Isaiah's fist Elementary School Field Trip

Isaiah got to go on his first big kid field trip this week and I was able to join him. They went to a place called Exco, and they have a large bounce house place from February to March. I got a picture of the group of boys that I was in charge of. Isaiah looks huge compared to the others. His little friend TomCory standing to the left of Isaiah in the picture is who he was budding up with. I had a hard time getting good pictures of the crew because they wouldn't stand still in most everything that they did there. I loved watching the Korean staff with the American kids at the little hand paddle boats. They had to lift each kid in and out of the boats and the look on their faces when the large American children came in was priceless. There were bubble and large slides and even a tube ride. Very fun. Isaiah couldn't stay awake and slept for an hour getting Brandon from work and taking him home again. He still slept great that night and even told me in the morning that he was too tired to go to school the next morning. Fun, Fun day! Next adventure... apparently Q & U aren't married and on Valentine's Day there is going to be a wedding at Isaiah's school. Can't wait!

Seoul Temple

Brandon and I were able to visit the Seoul Temple yesterday with our branch. We chartered a bus that drove us there for $20 per person. That is a lot cheaper than taking the KTX (bullet train), the slow train up there, or even driving. It is about a 4 hour drive and we haven't been since we've been here we decided that we needed to start learning to find our way around other places here than just Daegu. We had an interesting experience as we were getting closer to the temple. Our driver was refusing to listen to a woman in our branch who is Korean and could communicate with him about how to get to the temple. He said that he had been there a year earlier and knew where he was going. He also had a GPS that he wasn't following. The woman in our branch told us that Korean men don't like to take orders from a woman and so he was refusing to listen to her. At one point we let the youth get off the bus and just walk, so they could make their baptisms. The driver also stopped the bus and got out and left for about 10 minutes. We were wondering if we should just get out and walk ourselves, or stay on so that we had a ride home. The driver finally took the woman's directions and we made it to the temple. The first picture is a road that the bus had to go up to get to a parking area by the distribution center close to the temple. The cars can go either up or down the road. But it looks like a typical road here. We get out of the bus and walk up about a hundred yard more up the steep hill and come to another steep hill that leads you onto the the temple grounds. At the bottom of the hill leading to the temple is a house that families can stay in overnight and during sessions. Our youth and a few adults stayed with the children of some of the members in our branch who brought them up. We had a great time and enjoyed seeing the snow. It has only snowed in Daegu once since we have been here, and it was fun to be able to see a little bit of snow. What a great day! The bus left at 5am (5:35am due to people in the ward being late) and arrived home at 7:40pm. We had a great day!!

Apples and Pears

Our cute landlord came by last week and delivered two huge boxes to us for The Lunar New Year! They were boxes of Korean apples that taste better than any apples that I have ever had and the largest pears that I have ever seen. In the picture to the right is an apple bought at the commissary here on post. The Korean apple in the middle and the largest of the bunch is the pear. Yum! We are feeling very spoiled here.

Here's How we roll!

We bought a sewing machine for me since we've been here and my first project was to make Isaiah so large throw pillows for his bed. I bought the fabric for $6 for two yards of rust suede. He was so excites to have them. Little did I know why he was so excited to have them. Now the boys have more pillows to make forts with in their rooms. My boys are dressed in this picture, they just haven't been wearing shirts to bed. The boys spent the morning in either of their rooms building forts. After finishing Isaiah's, they took his stool to Braxton's room to build a fort under his large desk. They spent over an hour playing board games under it. They love playing their new game Star Wars Trouble (Thanks Kristy). This morning has been a wonderful start to a good Sunday. I have sharing time this morning so lets hope it continues.

Ice Ice Ice!!!

We have a friend here who posts a lot of fun things to do here in Daegu on her facebook page. This was one of her facebook page ideas and she wasn't able to find this place, but since we bought a GPS here we thought that we'd give it a try. It is called Mountain Biseul Ice Park. And after 2 hours of driving we found it. It would have taken 1 hour but I called a wrong turn from the GPS and it was about another 50 minutes later to find another route. Opps! We loved being able to watch some of the ice sculptors use the chainsaws to start working on the ice. The boys were in amazement as to how much ice it took to make a large ice sculptor. They had water squirting onto some of the trees and some very large igloo type area where you could walk right through. Very fun, and free, but not realizing how long it was going to take up to get there, we decided to eat dinner when we got home. 8:30pm dinner not too bad right? Well, it is because we usually eat around 5-5:30pm. It was worth the drive to be able to experience something different including the toll booths that we couldn't read what lane to get into and found that going and coming back we got into the wrong lanes and got the sirens and honks from cars behind us. Oh well, all they had to do was look at us and say some remarks about the stupid foreigners under their breath and then move on. But we are attempting to move out of our little area of Daegu and try a few more things. Next time we are going to try the driving during the daytime.

Birthday boy

Our baby is nine! What a special little guy he is. We can't say enough great things about him because he is such a neat little boy. He is still loving reading and if he is into a book enough, it takes great force to pull him away from it. He is loving legos and is now discovering that he can put them together with the directions by himself. Lets just say that he got quite a few of them for his birthday. And most are now put together. We had a birthday get together for him on his birthday with a few boys from our church. And they watched Karate Kid and had a blast. The day after his birthday he told us that is was still his birthday because if we were in the United States it would be his birthday then. So I guess in a way we had two special days.

Down by the river

We were told by some Korean friends that there was ice skating down by the river starting on the last day that the boys were in school before Christmas break. So we decided that we would take the boys there over the break to have a little fun. It cost us 1000 won (about 90 cents) for one hour, to skate. We had about a half hour walk across the river that I run on and the boys had a great time just getting out and being by the river. We had a great time and the boys especially Isaiah were adopted by two little girls who would help them up and skate with them so Brandon and I for the most part got to skate by ourselves. The little girls are 11 years old. Compare them to our almost 9 year old. In the picture where the little girl is helping Isaiah up there is a big tower type thing behind them. This is a women's parking garage. It looks as big as two cars fitting on each floor. The cars are then lifted and taken back down by an elevator type thing. Pretty cool! There is a shopping center right next to the parking garage where I have been to a Japaneese restaurant that is very good. 3/4ths of the way through our Braxton fell on his face and bloodied up his gums. They are healing! Yay, no damage done.