Before Christmas Activities

Brandon took the day before Christmas Eve off and we had a nice relaxing day. Took the boys bowling on post and practically had the alley to ourselves. Fun fun! The big winner was mom!



I took the boys downtown to a traditional Korean outdoor market Christmas Eve. Where we ate my favorite pancakes that they make here. We had a good time. In the pictures you will notice that the market is three stories tall. It is jammed packed with everything to buy. I even found an area that I had never been to before where they were selling live chickens, rabbits, ducks, dead pheasants and right smack in the middle there were kittens and puppies. (hoping that they weren't on the menu too. What a fun day.





We took the boys to eat on post at the Hilltop Club. They were putting on a Christmas dinner. Yum.
It doesn't feel as Christmas like here as we felt at home due to the fact that Christmas isn't as big of a holiday for the Korean's as it is for the Americans. We had to go looking for the Christmas lights. We took a walk down the busy streets by our house to go to Daegu Bank where they were pretty decked out with lights. Our apartment building even set up a few lights outside of our window a few weeks before Christmas.

This and That

Since I've last posted, I have gotten busy! I have boughten curtains for all of the bedrooms in our house. Brandon and my bedroom was the only one that didn't have to be altered. Now we all have very dark bedrooms. Yay! And I din't even come close to the $400-500 dollars that the Korean curtain guy quoted me. I found some curtain tracks at a local store called Home Plus and it is Koreas version of WalMart just a little more expensive. The tracks were very cheap and so I bought them hoping I culd get everything to work. It did! Yay! My Korean frind Jin took me to a traditional Korean Market called Seumoon (su-moon)wow did we have a blast! I was able to try a lot of different types of Korean food most pretty good. Especially a Korean pancake called Ha Tu (don't know how to spell it). They put the dough into a ball and then put a mixture of brown sugar, sugar, cinnamon and peanuts inside then flatten it and fry it on a skillet like we would in America. Can I say that is by far my favorite treat tha I have had here so far. Yum!


I have been wanting to reapolster my kitchen chairs for a few yeas now, and found some fabric back in NC that I just loved. But decided that we were going to be moving to one of the largest textile places in the world and waited until we got here. I hadn't found exactly what I wanted and then found a cute little lady in a market who tried very hard to cut me a deal and I bought enough fabric to cover 5 chairs. One chair got broken in the move. I bought this fabric for $15. And even though it wasn't exactly what I wanted, I thought that it would work with the chairs and the wallpaper that our landords have in the kitchen and if I really didn't like it, I could find something else because I wasn't out much money. I love how they turned out. Thank you Tracy for telling me how to do it myself. It was very easy.

Brandon has now decided to buy me a sewing machine so that I can start to get busy here with all of the fun fabrics here. Watch out! I may post some of my creations afer I learn how to use the sewing machine.

Since our last post Isaiah has lost two more teeth. So I thought that I would post at how cute he now looks. His bottom tooth came out on its own, but while were into the dentist yesterday the Dr. told us that he could pull it out and give an examination and exrays to Isaiah for $20 and so we let him pull it out. Kind of hurt. The Dr. said that numbing the tooth would hurt more than the actual pulling of the tooth out. Isaiah had no idea what was going on until it was out. I'm not sure if he will want to go back! But he was sure happy to have something to show the Tooth Fairy. We had to talk the dentist into letting us have the tooth. My friend had to come because none of the staff spoke much English. She told us that it is a Korean law that if the Dr. take anything out of a body including teeth they are to dispose of them. But he also understood that the American's have a tradition that they do with their teeth and he told us that he would allow this just this one time for us. So, is our dentist now a criminal? We don't know but are so gretful to have had him.

Is there a Korean Tooth Fairy?

Last night Isaiah's very loose tooth just fell out on its own right before eating dinner. This week he has been telling us that Brandon needed to floss out his tooth, and yesterday being such a busy day for us he forgot to ask. But out it came. He was very pleased. His other front tooth is also loose just not quite ready to come out yet. Maybe with this one gone, it will help the other one to come out sooner. We talked last night before he went to bed about now that we live in Korea, do we now have a Korean Tooth Fairy. He said that he thought that she was going to be Korean. When he woke up this morning to find 1000 won, he had a new theory, it was that we have an American Tooth Fairy who just asked the Korean Tooth Fairies for some Korean money. At any rate, he is getting so big. And yesterday was a big day for him. During soccer this year for Isaiah has not been a great experience due to the fact that he didn't get to play any games. Well while I was at a baptism of one of the primary kids in our ward. Brandon took the boys to Isaiah's Parent and tot kick the ball (we call it this). After his practice Brandon noticed that the age group older than Isaiah's hardly had any players on it and so he asked the coach if Isaiah could help them out. The coach said that he could and afterwords told us that he was very focused for a four year old. We then proceeded to tell the coach that he was almost six and that we were told that he was too small here to play. The coach told us that he had five year olds on his team. Hum? I wasn't able to witness the game, due to the fact that I was walking to the field and we didn't bring the camera to capture the event. But, Isaiah was thrilled! He got to play the goalie and is following in his brother's footsteps and turned out to be great at it too. When asked, Isaiah told me that the score was 10-5. Brandon said 1-0. But they won and that's all that mattered.

Early Birthday

The boys took me out this morning to an early birthday breakfast. And then off hiking up in the Ap'san Mountains. I have been wanting to go for quite some time now and when we found out that they were only about 5 minute drive from Camp Walker, we are going to be going quite a bit more often. There are quite a few temples inside the Ap'san Park and we were able to witness a Monk chanting while people were worshiping. If you look close enough, you may be able to see the Monk inside the temple. We had a blast! The hike we did was pretty steep, and with two of us with colds it was pretty tough. There is a gondola that will take you up the mountain and
so next time that is what we will have to do. Then the boys took me out to eat to my new favorite Korean resteraunt. They cook the meal in front of you and then they hand you some leaves and you put rice, meat, mushrooms, rice cake, soy beans, then roll up the leaf and dip it into soy sauce. Yum! What a fun day!

Cooking at Daegu-Gyeongbuk English Village

We were lucky enough to have an in with one of Brandon's coworkers who asked if we wanted to take a cooking class tour. Some of the tours that we have taken are sponsored and are free and so we decided to go on this one because it didn't cost us a thing and we may actually learn something. It was fairly close to our area and got home pretty early. So off we went yesterday morning. We were at an English village which is pretty much a week camp for Korean children to go and experience English was of life the best they can here in Korea. Quite a lot of the staff is from Colorado and some in Canada. They have little simulations for the kids where they board a stationary plane and when they get off. They are in some new place. It is a beautiful campus and they treating us well. We were taken on a short tour of the campus before our class started. Wow! Looks expensive and probably is for families. Then they took us up to a class where we had an instructor with assistants. Our assistant was the instructor's husband who had never cooked before. They let the boys become involved and it was fun for everyone. We made Bulgogi and Pah-Jeon (sea food pancake w/onions). We were told that Bulgogi is the favorite dish of the Koreans. Kind of like what Pizza is to Americans. We came home with a few new recipes and one dish that the entire family loves including Isaiah which is a bonus. I took a picture of the Bulgogi. The large white things in there are big mushrooms. They also have a great noodle in there I think is called cellophane noodles. Well,this is one recipe that I am going to have to try to make. Now all I need is a nice wok. The man in the picture is the President of the campus and wanted to get his picture taken. He kept staring at Brandon and telling him that he was very handsome and his hair was cool. That is how the people are here. This behavior is not unusual. What a fun day.

Halloween

Our Halloween is over here. The base decided that they were going to be celebrating Halloween on Saturday, so we have been out Trick-R-Treating and are now left with massive amounts of junk. The boys school started off with a character parade on Friday where I also got a picture of a little girl who lives in our apartment complex dresses as a Korean princess. Had to show everyone, she looked like a doll. She wouldn't look or smile at me. My boys decided they wanted to rid our world of evil. Isaiah Ben 10, our planet is rid of aliens and Braxton Superman clearing out all of the evil and helping those in need. I was in charge of our ward's Trunk-R-Treat and so I put in a very bad night picture of all of the kids in the branch. Large kids in back are YM and YW. A few families didn't come, but that is about the size. Had a great time. Glad it's over.

Soccer, Soccer, Soccer

Both of the boys have started soccer this fall, both were equally excited. Well, little guy was more excited! Soccer has not been equally exciting for the boys. Braxton started practice about the time we moved in our apartment. The day of Braxton's first game was the day that Isaiah started practice. In advance we were told that Isaiah was too little to be playing soccer and had to be 6. His practices were going to be a parent and tot class meaning no coach and the parents are going to be kicking the ball around with their kids. Hummm? 5 1/2 doesn't cut it here. Most of the kids on the team are 3. Big difference in what they can do. Isaiah was allowed to play last year and we tried to tell him about this in advance so it wouldn't be a shock to him, but he still had high expectations. Some of the parents wanted to start small games with the kids, but found that the three year olds don't know what they are doing, so they decided against the games. The first picture is Isaiah finding out there wouldn't be a game. Poor kid, he really was good last year.





Braxton is turning our to be a very good goalie. He has been liking that position this year and will play that at least half of the game if not half. These picture were taken at a game that Braxton had a few weeks ago with a team that had to be bused about an hour to an hour and a half. If you look closely at the other team, out little 7-8 year old team are playing 11-12 year olds. They held them off for the first half of the game. No points scored, but our team was wiped out after the half and struggled with helping Braxton out. The score 0-4. I am proud of my little goalie.