Our First Delivery

Our first delivery of house hold things came today! The kids were so excited to see all their toys again. We started this whole journey almost a year ago. It was the middle of July last year when we packed the house up and began our big move.

Every room got messy pretty quickly as the boxes were each opened but they had a ball!
Of course the boxes were just as much fun as the toys were....

The story of Goldilocks must be pretty common here because many of the Korean people have said, "Goldilocks!" when they saw Faith Elaina and they always try and touch her hair.  :)

Joshua said, "Yay! The dress up is back!" and within minutes he was Captain America once again.  :)

 

It's beginning to feel like 'home' now.  :)

AK Plaza and The Squid!

Tonight we had some friends take us to see AK Plaza and have dinner. AK Plaza is 8 stories of shopping and restaurants. The building is huge, beautiful and very modern inside with more shops than I have ever seen in one place. I didn't get many good pictures of the inside, but it is decorated very fancy.

We scoped out all the restaurants, almost all of which had huge windows out front full of models of some of their dishes. It all looked so pretty, and some of it looked appetizing.  :)

We finally decided on the "Good Restaurant"....that's what the sign said, so we gave it a try.

We all ordered different things and none of us were sure we were getting what we ordered since it was kind of difficult to communicate with the waiter. We did a lot of pointing to the menu!  :)

When the food came out, we still didn't know if it was what we ordered, but it all looked pretty!
All the plates had these fancy flowers on them...I'm not sure what they were made out of though.

Our friend Nick ordered some sort of noodle soup but it was a little different than what he thought he was ordering. First of all is was HUGE...you can't tell from the picture, but the bowl was as big as one of the dinner plates and very deep...more like a pot of soup than a bowl. There were noodles in there, but also a lot of other stuff!

We removed the big squid and Joy had a great time examining it.

There were lots of other side items they brought out. We tried all of them. 

We took the fancy glass elevator and tried to go up to the roof. It's only open during the daylight though, it was too late when we were there to go all the way up.

This is the view out of the elevator window. We're going to go back sometime when we can get up to the roof. 

And I can't wait to go back and go shopping sometime!

Library Trip!

Today my friend Lisa and I ventured to the library on post with our combined 7 kids (all 5 and under) by ourselves!! We walked from our building all the way there....and back. We were blessed with obedient little ones who had fun every step of the long walk. I was a little nervous as we headed out, but we did it!

Here they stopped to admire the pretty flowers growing in front of the not so pretty buildings and fences.

We finally made it to the library and the kids enjoyed exploring all the books and puzzles for a long time.

We met a couple other friends and their little ones there too.

The children's part of the library isn't huge, but the kids all seemed to really enjoy it.

Lisa and I read lots of books aloud while we were there. I think the kids could have lasted longer than we did!

The kids kept asking where we live, where we use to live and where Grandma's and Grandpa's live, etc.  on the big map rug.

Faith doing puzzles with her friend...

We decided since we walked all the way to post with these little ones and they did so great that we should go out to lunch before we headed home. They loved that too!

What a bunch of cuties waiting for the bus to take us back to the walk in gate!

A Little Update...

So far we've been to three churches and the experience was....interesting. I really didn't think finding a church family over here would be so hard. I am now realizing how amazingly blessed we are in the United States to have such an abundance of wonderful churches to choose from. We've had the opportunity to be apart of so many and now I'm really missing all the church families we've had over the years from Hillside, United, Grace and First Naz...   :(
We keep praying though, I know God wants us at one of them over here, we just haven't figured out where that is yet. We've got a couple more on the list to try next week.

Sunday was exhausting for us going to two different services, one of which ended with a large Korean meal that we were pretty much forced to stay for (they seriously corralled us up 3 flights of stairs) but the food was okay, again...'interesting' describes it best. The people were very nice, the service was just not exactly...or really not anything like what we are searching for. But our Sunday ended nicely when we were invited to a new friend's house (that lives in our building) for cookies and a visit. The kids had a wonderful time with their three boys and Peter and I really enjoy them.

We went out to Suji's, a Korean restaurant, the other night with some friends. It was a fun experience and we ate a lot of new yummy foods. They cooked some of our meal right in front of us on the table.

Joshua was the 'bravest' of the kids and tried several things. We did feed all the kids dinner before we went out though, just incase. :)

Some of it was VERY spicy....at least to me it was. The kimchi was good and very flavorful but I could only eat some of it before it was too hot for me!

We have had several places to eat recommended to us, so I'm sure we'll be trying more Korean food very soon.

Peter started work today. It's been SO nice having him home our first two weeks here. We got kind of spoiled for awhile! So today after he went to work the homesickness kicked in. :( I guess this is the part about the military life that isn't so much fun. I miss everyone back home in the States so much. Hopefully this place will start to feel a little more like 'home' when our household things arrive. They are suppose to be here this week. The kids are really looking forward to seeing their toys again!

To Market, To Market

I LOVE the market! We actually went twice today... :) It's just too much fun!
They have the street market here on days that end in 3 and 8 each month and it is close enough to walk to from the house. :)

The kids love to see all the fish. This vendor had live crabs and fish to buy! You can't get much fresher than that!

We came home with a new teapot and a ton of very yummy produce! There was so much to choose from, I had to hold back cause I would have loved to bring it all home.... And the prices are too amazing. Here is a little glimpse...

It is all SO YUMMY! I can't stop eating the cherry tomatoes, they are so sweet. We got this huge basketful for a little over $2.00 (3,000 Won). I cooked up some of the eggplant with lunch and it was delicious too! I'm so happy to get to shop at the market for fresh food like this...its a little bit of heaven for me.  :)

This evening we went back and Peter bought me a couple of beautiful plants for the house. I love them! Can you believe this big one on the right was only 5,000 won?!! So cool! I think I'm gunna like it here.  :)

Still Having Fun

It's been so wonderful having Peter home with us these first two weeks. He'll start work next Monday, but for now we are enjoying this free 'vacation' and loving all of our time together! We're definitely getting spoiled!!

Our household goods won't be here for another week still so all we have to play with are the toys that we took in the backpacks on the airplane and a few others that were stuffed into the suitcases where there was room. So....not much. But today Joshua gathered up all his 'guys' and we found that there was a lot more to play with than we originally thought.  :) He counted 23 in all!

Then he made some yummy chocolate frosting for the cake that already had a piece or two taken out of it for those of us who couldn't wait for the frosting! LOL! 

Since it was his special time playing with and helping mom, he got to lick BOTH beaters clean...and he LOVED it! :)

It's frustrating at times trying to settle in and live without all our household goods yet, but we're finding ways to keep ourselves entertained and of course, we're still having FUN! :)

Lotte Mart

Today we went to Lotte Mart....The Korean version of our Target or KMart...only really big! There was a playground right outside so we let the kiddos play for a bit before we went shopping. Samuel enjoyed his turtle ride.  :)

He's getting so big!

There was a cool indoor garden/pond area inside the store. The kids were excited about the real fish swimming around in it. 

This is like our Dollar General back in the states. It's a little section store inside of the big store. 

Here is Samuel riding on the special escalator made for the shopping carts. It was very cool, they lock in place once you roll onto it. The store is three levels and you can take your cart through the whole thing using the escalators.Everybody enjoyed the rides up and down! Our friends Carrie and Lukas took us there! :)We had lunch at a Korean fast food place, I don't remember the name. They had a little food court area on one of the floors. After lunch we got dessert. This was mine...

There is a little scoop of ice cream on the top and underneath is tons of fruit and....chocolate covered beans....apparently red beans are used in a lot of desserts here. Not what I expected at all. Then under the fruit is shaved ice and fruit juice. It was really yummy. I did taste all of it, even the red beans, and it was interesting. It was actually a nice balance having them mixed in with the super sweet fruit and creamy shaved ice. I think I'd order it again. :) We ended up spending a couple hours at the Lotte Mart, you can kind of get lost in there with all there is to look at and enjoy. It was a fun day and I think we'll be going back again sometime soon.