Rice

These pictures are taken right behind out apartment complex, and of course is not uncommon to see here in Korea. This country has a beauty that takes my breath away.

Watermelon

So, I went with a friend from church to the outdoor market the other day and picked up a good size watermelon. As it sat on my counter all day, I though about the daunting task of slicing the watermelon. I knew it would be a huge undertaking. Finally that evening, as I reach for the knife drawer I decided that I would finally tackle the task. With all my force, I lay into the watermelon. To my surprise, I hear a slight *pop* and the whole watermelon splits open with ease! My jaw dropped. This was the easiest watermelon I have ever sliced! Also proably one of the tastiest, too!

Welcome To Our Home

Here's some pictures of our apartment I though you all might enjoy!

Photo Challange: Shoes

I still haven't forgotten my photo challanges! There's just a little slow coming! Here's a couple that I took this week of shoes!

This is a new pair of Kami's shoes I thought were just too cute!

And of course, Sunday shoes are my favorites!

Moving Day

For those interested in how they move things in and out of these high-rises, here you go! Let's just hope nothing falls from the platform that all the stuff is on!

Scrapbook Pages

Oh, my! It's been a long, long time since I posted any scapbook pages on the blog! Believe me, it's not been because I haven't done any pages! I think I've done quite well at finding time! ;^) That being said, some of these pages are not quite done yet. Some are missing journaling....some are missing a title. The Easter page was origionally supposed to be a single page, but, I'm just not feeling it. I think it needs another page. And there's just too many cute Easter pictures from our photo shoot that I want to put in Kami's book. And, some pages, as you can tell by the first page are long overdue! Kami was only a couple day old when this picture was taken! Most of these pages have been inspired by pages in Scrapbook Magazines...with my own little added twist. The way I figure it, that's what those magazines are there for, right? I don't have the luxury anymore of taking the time to come up with an "origional" design anymore. I've been having a hard time with this, so I have to keep telling myself that there is a time and a season for every part of our lives. My main focus right now is raising a beautiful daughter, being a patient and understanding wife and maintain my own sence of me. When I think of it that way, I don't feel so bad not being able to sit down and lay out which embellishment goes where and should this picture go here or there. It's so nice to be able to flip open a magazine and say...that looks good...and go to work! 20 years from now, will it really matter anyway where you got your ideas from? I don't think so. What matters is that you've recorded such a precious memory in your lives. Okay! I'm done! Enjoy the pages! And feel free to copy...whatever! ;^)

Pictures!

Okay! For all you picture lovers out there, this post is for you! I broke out the camera the other day and took some pictures from around our apartment. The first picture here is actually from inside out apartment looking out at an angle (directly in front of us is another apartment building). Pretty isn't it? It kind of reminds me of Washington State....only think Washington humidity and have it be between 90-100 degrees everyday!
Behind our apartment building is a fabulous walking trail I'm not sure how far it goes, but it's really well maintained...very beautiful! Speaking of walking, since I've been doing a lot of it, I have to say Kudos to the Koreans for paving their sidewalks with that cool bouncy material that you usually see on a running track! It's so much easier on the feet! Anyway....this is also a picture of our actual apartment building! It's about 15 floors high (we're on the 5th floor), our apartment is the width of this building and 1/4 the length of it (does that make any sense?)...so it's a pretty good size as far as apartments go. There are about 10 of these high-rises total in our apartment complex.
And here is a cute picture of Kami...we're walking back from one of the parks in the apartment complex. I cannot even begin to count the number of people who have stopped us on the street to admire Kamden! In Korean culture babies are considered "everyone's treasure" to cherish, so it is not uncommon when we are stopped, that Kami is kissed, picked up, or patted. I hear blondes and red-heads are especially popular. Anyway, today was actually a beautiful day so Kami and I decided to take a walk down to a cute little baby shop not too far from our house. Only to remember when we got there and saw that it was closed that today is a Korean holiday! Oh well. It was a nice walk anyway! Later this afternoon we went down to the park and met a really, really nice family. They've got two little boys, one is about 2 years old, the other is only 2 months. The dad spoke English really well, and I have a feeling that the mom understood it more than she spoke...or maybe she wasn't comfortable speaking it. Speaking of trying to get comfortable speaking another language...I thought I'd try my hand in saying "Thank you" to the woman at the fruit stand today....I ended up saying, "Kamsah Hasayo", which is a mixture of "Thank you" and "Good afternoon" I'm such an idiot! Time for me to take a Korean language class!!!

Annyong Hasayo!

Greetings from the Land of the Morning Calm! Yep, that's right, Kami and I finally made it to Korea! We arrived Monday night and have been busy every since! Not to mention trying to adjust to the drastic time change, new surroundings, climate, and culture. In fact, something different....I pulled up blogger here and it's all in Korean. Hmmm. I'm relying on my memory of which button does what! Since I really didn't have any prior knowledge of Korea, it's hard for me to say it was differnt that I had expected. That being said, I do have to admit, it's more beautiful than I thought it would be. There is lots of green, lots of hills, lots of water and right now, very, very hot and humid! We live in an apartment about a 5-10 minute car ride from base and about a 25-40 minute walk (we still haven't picked up our car, so we've been doing a lot of walking and taxi riding); so we're all getting our fair share of excercise. I'm hoping that necessity forms a habit! Okay! So, I'm hoping to post some pictures for you all soon! And for those of who you asked if I needed anything? If anybody want's to tape any Sesame Street episodes for us, that would be perfect! We're really missing our SS friends!

Jump! Jump!

I never realized a little girl could adore her uncle so much! But to Kami, Uncle Spencer is the coolest! Every time he's around, she gets this big smile on her face and reaches for him to hold her. When she gets hurt, she goes to him and "tells" him all about it! Who can blame her for loving her Uncle Spence so much? I always thought that he was a pretty cool big brother!

Not only is Uncle Spence cool, but he and Aunt Nancy have some pretty cool toys! This is one of Kami's favorites! A huge trampoline in the backyard! Uncle Spencer helps her jump!
Aunt Nancy is so funny, she's worthy of the "nose scrunch" smile!

Sharing with cousin, Josh.

Playing with cousin Vanessa.

Dancing with Aunt Nancy.

And longing for more fun on the trampoline!

Summer Update

Hey Everyone! It's been a little while since I've blogged last, so I thought I'd better give an update! We're still here in Utah and having so much fun visiting with family and friends! This past weekend we took a quick trip to my hometown in Cedar City Utah. I was able to attend my 10 year High School Reunion and visit with friends I haven't seen in well, 10 years and also those friends I saw just last year! Either way, I had a fantastic time catching up on their lives! Kami came with me to the family part of the reunion in the morning and was able to make a few little friends. Although one attempt didn't go so well. If you check out just below her eye you can see a battle wound of a little boy who apparently did not want to be friends with Kami! Poor baby! Oh! Also, check out her new haircut! Her bangs were starting to really get in her eyes, so I trimmed them last week. I didn't realize how different she'd look!

These first few pictures were taken on the way back to SLC from Cedar City. We stopped in Fillmore for lunch and they have a nice little park there as well that we played at for a while.


While in Cedar, we took Kami to the Greenshow at the Utah Shakespearean Festival. Kami was glued to watching the dancers and really got into clapping along with the rest of the audience.

Yet another battle wound visable in this next picture taken before the trip to Cedar on one of Salt Lake's ridiculously inferno like days. Anyway, Kami has been learning how to get in and out of little chairs. While coming down out of a chair one morning, it didn't go quite so well as she landed smack on her face, giving her this nice scraped, fat lip. These pictures were taken a couple days after that incident. As you can tell, she got over it and tended to more important things like having fun in her little pool!



And some good news! Drew found a place to live in Korea! Kami is so excited she's all packed and ready to go! We should be leaving for Korea in the next few weeks.
Also, a couple more words to add to Kami's list:
shoosh = shoe
tick-a tick-a tick-a tick-a = tickle, tickle, tickle tickle

Happy Birthday Kamden: Utah Edition!

Okay! I've got pictures uploaded on the computer and I've got a few spare moments left before Kami wakes up from her nap! So, I am quickly updating the blog with some pictures of Kamden's Utah birthday last week! The ice cream cone cupcakes turned out just the way I wanted and were a success with Kami and her cousins.

On another note, I cannot believe how big and independent Kami is getting! I swear I spent half the morning following her from mess to mess cleaning up after her! Good greif! She doesn't stop! If not for her cuteness! Speaking of cuteness, I though I'd share some cute new words of hers:

amah=up
iss=ears
ish!=sheesh! (wonder where she picked up that one!)
dada=everything else she can't say yet (although she does also associate dada with Drew as well!)