As they say...

Better late then never.

Thanksgiving.

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving. My friend Sandra and I made a turkey and all the side together in my small kitchen.We had a lot of our friends over so it was a nice warm family event. Jordon and some of the guys played UNO most of the day and our friend's boys played on Jordon's PSP. I made Apple Pie and Pumpkin Pie (which really didn't get eaten that night). Overall Thanksgiving was a very eventful and fun day here.

Chrsitmas and up to it.

A week before Christmas we still didn't have a tree. While we where out shopping for Christmas presents, we saw a little tree on display and thought that it would be nice if we could buy that (it was a display tree, didn't think it'd be for sale). Jordon decided to ask anyways and our answer was it was. Mind you the tree is all decorated, has lights on it, and is about 5 ft tall. We got it for $25 with all the decorations lol, talk about luck. I have pictures but they are sadly not on my new computer, after Tina sent us some decorations it was a perfect first Christmas tree for us.
Now, I got spoiled for Christmas, Jordon had bought me a new computer, an iMac. So i now have a new computer to have at home all the time with me and to have the MagicJack hooked up to all the time now. Christmas day was a nice day for us, we had 2 of Jordon's co-workers and fellow soldier over that morning. Started off with having breakfast, which was strawberry pankcakes and eggs. Jordon opened his gifts he got a RC car and Wii game and was already playing his other (computer game). Jack got some new bones so he was already chomping down on those. I got a yoga mat and a Mug that says "I Love You". It was a pretty lazy day for us, i think we had Taco Salad that night for dinner lol.

Sorry there are no pictures. Hopefully next time :)

This is going to be a bit of a long one because it is spanning over 3 days. This is our holiday we took this last week the 10th through the 12th of November.

Day 1

November 10th

Our days went from 0730 to about 2000 (8pm). We spent most of the time in the bus for the first day, which we where happy to do since it was raining the whole day with some good winds making it super cold too. Our fist stop after getting lunch was a the Gyeongju National Museum. It was really interesting having the guide explain some of the history of Korea to us and how each century brought about something different, for instance they know when their written language was thought up and by who (a king, forget which one though.)

On our way, it was a 5 hour trip to the museum with a 1 hour lunch stop.

This is a pagoda at the museum.

After the museum we went to the Cheonmachong Tombs. They are (as seen above) mounds. Each mound is a different tomb for a noble person or king. They aren't sure completely because there are no indications of it being a male or female in the tomb.

My smerf, they gave us ponchos to wear because it is raining and windy.

Our smerf group going into the one tomb we could go in to. Tomb it self is a wooden box surrounded by rocks and then dirt. It's a pretty thief proof tomb so all the things are still in the tomb when they excavate them. They haven't excavated all the tombs in the area because of that reason too. :) After the tombs we went to the hotel. To say something about Korean hotels, they are not meant for those who like soft beds. They beds are hard to the Korean specifications because they sleep on the floor most of the time so they make the beds to mimic the floor and they have central heating for the same reason. All i have to say is that we where not prepared for that and the next day spent a lot of the time on the bus taking naps.

Day 2

November 11th (Veteran's Day)

My forced picture, i think we look really out of it. The next day we went on tour of the Bulguksa Temple and Sokguram

After the temple we went on a tour of the Hyundai Motor company factory and saw how they made the cars and learned some information about the company. We then toured the shipping yard and got information about the Hyundai Heavy Motor company. I know my dad and Weldon would have loved to see the welding they where doing on the huge ships. Once we where done looking at all that we moved on and stopped to see the lighthouse and the ocean, i didn't go out to see it but Jordon did and he said it was cool. It was getting late and we still had a dinner to get to hosted by the Hyundai Motor Company.

Center piece for our table at the dinner, it was getting pretty late and everyone at our table wanted to eat and then sleep. The day overall was really exciting since we got to go to a lot of places, it was also wet and tiring at the same time. We had a buffet dinner and some really nice deserts :)

Lucky to have some short speeches but very much to the point and understandable. Very grateful for Hyundai in sponsoring this 3 day tour.

Jordon and me, i think we where trying to make it as fun as possible while waiting for everything to start, we where getting tired at this point.

Day 3

November 12th

We packed up and left our hotel and made our way to Osan to the Task Force Smith Memorial. We did a little ceremony and the commander that was with us said a little speech. After this we went to lunch at another korean restaurant.

We went to Suwon afterwards and did some archery and toured around the Hasang Fortress. Everyone was really happy that the last day was so sunny and clear, by this time i think we had had enough of the rain and wet grounds.

Jordon getting into the rice box. It was funny to see him in it.
This is a game where you try to get the other person to jump high. Jordon and another guy got it going really well but one of them ended up falling off. Apparently this is a woman's game lol.

We went to dinner at a korean BBQ place where we cooked our own food. It was funny having a lot of americans cooking their own food and have know idea really how to do it. Over all the third day ended really well too and we said our good byes to our tour guide and we took our buses back home. Jordon had picked up Jack that night from our friends house that he was staying at. Over all the 3 day tour was a lot of fun and it was interesting learning about the Korean culture and why they do some things.

Procrastination, dogs, and sewing

These last few weeks i've been going to school online. I have to say that it's not as easy as it sounds. I'm taking 2 classes right now, Elements of Nutrition (which is really cool and fun) and The Role of Nutrition in Cancer and Heart Disease (5 weeks not so fun). My 5 week class i've been a major procrastinator about doing my work and i really need to get down to do it all cause the class is about to be in the last week, AHHH! Over all i have to say i've learned a great deal that i didn't know before. My professor in both classes are one in the same Dr. Tamura, she is opening my eyes (even though i've been into nutrition for a while) to thing i've not been introduced to. So, i wanted to share a little of what i've learned so far with my family.

At the beginning of the class my instructor told us to start keeping track of what we eat, ie. Snack at 4pm: 1 cup carrots, 2 tblsp ranch, 8oz water. i have to say it's not easy and i want to challenge you all to do it for 3 days and just see how much of something, what, when, and etc. of your eating habits, you can plug it all in here, this will take you to the mypyramid tracker, which is only good for calculating.

I have to say the most intersting thing my Prof posted so far was about Food Porn, yes i said this right. Food Porn is well i'll let my Prof words describe it.

"The Center for Science in the Public Interest is a great food advocacy group in Washington D.C. They first coined this term, "Food Porn", at least I think they did. I think it is a very descriptive and apt term for some of the things that we eat out there. Do you know what goes into a Twinkie? It is shocking.

I have a book called "Restaurant Confidential" that has been a fun and eye-opening book for me. I saw that a "Bloomin Onion" appetizer from The Outback restaurant packs a whopping, pornographic 2130 kcal if you eat the whole thing and all the dressing. And this is just the starter! I felt rather sick after seeing this. Although I have never ordered this particular dish, I have seen many of them on the tables of others and it really made me think, do they have any idea what they are eating and how many calories they are ingesting? Scary." --Dr. Tamura

She went on to ask us to look up our favorite restaurant or fast food place to eat and find out what has the most calories, sodium, total and saturated fat, it could be one item or 3 different items. Jordon and I came to a mutual agreement that we both like going to Red Robin, much to my surprise they had this wonderful nutritional calculator for their foods. Come to find out the most of everything what in the appetizers, the burgers seemed to have a low caloric count (at least compared to other restaurants. :)

I my 5 week course of hers she has us do little online CHD (coronary heart disease) questioners and other similar questions. Here is what she gave us. It's not really meant for those under 40 years but it'a still interesting to see your results.

On to better and brighter things, my wonderful, loving, growing, 8 month old dog Jack is becoming a hound dog. :( I have to say that having a puppy is much like having a kid. You have to worry if they are eating enough, having regular bowel movements, not getting into anything they are not suppose to, and making sure they play with others well, but unlike having a kid i don't get the perks of being able to take him everywhere i go. Well, Jordon or i take Jack to the dog park now on a regular basics so he gets to get out all the wonderful energy that he builds up while being indoors all day long. We have been noticing that our puppy is no longer a puppy when we see him next to other full grown dogs, he still has a ways to go but he is at 46 lbs (last timed weighted) and almost king of the dog park. *sigh* They grow up too fast, i want my puppy back. *sigh* One thing that hasn't changed in him is the look i get of "are you serious," funny as it may be it's the same look i get from Jordon. Ah, the reason i gave in to getting the jumping bean.

Sewing....i suck at it, but i'm good at fixing. Starting there i am slowly getting into learning how to sew. I have my sister's sewing machine here with me and a lot of patterns but i am lacking fabric and either my mom or Tina. (where are you two?!) My new adventure is going to be going out to the markets in Seoul and see if i can find the fabric place i was told about and if not...i don't know. Guess i'll just have to wait till i get back to the States to sew anything big. :(

Below is a video if Jordon showing everyone what Jack has learned. Sorry it's sideways, it's my first time recording to post a video. hehe.

Jordon and I went on a day date all day the other week.We ran errands and did a lot of things together that we haven't been able to do in a long time because of his new work shift. After running all of out errands we went to COEX mall, which is in another area out here, about an hour on the subway. We had been there before and had found some cool little shops that have just about anything that you can think of, and not that expensive on top of that. Last time we went we found Jackie Chan's Restaurant.That day we decided to eat there since it was getting late and when we got home we needed to go to bed. The food was delicious to say the least, we got fried rice, dim sum, and a spicy beef dish (really spicy).

This is the dimsum restaurant that we ate at, we had to get picture proof that we where not dreaming that Jackie Chan really had a place. His Pictures are all over the place on the out side.

Just me, doing the cheesy picture in front of the place.
While we where waiting to order food and in the process of trying to figure out what to order we decided to have a bit of fun with the camera. I love this picture because it shows his personality.
After we ate we decided to walk around a bit and then when we where on our way back to the subway, Jordon wondered if i had ever been up top COEX. (COEX is an underground mall.) I hadn't so we went up to saw a few things then decided when we got to the other side of the area where they had these art structures with lights, we decided to take pictures. The cool thing about the lights was that they changed or blinked on an off to music, classical at that too.
This is me in front of the structure. I have to say Korea has some really pretty art pieces all around the city. Can't wait for someone to come visit so i can show them all of the cool and interesting things i've seen and haven't taken pictures of.

Job and Interview

This past week i have been watching a 4 year old little girl named Cheyanne. She is very much full of energy and spunk. Much like most 4 year old she asks a lot of silly questions and is not interested in anything i want her to be, but loves animations like My Neighbor Totoro (which is supper cute), Dora, Backyardigans, and about anything else a 4 year old would like. We have a pretty regular schedule when she is here and i have to say i love nap time.

Last thursday night i got a call for an interview at the Tricare office. So, Friday morning i went for an interview and i think it went well. It's a full time position and it's really close to the house and if Jordon goes back to days and i get the job we can have lunch together. :) 

Here is hoping that they think i am worth it like i think i am.

Anniversary

July 22nd was Jordon's and my 1st anniversary. We had such a good time, we went to the pool and had a wonderfully lazy day in the sun. we took pictures, but sadly they are on jordon's computer so i will have to post them later. After the pool we had enchiladas, that i made different and they turned out so yummy. While eating we watched a movie and then did the movie cuddle on our small couch. 

The only bad point of the day was when we got home to jack, who we decided to trust outside his kennel and leave him in the balcony while we went to the pool. We came home to a scratched wall and 2 weather strips torn to pieces, the good point on it all is that we can fix it all so i wasn't too upset. We took him out to the dog park to get the pent of puppy energy out and he sure did with the amount of other dogs there. It was a good thing we did this so the rest of our evening he spent asleep. Which was much enjoyed. 

Thursday...

Thursday night i had my interview for watching a 4 year old girl. Who is super funny and cute.
I'm posting one to day that i now have a job watching her and educating her so she is ready for kindergarten.
To start the day off, much to our dismay, Jordon had to go do training that they need to do every 6mo, i guess so that they make sure everyone knows everything they need to. So, to get ready for them to come over to our place to see where we are and the living conditions and everything, we started cleaning in the afternoon. Firstly, our place gets pretty messy thanks to Jack and the fact that we have to keep everything out of his reach. So the few surfaces that we have get filled fast. We got the house all cleaned and was about to mop the floors when i get the call saying they where here. So, much to my dismay, i had to show my house without my clean floors, but the good part is that they looked ok cause i did a quicky. To sum the rest up, Tina (the mom) liked the fact that we are not out of the way and that I'm willing to start Monday. So, i now have something to do Monday - Friday.
Sorry for such a boring, yet exciting blog. he he, and on top of it all my laptop decided to like me again and i get to post more.

Time? What's that?

So since coming back from my cousin sean's wedding, we've had a bit of a busy schedule.

-I have been working on getting a job and have finally decided to semi hang the idea and do Partylite (over joy me), but i now have an offer to watch a 4 year old little girl monday- friday, i get the interview this Thursday :) So if there are any suggestions as to a good education itinerary for a 4 year old, i would be much obliged.

-Also, my little puppy doubled in size, if you can believe that, in the 2 weeks i was gone. He now knows 2 more commands. So it come to a total of...sit, stay, drop it, leave it, come here, no, balance a treat on his nose, and ok...8. I feel so accomplished now.

-I finally unpacked all of the boxes and we are officially moved in. Yet somehow our house is still needing furniture, but i guess you can say that is due to us not owning any yet. I have organized the office so we can actually use it as an office/computer room. The guest room is officially ready for guests and i everything now has a home. There really is something satisfying about everything having a home.

-I'm enrolled in school again. I'm going to be starting out going for my general education requirements then moving on to another school and starting on my major of Nutrition/ Dietetics. That way i can become a Dietitian and do something that i love more than cooking. Telling other how to eat well (ask Tina). My ultimate goal is to work with families and mostly children/ teens, to show them that you don't need to spend lots of money or think too much on it to eat well and to have a balanced diet. (plus it's my fight against too much fast food)

-Jordon took his ASFAB test over again and got 10 points higher across that board. This means now he can go on to be an Officer in the military, but first he needs to go do more schooling. So that means that we will more than likely be state side for our next duty station, which also means cheaper plane tickets to go visit people. YEAH!!

I now have a deeper understanding of what my mom says when she says she doesn't have time to do that. (plus i'm horrible at time management)

being home...

This last sunday i finally did my first (in person) Partylite show. I'm going to be a very big critic and say that the show sucked. Only 2 people showed up and Jordon was being squirmish like a little kid. Well i have a few days till the end of April and the guest specials are really nice right now so maybe i can get some orders from some people at Jordon's work. hmmm... lets hope. 

Jack: 

on another note, our puppy is getting bigger, and he's still as funny as ever. He can finally hold his little bladder till we go out side and he is Housebroken. CHEERS!!! This is making sleeping so much better. He's almost 4 months old and is a very smart puppy. Only thing we need to work on is the coming when called and sitting every time we say "sit". Other things are being taught too, but we need to at least get those set in his brain. He is a wonderful puppy, most of the time, and is a great patients learner for Jordon. 

Dressing up

This last week was KATUSA friendship week. For 3 days you got to do various things like play sports or learn more about old fashion Korean games. It was pretty fun. We went on the second day, which was cold and windy. We had a Korean dish, which was yummy. Played with a short bows and arrows, and dressed up. Jordon could have played Softball or soccer, but we where getting cold and frezzing lol. So we just went back home.

I'm dressed as a queen and Jordon is a general. Jack would have been in the picture but they didn't crop him in. =( To think that he is just at our feet lol. 

Strawberry Festival

Jordon and i had the wonderful experience to go tog a Strawberry Festival on Easter day. We got a dog sitter for Jack so we got to go on a day trip. The Festival was in a town called Nonsan, which is an hour south of us by KTX (bullet train). We had a wonderful time while we where there, but i can't say much for the trip back home (we where so beat and hungry). Overall it was a wonderful Easter and we very much enjoyed each others company. 

On the KTX to Nonsan. we where going 190 kph on average!

The displays they had where pretty and full of strawberry themed everything. Sad note was that it was a hotter day that day and the sun was beating down on you :(

Inside the exhibit tent (there was only one). They had the history of cultivating strawberries and packaging (i think, it was all in Korea lol). There where also live bugs like bees and ladybugs. The Bees where huge and there where 2 types of them (creepy). Above are real strawberry plants inside the tent. It was a big tent.

Bugs! ewww, i will say i was getting a bit creeped out by the buggies!

Stage for performers, they had dancing and bands when we where there. I like the costumes!

One of the things we got to do there was pick our own strawberries, it probably would have been better if we had kids and they did the picking cause once we filled the containers up we where done, even though you could eat as many as you want there. 

 One thing that i really wanted to do was decorate a cake while here, so i did with Jordon's help of course. I will say that it was a yummy cake =)

Jack the puppy

Introducing the wonderful Jack. Jack was born in January and when we got him he already weighted 17 lbs. since the last time we took him to the vet's office he had gained like 5 lbs. That was about a weeks time. He is a lot like my husband in personality and so much like a little kid it's unbelievable.  Lets see what to tell you all about him...he loves to play (with my hand), he sleeps 50% of the day away and is awake playing 30% of the day, the other 20% is spent eating, going potty, and chewing on anything he is allowed to chew on. Everyday is a challenge because we are still learning how to signal that we have to go outside and go potty and learning how to follow commands (which is easier than the signaling). Overall Jack is a wonderfully silly puppy. We are still getting use to little kids and crowds of people (he loves people, especially women). 

This is how he sleeps. 

The day the Dog Park opened, it was a really hot day. 

Playing at the dog park, he loves it here cause of the running around.

Jordon's little man, on our way to the vet's office for something.

First day we got him, that is now his favorite blanket (chews on it to prove it).

Our destructor puppy! Jordon had gone to the store one day and came back with a hot dog squeak toy. Needless to say it was a hit with Jack. By the end of the 2nd day he had figured out where the squeak was and had pulled it out. This is what happens when you give a big dog a little dogs toy. Stuffing everywhere!

He played with the stuffing on its own too. (he's very easily entertained)

South Korea

So i finally made a blog! To me this is a big accomplishment because i had to figure out how to make the sign in page not in korean. he he, but i did it. yeah for me! 

So i'm going to give everyone a tour of our place here in Korea. YEAH! So just so you know a little bit about our place, we live in a sky-rise called Park Towers. We are on the 19th floor. there are 4 apartments on this floor all of which have about the same square footage as us, which is 1800 sq. ft. (we can fit a full family in this place) I will say one thing about our place is that there is way too much space for just the two of us... and i will show you why i say that. :)

This is the view from the living room, you can see the entrance to the base and the doggie park. Plus a few other things, like if there are taxies at the hospital :)

This is another view we have. I have to say that Korea is really pretty at night when you are 19 floors up and all the lights are against the night sky. Sunrise and sunset are beautiful!

It’s the main entrance, it's long and has a huge mirror that i look at every time before i leave. Sometimes i even stop myself from leaving cause my hair looks bad. >.< It is here that we keep our coats, shoes, bags, purses, etc. 

This is the living/dinning room, behind the couch is this table where we eat most of the time. The furniture was provided by the army. I like it all except the couch and the bed. The whole place has wood flooring except the bathrooms, the balcony areas, and the entrance. 

Once you come in the entrance the living room is off to your left. As you can see in this picture, there is the dinning room table and the kitchen. 

This is the kitchen, i'm going to have to take pictures and a video of all the funny things that are in the kitchen. Just so you know now we have 2 refrigerators. One is built in and the other (as you can see) is a regular one (also provided by army). I will say i like my kitchen, but cause of the lack of storage i don't love it. Grammy be proud i don't have a microwave. HA HA! 

This is the room off the kitchen, (see door in earlier picture).  To the left we have the veggie and rice fridge (know to the koreans as the kimche fridge) i've never used this for anything other than to put my rice in it...and that is just to have it in a cool dry place. To the right we have the washing machine....i just want to put this out now but all the electronics and gizmos in our place (other than the dryer and army fridge) are in korean...and yes we use the washer weekly. (Jordon made out cards when the guy was explaining things to him, i love my honey)

This is the family room, and it's much bigger than the picture shows. This is the first room you come to after you come in and go to the right of the main entrance. This room is completely empty right now. I'm trying to convince Jordon that we should move the tv and entertainment stuff we have into this room, but i don't think that is going to happen. So, it's going to turn into my space :)

This is the guest room, and there is a bed in the guest room. Off the guest room is a balcony and to the left of the room is the office that i forgot to take a picture of, i'm a space case. You can get to the balcony (which is enclosed) from the office and the guest room. It's a nice size balcony too. 

Guest bathroom, well more like Jordon's bathroom cause he likes the shower in this one better than the master bathroom. I love having 2 bathrooms!

Master Bedroom. This is our huge bedroom, as you can see though in the picture in the distance is the wonderful dryer :( It's in our balcony area, which has now become the dogs area too... and to think i was going to use this area for growing some plants...can't now because Jack (puppy) will knock them down or eat them -_-'

This is still the master bedroom, straight ahead is the vanity and actually to the left of this picture is the built in closets. I love them now cause it's somewhere that Jack can't get into things and get hair on or chew on things. :)

This is the master bathroom. As you can tell by now that there are a lot of mirrors in our apartment. Surprisingly i only really look at myself in the mirror 2x at least in the mirror (once when i get dressed and when i go into the bathroom) everything else is at a glance :(

To the right of this picture is the shower/ spa tub, it take forever to fill the tub up so i rarely take a bath anymore.

So that is it for the tour of the place. Since i took these picture we have gotten a small rug for the living room and a dog (plus all this toys). It's nice being here and having this apartment, but Jordon and i can't wait till we finally have a house of our own (with a yard for Jack).

Getting a job: So i had met with a resume coach (before we got the dog) and i'm finally able to have free time to go see her again and finally get a job. It's been had with having to spend most of my time housebreaking Jack and also getting our place filled with the weekly things. I have to say that i think that even with the unexpected addition to our family and the minor set backs, everything is going to plan. My goal is to have a job by the end of May.

Jordon and the Army: As you may not know but Jordon works in the hospital for the army. When he first came here he did air-evac (get patients in and out of their hospital to other more suitable hospitals for various reasons). Well since i got here they decided to switch him out of that area and move him in to PAD (patient administrations department) where he admits people to the hospital and does various PAD stuff. His schedule went from a M-F, 8 hour days to 12 hour rotating schedule, and now it's the 12 hour rotating schedule but he works nights. So, needless to say his NCOs are wonderful crazy people who don't realize have the time what they are doing. Well the good things about him going to nights now is i get to actually spend more time with Jordon, he doesn't have to do PT (mandatory workout every M-W-F) and no more Sgt's Time on thursdays. I think God has thrown jordon a bone here cause he was getting to the point of being over worked. -_-'

Well i have more to come later. I would like to share my first festival experience with everyone, lots of cool pictures and there are so many pretty things in South Korea! EEPPS! I'm excited!

Love the optimistic Jessy!