Happy Valentines Day from Korea

This year we celebrated our first Valentines Day married (YAY!) and our first one in the same place in the last two years (Thanks to Army training-boo!) So, we were super excited to just have time together and not celebrate with flowers sent in the mail and phone calls.

It was also fun to celebrate Valentines Day with my students. We had small class parties, made origami flowers and hearts and ate tons of junk food.

Yummy strawberry Valentines cake to go with a delicious dinner of steak, potatoes and asparagus

Valentines surprises from Josh

The biggest chocolate bar you've ever seen being sold outside of my school

You know you're a teacher when you dress accoring to holidays! Sporting my heart sweater on Valentines Day.

The best Valentines gift from my hubby. Josh worked for weeks MAKING this vase and then painting it. He also made the flowers inside with floral tape, leaves and cherry flavored Hershey kisses. So creative! Love this!

Koreans celebrate Valentines Day, but they also celebrate White Day on March 14. On Valentines Day the women usually give gifts to the men in their lives, where on White Day the men reciprocate by giving gifts to the women.

Taylor Swift Concert

For Christmas Josh got me tickets to the Speak Now  tour with Taylor Swift! I was so exicted when the day finally came. Josh and I had an AWESOME time! I got off work early and we went to Yongsan (the Army post about an hour away) for a pre-party and to catch the bus from there. They had a trivia thing and I won for knowing how old Taylor Swift is (21!) We had a yummy dinner and some drinks before heading to the concert.
The concert was much smaller than we expected. The Koreans had glow sticks that they moved to the beat of the music the entire concert...annoying to say the least. They also did not cheer much or stand up. In fact, when people would stand up the event staff would come and ask them to sit down! We kept saying it felt like a play or something, not a concert. But, the concert was great and we had a wonderful time! Afterwards we met up with some friends at a local bar and didn't make it home until after 5AM! Overall, a great night!

So close!

Josh bought the tickets around Thanksgiving so we were SO lucky to have GREAT seats!

On the bus on our way to the concert!

Cowboy boots!!!

The arena

Zumba

Warming up

Angela was so funny about learning Zumba. She stood on the stage next to the teacher the entire hour!

The effect Zumba has on kindergarteners LOL

Checking to see if he has muscles yet

Checking to see if he is stinky from Zumba

An Army wife friend of mine is a Zumba instructor, so I got her and the director of my school into contact. The school was really excited to have the kids learn Zumba and I am excited that they kids get some good exercise and a way to get their energy out. The long days with barely any breaks and no recess really get to them. Here are some pictures I took of Day 1 of Zumba!

What does your husband do?

I'm trying to find a way to post this video to the blog, but my blogging skills are still fresh. So, check out this link to see what Josh did at work last week. Pretty cool if you ask me! :)


http://www.facebook.com/update_security_info.php?wizard=1#!/video/video.php?v=145525348842589



The airfield at K16, where Josh is stationed




A view of K16 from the air

Weekend Project

I found this article today about how to make cookies that taste like Girl Scout cookies....hmmm...I'm interested to see how close they come out! Now that we have the convection oven it has been fun to bake again! I'll let you know how they turn out! Mmmm....

Korean Folk Village

This last weekend we explored a Korean folk village with some friends and had a blast. It was so neat to see traditional Korean homes and artifacts. It is crazy how every day Korea feels more and more like home and it was nice to learn about how things used to be in this crazy place we call home. We had a traditional Lunar New Year meal of tteokguk which is a soup made up of rice cake slices and topped with marinated ground beef and eggs. Mine had dumplings in it too and was yummy! We also tried makgeolli which is "the liquor of the common people" because it is made with fermented sweet rice. It looks like thick milk and as a sweet and sour taste.

My delicious lunch

It was really neat to visit the folk village over the Lunar New Year holiday, which is considered to be the most important Korean holiday. We got to see a reinactment of a Korean wedding, experience traditional snow sledding, venture through a Korean haunted house and have a great day with friends. Overall a really awesome experience.
If you want to check out the website here it is:
http://www.koreanfolk.co.kr/folk/english/index.htm


Here are just some of the photos that we took at the Folk Village.

Traditional Korean backpack

Traditional Korean home

Josh!

With my friend Soo's boyfriend, Chris

This was such a neat place to explore

My friend Soo weaving silk

Josh weaving silk. It was mcuh easier for him! :)

Traditional Ice Skating. You sit (or kneel) on a wooden board with skates on the bottom.You use ice picks to pull yourself across the ice. I will upload some fun video I took of us racing.

Lots of fun!

Beautiful

How creepy is this?!

We were able to see a traditional Korean wedding reinactment and this was the groom arriving

There were lots of places to jump rope set up and this is Josh and Soo jump roping. The best part was that Soo heard a little boy say, "Wow...that tall foreigner is REALLY good!" in Korean, talking about Josh! Haha!

Some sort of hacky sack traditional game

Traditional drums

Playing a Korean game of trying to get the sticks into those three holes that are on the left

Making the house feel like a home

After two months of being worried that a good chunk of the things we own were sinking to the bottom of the ocean our shipment from Alabama arrived. After calling almost every week and being told, "We aren't able to track your shipment...but don't worry, I'm sure it's coming" we were relieved that it arrived. I was working so Josh took the morning off to get everything to the house. We were concerned about how they would get things into our house as we live on the third story but that problem was solved pretty quickly. Luckily Josh was able to get a good video. That is our matress and boxspring being hoisted through our living room balcony!


Here are some pictures that we have taken of the house all put together and decorated. Now that everythng has arrived the house is feeling more like a home and this move is feeling more permanent. It is the best feeling to know that we don't have to move for the next three years!!!

Spare bedroom

Spare bathroom

New entertainment center because ours was broken in the move

Love this

Living room

Above the master bed

Kitchen. It is really strange to not have an oven, but thankfully we are adjusting to using the convection oven.

Spare bedroom.Who wants to visit?

View from spare bedroom

A view of the balcony. We love the planter boxes and having enough room for a small BBQ come summertime.

Baking cookies in the convection

Dining Room

I had this made at Fort Rucke and absolutely love it. This is right by our entry way.

I had this made at Ft Rucker also. This is the first thing you see when you come in the house

Master bath

Master bath

Even the toilets are fancy!

We have this up in the office. Just need to get photos printed in all the right sizes. It is going to be our "family wall" of photos of all of YOU! :)

The office

Another shot of the office

Master bedroom

Blackhawk!