Exercise Exercise Exercise

Since we are in fact in South Korea only about an hour away from North Korea, the military has 'exercises' quite often. They work long hours and spend a lot of time in their Chem gear. It is no fun for them at all. We experienced our first exercise in September shortly after school began. Here is Ryan coming home from day 1.

And the kids were very interested in all his gear and took turns trying it all on!


Since all the military members of the families were going to be working long hours the spouses and children decided to do a kid friendly progressive dinner. It was a ton of fun for all of us.


We all live in 2 towers on base. Here we are treking up the hill from one to the other.

At the last house we put on a movie for the kids while we got to enjoy a quick glass of wine before heading home to get the kids in bed.

It was a school night after all!

Alayna's Birthday

My little princess turned 6 this year!

She loves being in the kitchen with me, so she really wanted to help bake her cake.

We decided to not do a big party since we had just arrived and she didn't have a ton of friends yet. So we decided to have her best friend Elaina Paige over and go for pedicures

and then have a sleepover.

She picked to have lunch at Popeye's because she loves their Mac'n'Cheese and then chose frozen pizza for dinner. I offered to cook all kinds of things, but that is what she wanted. And the princess gets, what the princess requests.

She had a great birthday and lots of wonderful presents.

But I will say that what I said earlier about sleepovers still holds true......not a lot of sleeping!

Hello Korea!

Guess what? We actually have left the base a few times! Imagine that?! We have tried Korean food. It's just ok in my opinion, but some people love it.

Every Squadron on base has a Korean Honorary Commander and several Good Neighbors assigned to their squadron. We have been out to dinner a few times with ours.


Koreans like to drink. They like to drink a lot. And they like you to drink with them. Their drink of choice here is called Soju and you drink it as a shot often with a beer chaser. I am NOT a Soju fan and always elect to be the DD on these evenings out so I can avoid drinking without offending them.

Right off base is a little village set up for all the military members to shop and drink and spend money. Here are the kids on one of our visits to the "ville" as they call it here.


Aren't they cute??!!

Proud Momma

We went to Splish 'n Splash water park at Camp Humphreys here in Korea twice this week. It is about a 30 min drive from here. The first time we went Calvin was so excited to go off the high dive, but I really thought he would chicken out when he got up there. Boy was I wrong! The boy didn't even hesitate!


Then we went back this weekend with Daddy and then Alayna decided she wanted to try the low dive. She did hesitate, but did great and went back for more.


Calvin also worked on his dives off the low board and did amazing!


And then the most amazing thing happened.....Alayna wanted to try the high dive! And it took her two try's but she did it!


They both spent the rest of the day going off the boards. I couldn't be prouder of my two little swimmers!

Sleepover!

My kids had their very first sleepover the end of July. We have been blessed with fantastic neighbors here. After we had been here about a week, and were reaching our breaking point, there was a knock at the door. It was our neighbors here to introduce themselves, and guess what? They had a son who is the same age as Calvin and a daughter a little younger than Alayna and her name is Elaina!!! So they have all become best friends and the girls have to use their first and middle names so we know who is who; we have our Alayna Jane and then Elaina Paige. It is so adorable! What an answered prayer!

Ok, back to the sleepover. The girls were here at our house. They got to have pizza and brownies a la mode.

Then they watched a movie and had popcorn.
Meanwhile the boys were next door doing boy things. Which of course includes playing Wii.

Now let me tell you something about a sleepover......not a lot of sleeping happens! Lets just say it took DAYS for us to recover from the lack of sleeping that night. Oh well, the kids had a blast and that's what summer days are all about.

And so it begins....

The season of our lives where sitting in bleachers will consume hours upon hours of my week. It starts so much earlier than it did when I was a kid! I am predicting that this season of our lives is going to be much longer than it was for my parents.

Although my rear end is not happy about it, the kids are loving it and it really is a blessing for them to have things to do. Apartment living would be very rough otherwise!

It all began with soccer camp.

They had a professional soccer player come in and teach the kids. He did a great job and Calvin loved him.

My sweaty little jock!

And then it was Alayna's turn. Cheer Camp.

Here she is doing one of the cheers she learned.

At the end of the week they had a little performance for all the parents and then had cake.

There was also basketball camp, but I didn't seem to get any pictures of that. Bad Mommy!

First week in Korea

In our first week in Korea we learned a few things. We learned that in order to get your groceries home it really helps to have a car! Pushing the cart uphill in the rain is NOT fun! And that grocery carts in your kitchen will be a weekly occurrence.

We also learned that it is hot and VERY humid here in the summer.

I was able to visit the Seoul flower market with a friend we had met at the Commander's Conference in Hawaii. It is amazing to see so many flowers in one place and they are so cheap!


The 4th of July was fun, but not as fun as being at the cottage would have been. There was a nice family festival the kids enjoyed.

And Calvin was already making friends! This is Tyler one of his best buds.

And there you have it! That was our first week in Korea.