4th of July

Started the day like any other except I apparently head to make it memorable by getting a flat tire on the way to the grocery store. Lucky Matt was to the rescue (as it was his car) and the tire was still under warranty. Yay! Other than that fun excitement, spent the day with family, minus Tina, at the Lucien's house. Jack got to run in their huge back yard with horses on the back fence. Had a nice potluck feast, watched a lot of movies, and over all was a lazy day.
When the sun went down we set off the fireworks we had and got to watch others from the distance (like cal expo, and other event displays as well). It was overall a good and lazy independence day.

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.

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. 

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!