Tuesday, March 31, 2009

T-Ball

Sydney had her first practice tonight for the 5-6 year old T-ball team. All the little girls had their pink/purple ball glove (the only one the BX had to offer). This should be one interesting season!! Sydney's more interested in socializing with the players than practicing!! ; ) They open their season on the 11th of April, so more pictures to come!!














Yongsan...our second home!!

We finally have our car now. We are official to drive in Korea after having passed our drivers test. I'm not really sure why they make us take a test, since we are clearly better drivers than the average Korean!! We had to drive to Seoul again and get our car, so we decided to stay at the Dragon Hill and have a little fun. Sydney seems to think we need to live here since it's such a special place. I have to agree with her, it IS a special place!! We will probably be frequenting the hotel and making it our little getaway while we're here. I'd like to say that we looked at maps and drove ourselves back to Osan, but we had the help of a GPS!! I had to take some pictures of our way back home and just laugh.



The kids in front of Dragon Hill. Sydney has decided she wants to live here and this should be our home while we are in Korea?? She calls it the "special place"!!










Don't have a clue what this might mean???




We do know that we are on the right highway, as long as it says #1, we're good to go!!

Ahhhhh, an Osan sign!!






Even better, Osan Airbase! We are almost home!We made it!!
Luke must be tired from our very eventful drive from Seoul, must have been trying to read the signs or something???


Our little Korean princess!

Friday, March 20, 2009

Fiendettes...Crud Champions!!!

Friday night we had the ladies crud tournament at the O club. Apparantly the fiendettes are very good, and are very serious about winning....I just went to go have some fun?? That's why I was put on the "B" team!! :) And most importantly because I had never played before!! The "B" team played for the loser championship, and we lost. We had a great time though, and in the end, the Fiendettes still ended up taking home the trophy (thanks to the "A" team!). Being the competitive athlete that I am, I see myself only getting better, and eventually making the "A" team!! Sooo, watch out!!!!




Trip to Seoul and the Lockes!


Jessie and Luke

Carson, Sydney, Jessica, and Luke

























We had to take Luke to the ENT up at Yongsan Army Garrison in Seoul on Friday for an ear checkup. We thought we were also going to pick up our car, but our drivers license were not done, so we will have to go get it another day. We took the bus from Osan, and then Erin and the kids picked us up at the bus station. We went to eat lunch at The Oasis in the Dragon Hill. I think I have died and gone to sweet tea heaven!!! They serve mexican food, and my favorite, sweet tea!!! I haven't had good sweet tea since we left Mississippi, but it ranked right up there with The Backdoor in Columbus! It was nice to see Erin, Joe, and the kids. When we were at Spangdahlem together our kids were babies, and yesterday they were playing ring a round the rosy together. My, how time flies!! It was a good day!
The random pictures of the tall buildings are just some I took on the bus trip down.

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Trains and therapy!!





Luke and I have gotten to spend a lot of quality time at home together since we've been here. I never thought that putting a train set together could be so therapeutic, but boy was I wrong! We had so much fun putting his set together and playing all afternoon. It literally takes up the entire floor, so lots of fun!! I couldn't resist the picture of him sleeping with several of his trains!

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Just a few pics..




Sydney has now been attending Osan Elementary school for 2 weeks now. She claims she hates school now, but i'm sure it's just adjusting to yet ANOTHER school. This has been the 3rd in one year. I know she's making lots of friends since everybody knows her name on the walk home!! She's my social butterfly and I know she's going to be just fine. The far picture is our tower, and we are on the VERY top!! You don't see a stop sign in America like this, huh???


The Show and party suits!!!




We have been inducted into the 36th Fighter Squadron (The Fiends & Fiendettes), by attending our first "SHOW". A Show is a monthly event where the pilots put on their red party suits, sing songs (not church songs), tell stories about each other, and name new pilots. David was a fly on the wall this time, since he is the "FNG". He will get to be an active participant next month when he gets his name. The wives also have a party suit that is a little bit cuter than the blazing red flight suits. I will also get named, but in a much more friendly female environment! We had a great time and look forward to our tour with the Fiends!!! Harrumph!!!






Sunday, March 8, 2009

Our first little Korean home...












Our first home in Korea was at Life Apartments. We lived here for about 10 days and then was picked up for sponsorship. The funny white looking thing in the corner is an air conditioner. All the beds are like laying on a flat piece of rock.



Wednesday, March 4, 2009

This Storm...

Many of you have complimented me on my music I have for our blog, thank you for that. I purposely went and rearranged my songs so that the first song would be, 'Praise you in this storm'. Our life has been one big storm since we arrived at Osan. Thank you to all who have been praying for us constantly, we have felt your prayers. It would take a novel to explain what all we've endured, but God has been faithful and we believe he has finally brought some peace in our life. I will give the short version, many of you have already heard it, but I know some have asked, so I will give the modified version. We initially asked to be command sponsored (2 year gig with family), but were turned down. So we decided to come non-sponsored and live off base (not a good choice), but better than being away from each other. We lived at Turimi Lodge for for 10 days, ran out of our time there and were told by SQ. commander that it would be 3-4 months before we could get sponsored. My friend Cammy hooked us up with a landlord and we quickly accepted an apartment off base (thanks Cammy). We quickly set up shop and tried to make it a home, lived there 7 days and had not signed a lease. The day we went to go sign the lease, SQ. commander calls and says they have a CSP billet for us if we want it. So, after hours of discussing if we wanted to live on the ROK for 2 years versus one, we accept. (One year would be plenty for me over here!!) We then have to let the landlord know we are moving on base, get out of the lease, pay a ton of money, and then happily move on base to "Little America". So, we again grab our stuff and go set up shop on base. So, in the last 2 months we have set up shop in 5 different locations! UGH! Makes me tired reliving it again!! The pictures of the kids are at Turimi hanging out in our tiny hotel room (trying not to kill each other, and me not killing them!)
The picture of Luke in the suitcase, priceless! I want to go home too buddy! All this to say, we are finally settled in our 5th place, Hallasan Towers 10th floor. We're living in the penthouse!! More pictures to come....










Flight over...


I really had plans to take some pictures of our craziness while we were traveling, but the only pics I did happen to get were of the kids on the plane (asleep). I thought it might be funny to show our 9 suitcases (large), 8 carry-ons (including one spoiled dog), and the kids pinging at LAX. But hey, it was 10PM at night and I was a little stressed about uprooting my kids to a foreign country, so pictures were the last thing on my mind. Sydney got a kick out of the goody bag Korean air gave us, she insisted on wearing the eye mask most of the trip!! :) I'm still trying to figure out why they gave us a pair of wool socks, but I guess I didn't know I was going to the land of the not quite right!!!