) would take a 1/2-1hr. nap, and JT (at 2) would take a good 2 hr. nap. Much to my chagrin, both Madelyn and Alex decided, around 18 months old each, that they didn't want to take naps anymore. It was no longer possible for me to put them in their beds, or even in their rooms, and expect them to stay there. Their poor little bodies still needed those naps though (and often still do), and they would often CRASH somewhere, at some point during the afternoon. It could be while they were eating, playing, watching TV, cuddling with mom, or driving in the car. Wherever and whenever it was, I quickly learned not to bother them, and to let them sleep wherever they landed - and I do mean wherever. If you've been reading my blog for a while, you'll remember this classic.

Yeah, that was a good one. Since we've been in Korea I've snapped a few more shots, like the one in the last post where Madelyn fell asleep slumped across the barrier. Here are some more for your enjoyment.
Looks comfortable, huh?

This won't last much longer.

Yes, she's really taking a nap that way.

Playdough is exhausting!

So is eating.

Posing for the camera, even in her sleep.

Cuddling up to the Nintendo DS.

Hey Jules, recognize the hat? :) Pleasant dreams everyone.

Ladies and Gentlemen, the President of the United States

Here I am, ready to meet the President of the United States of America. I look great, so who wouldn't want to meet me?

Okay, so President Obama is finishing up his tour of Asia, and yesterday he came to South Korea. We were told that he would be flying, by helicopter, from our post down to Osan AFB (where he was speaking to the troops), and that we could watch his motorcade go by in front of the Elementary school at a certain time. Cora and JT were excited about it, and I told them that I would come and watch too. I told them right from the start that he might not be able to roll down his window when he drove by, so we shouldn't expect to get a good look at him.....but, of course, we all hoped that we would.

Now, I didn't vote for President Obama, and my kids know that, and they know why. We've talked to them a lot about voting, and issues, and that it's important to always stand up for what you think is right, and to fight for it. But it is also very important to Joe and I to teach our children to love our country, and to be patriotic - and part of that includes respect for the office of the President of the United States. We've told our kids that even though we don't always agree with President Obama, that he is a good person, and that he is our commander in chief - which also makes him dad's boss:). So yes, we were excited to see the president.

They told us that he would be driving by around 2:00. After a quick stop to Burger King (food is always a good way to kill time), I arrived 45 minutes early with Alex and Madelyn in the stroller, and we staked out our place right behind the barricades. There weren't many people when we got there, but the place started filling up quickly after about 10 minutes. Before you knew it, it was like we were on the subway (packed like sardines), so I felt right at home:) I think it was reorted that there was about 3,000 people there. We tried to pass the time by watching the sniper (just guessing) up on the roof across the street.

Look closer, he's there. Watching and talking to the MP's.

Watching all the helicopters fly in (there were 5), including Marine One.

And watching and talking to the people all around us.

When it's that crowded, it's also impossible not to eavesdrop, right? So I spent a good deal of the time listening to two girls (early twenties), one of which was newly married and had a one year old, who was giving advice on rasing kids to the other one who was 5 months pregnant with her first one. I had to bite my lip hard a few times to prevent myself from snorting aloud with laughter....or to stop myself from yelling at them to shut up. I really wish I could remember more specifics now. The prego lady actually said, "I hope my baby doesn't cry a lot." And the young mother said, "If you want your baby to sleep through the night, just keep her up more during the day, even if she's crying because she's tired." I know there had to have been other moms around just wanting to slap the two of them. The prego lady had to be reminded THREE times not to say curse words in front of all the children. And don't even get me started on their uneducated discussion on politics and the role of the president. 1 1/2 hrs. of listening to my 3 least favorite things - 1) uneducated mothers; 2)uneducated voters; 3) and people who have limited vocabularies, half of which consists of curse words, which makes them sound uneducated. Aaaaahhhhhhh!!! (Calmly step of soap box, and continue with post)

Anyway, it was about 45 degrees out, but we were bundled up, and in the sun, so it wasn't too bad.

Of course, Madelyn won't agree with me on that one. She was freezing, and tired, and hungry, and bored, and just wanted to go home, and cried a lot. But who could blame her after waiting for so long. By the time 2:00 rolled around, both Alex and Madelyn had fallen asleep. Alex in the stroller.

And Madelyn slumped across the barricade, still clutching a little flag someone had given her.

Hilarious. And we continued to wait, and wait, and wait........and wait. FINALLY, at about 2:45 we saw the motorcade coming down the road.

Everyone started cheering. A lot of classes had made signs (or had signs made), and they held them up high (this pic was taken before it all started though)

Getting closer (I know he's got to be in one of the cars with flags on it, right?), and I'm thinking, they seem to be going kind of fast.

And this is what I saw as they "sped" by.

That's it - I DIDN"T EVEN SEE HIM!!! Nobody around me saw him. After the motorcade passed, everyone kind of just stood there for a second in a stunned stupor, and then people started saying, "That's it?" and "I didn't even see him!" Hardly anybody saw him. A couple of people said that they caught a glimpse of him waving from behind the darkened windows, but most people didn't. I think it was partly because nobody knew what car to look in, partly because they were driving kind of fast, and partly because people were trying to take pictures (like me). Despite the important security measures that have to be taken in order to safe-guard the president, deep down inside I was hoping that that he'd have the window down, waving his hand out the window for us to all see him. I joked around on facebook that I hoped he would even stop the car and invite me and my family to dinner that night. I have to say, it was a little disappointing that he didn't. All the kids, especially, were disappointed. I felt bad mostly for them. When I found Cora and JT afterwards, JT was crying, and Cora had a sour expression on her face. I said, "Hey, let me take a picture of how sad you guys are!" They didn't think that was funny, and immediately turned their backs on me.

So we went back to Burger King and drowned our sorrows with french fries.

True Love is a Cookie

Oh, this makes me laugh. So, November 11th happens to be a made up holiday here. Let me explain. Remember Lotte World, and the big conglomerate company Lotte? Well, they make these little cookie sticks covered with chocolate called Pepero, seen below.
They're pretty darn good. Anyway, somehow Lotte has finagled a holiday out of these little cookies. That's right, Happy Pepero Day! I'm not even kidding. It's held on the 11th day of the 11 month because 11/11 looks like 4 Pepero sticks. I'm still serious. This holiday is similar to our Valentine's day in America. Young people really get into this holiday here and buy their girlfriends/boyfriends Pepero. Lotte takes advantage of this by making HUGE Pepero sticks for the holiday, and STUFFED Pepero sticks (like stuffed animals). Here was one of the many displays we saw that day.

Of course, Lotte denies starting the holiday. They say that they just happened to notice that sales would go up around Nov. 11th, and then they decided to encourage it with special promotions. Either way it's just funny. The kids just happened to have school off on Pepero Day (no, it is not an official national holiday - they were just off because of Parent/Teacher conferences), and we decided to go to Lotte World. Pepero Day turned out to be a funny day to go to Lotte world - go figure. We saw a lot more Pepero displays/vendors. People were buying them up like crazy. They also had a special stage show that evening. From the audience they randomly chose 10 couples to come up and compete. If you've ever seen an Asian game show, you know how funny they can be, and this was kind of like that. One of the things they had to do was the guy and to lift the girl up (like carry her somehow) while doing things like squatting, standing on one foot, running around, etc. Some of the girls had short skirts on, and they had put the guys' jackets around their wastes to try and be modest. The guys were trying to do their thing, while still trying to be mindful of the girls' modesty. It was so funny to watch. Of course, I didn't think to take any pictures - Sorry:) At the end they had a dance competition, and some of them were really great and/or really comical. In the end their was one big winner, but they all got huge hearts made out of boxes of Pepero. There were so many couple at Lotte World that day. One funny thing about couples here is that a lot of times when they go to public places like that, they MATCH - like their outfits and stuff! One of the couples up on stage had matching red sweaters, and another couple was wearing all denim with matching scarves. Here is a picture of a couple I took (Sorry, it's not great because I couldn't get to my camera fast enough, and then I had to take it quick)

It's hard to tell (you might have to click on the pic to zoom in), but the girl is wearing a head band that has a huge red sparkly bow on top. Her boyfriend is wearing a matching pink one. This is very common to see at Lotte world - matching headbands, hats, whatever. What American boy/young man do you know who would be caught dead wearing a huge sparkly pink bow on top of his head, regardless of what his girlfriend wanted him to do? I LOVE IT! One thing I've noticed about Korea is that they are big on the romance. Every time I look up a place to visit, their website always gives advice in the romance department. For example, when I looked up Lotte World, there is a list of recommendations if you are there with your sweetheart. When I looked up Seoul Grand Park, there is a "love story" section, and it said it is especially romantic at night. And when I looked up Han River boat cruises, it suggested you go in the evening as the sun is setting, and that "the night views of the city lights create a dreamy effect". Good stuff. One quick side note here - on this same day at Lotte they had an insect display room set up. Yes, we just saw the insect house at the zoo, but what the heck. They had a great area with butterflies.

We even got some to land on our fingers.

How cool is that? Then they had the most disturbing area where you could touch these lovelies!

There were two Korean teenager girls there trying to get our kids to touch them. Cora and JT wouldn't dare, but Madelyn and Alex did - though not for long.

It was pretty funny, and completely gross. Don't worry, we antibacterialized afterward. On our way home from Lotte World we HAD to buy some Pepero......when in Rome, ya know:)

Top Secret

I like to do theme birthday parties for my kids. I think I have as much fun planning them as they do just enjoying them. For JT I thought I'd better just keep it simple, and I talked him into doing his party at Burger King on the base here. They provide the food, the cake, party favors, and a pin-the-tail-on-the-something, as well as all the clean up. But when we went to reserve our day, they pulled out this huge binder and tell me to pick what kind of decoration I want on the cake. That was the beginning of my downfall - I mean, to pick a theme for a cake is just a short hop and a jump away from a theme for the whole party, right? Anyway, I told JT to look through the pictures and pick which one he wanted, assuming he would choose something like Superman. Nope, he picked a bomb - a picture of a bomb. I don't know exactly what HE was thinking, but I immediately thought Secret Agent theme....so that's what we did:)

Here were our invitations.

When the kids got to Burger King, I gave them each an I.D. badge, and had them put their fingerprint on it.

They were each given their own Spy Kit.

Thanks to a friend here and her good directions, I found everything I needed for the kit in Namdaemun for cheap. Then they all colored MOST WANTED pictures of various cartoon villians. Then we told them that we had just been informed that one of those villians at placed bombs all over the play area (Cora had hidden them minutes earlier), and it was their mission to go and find them. When they found a bomb, they could return for a prize (candy). I made these bombs

with string, plastic balls. and electric tape. Funny, but it didn't occur to me (until later when Joe pointed it out) that there would ever be a problem with children running around, yelling about bombs, in a restaraunt on a Military base.....at least the party wasn't in an airport:) Don't worry, there wasn't a problem, but it sure would have been funny if there had been. After the bomb threat was taken care of, we had food,

presents,

cake,

(at least they spelled the name right), and play time. Everything went very smoothly. We had a great turn out. And most important, JT had a great time! The kids have been enjoying his presents, mostly the Legos and Playdough.

As we left Burger King, we saw this sticker on the car parked next to us (click on the picture to enlarge).

Gotta love those Korean-to-English translations, hahaha:)
So JT is 7 now. SEVEN YEARS OLD! This boy is such a light in our lives. He is constantly making us laugh with his imagination, his dancing, and his "JTisms". His heart is always full of love, and he loves to cuddle, give hugs and kisses, and he still likes to play with my hair like he did when he was a baby. He is very smart and picks up knowledge quickly. He doesn't always have the greatest confidence that he can do things, but once he figures out he CAN, you just can't get the smile off his face. We are so grateful to have JT in our family. Happy Birthday JT - We Love You!!!

Our "Grand" Adventure

Where is this gorgeous place, and how can I get there? I know you're asking, so I'll tell you. Sometimes Joe is spontaneous. He's always been that way when it comes to buying things - like bikes :) - but this is kind of a new development (in the last few years) when it comes to DOING things. Sometimes he still surprises me:) Anyway, on Friday he came home from school and said, "Let's go somewhere on our subway line." There seems to be a lot of great things to see at different stops on the line that we live by. So I got out my subway map and chose Seoul Grand Park Station. Seoul Grand Park is now my new favorite place. This park has a theme park, a zoo, a botanical garden, a lake, hiking trails, camp grounds, a hotel, an educational youth center, an art museum, etc. It is located in the mountains. It is THE most beautiful place I've been to here so far. And I actually smelled mountain air!!! Seriously, it was like I was up American Fork canyon - it was crazy good!:) Here are a few pictures of the area walking up towards the zoo.

We decided to go to the zoo while we were there. We kind of got there late, so we only got to be there for about an hour, but for our whole family it only cost 7 or 8 dollars to get in. This zoo is one of the best I've ever been to, and we only saw a small part of it. It is the 10th largest zoo in the WORLD! They even have a dolphin and seal show there. Like I said, we didn't have a lot of time, but we went to the insect house, and part of the African animals compound. They have some seriously freaky insects....and other things that I don't know what you would classify them as.

We had a wonderful time there.

We had a wonderful time there. The weather was so perfect that day, and again, I have to say that I am enjoying the fall here sooooooo much. We will definitely be going back there often.
Our subway ride home was another sardine moment, but we had learned from our last time - We folded up the stroller this time, and we made sure we stayed by the doors. We were still squished, but it was easier to get off.

Saturday was a really great day too because we got to go to the temple. It was the district temple day, and the saintly district primary presidency decided to hold the district primary activity at the same time as the temple session - so we all had automatic babysitting! There is a church building right next to the temple, as well as a house owned by the house that is always open to watch kids in. The Seoul temple is Very small, even smaller than the Lubbock temple, which was our last temple. Our group filled it to capacity, and then some. It was really nice.

A few of you have asked about the church here. We go to an English-speaking branch. There are roughly 120 members who come each week. We were really surprised by how big the branch was when we got here. We were also surprised by the building. We meet in a BRAND NEW building, and it is REALLY nice (I mean, for a church here). It is four levels, with 2 elevators, and a three level, underground parking garage. It has a kitchen and a gym. Here's a picture of it.

The PEOPLE in the branch are really great too. We have felt very welcomed and are fast making new friends. Our ward in San Angelo was the best ward that we had been in, and it was hard to leave them, but this branch is easing the transition for us. Joe and I were called right away as primary workers, but now we're not sure what we're going to be. You see, we are the Yongsan Military branch, but there is another English-speaking branch called the Seoul English branch, which has been struggling with numbers. The district has decided to desolve our branch, starting this coming Sunday, and combine the two branches. So now we are going to be in the Seoul English branch, and everybody in our branch is released from their previous callings. They have about 60 members who come regularly, mostly single people, so this will make us about 180 strong - that is a BIG branch. We are excited to see what callings we get, although we wouldn't mind at all serving in the Primary still.

We've got a lot going on right now, so look forward to a lot of posts in the next few days.