Visiting America - Part 1

That's right! Katie and I have made our first trip back to the states. Been well over a year, and there's much catching up to do! I have quite a few pictures to show and events to write about....and still have a toddler to chase around... so It will probably take a few days to finally catch up. Here's just a few to get us going!

Katie and I made the trip to Tokyo Narita Airport with our friends Mary and Hannah Jane. Travelling with friends sure made the trip go by fast, and I'm sure it was much more enjoyable for the girls!

We made it to the airport and had to part ways with our friends who were taking a different flight. Below is Katie checking out the planes and finishing a little McDonald's.

After nearly 24 hours or travelling, we finally made it to Texas! First order of business: Get out of the HEAT and celebrate the 4th of July!

On July 3 we went to Shannon and Jack's for a little swimming with Shelby and fireworks with the family.

We were having such a great time (and Katie and I still didn't "really" know what time it was...) that we stayed out lighting fireworks until about midnight. Katie had a really great time with the sparklers and smoke bombs. She also loved watching Uncle Andy and Shelby light the "big stuff" and run off before the explosions!

On July 4th we went swimming and were planning on catching the big fireworks show in Burkburnett, but it was rained out. I sure am glad we lit all of ours a day early!

Baseball in Korea

Anybody remember the Tom Selleck (sp?) movie "Mr. Baseball"? And do you remember watching it and thinking, "Surely Asians aren't that fanatic about their baseball teams?" You would be mistaken - unfortunately, I really think that Asians (in this case Koreans and Japanese) love baseball even more than your average American might. What a bummer, considering it's OUR national past time.

But I digress. We've been wandering our way up to Seoul in the last few months, and discovered the quickest way to get to see some "professional" baseball teams in Korea. The Doosan Bears and the LG Twins share a stadium in Jamsil, just on the east side of Seoul, so you're guaranteed to have a home game every weekend. Tall boys of Korean beer are $2 each, the fans have no idea what you're screaming in English (ops tested, to the dismay of any English-speaking Koreans in the stands), and the games are actually pretty exciting. What more can you ask for from a Saturday afternoon then to sit in an open-air stadium with 15,000 of your closest friends, get hammered, and watch baseball.

That's the other funny thing about Korean baseball - the teams are all named after their sponsors. The LG Twins for instance, are sponsored by the LG electronics company, and Twins fans chant "LG! LG! LG!" when stuff goes right. Imagine Derek Jeter hitting a home run and having the fans chant "Chrysler! Chrysler! Chrysler!" as their cheer. Weird.

Anyway, the pictures below are from the first game we went to go see, the Doosan Bears vs. the Hanwha Eagles.

This is just a picture of the field, but the video below shows how the stands divided out between the Eagles fans (orange) and the Bears fans (white). You can also hear the organized cheering that the Bears fans have started, with a little help from the Bears' cheerleaders. Yes, I said it. Korean baseball has CHEERLEADERS. MLB, stand up and take note.

Finally, we discovered that in Korea, they've never heard of the seventh-inning stretch, so we loudly led the charge on that one (the Koreans loved it - we got a standing ovation). They also apparently had never seen the "wave". How America has failed to export that sports fan maneuver, I'll never know, but we decided to try and teach them how it worked. Fortunately, Bodhi had had enough Korean beer to lead the charge, and after twelve tries, we finally got a wave that carried all the way around the stadium - in fact, it even reversed course and came back! I would be lying if I didn't feel like at least now I had made a contribution to the Korean culture (significance is still up for debate). The Korean kids liked it so much, they adopted Bodhi as their unofficial mascot and kept asking him to lead the wave again for the rest of the game.

Korean Adventures

Well, since Jenny hadn't updated this in a while, I decided I would start blogging here as well (shout out to Hook for blogging on his and Laura's site) and share some of the wonderful sights that I've been seeing here in Korea. As most of you probably already know, the 13 FS is halfway through a six-month AEF deployment to Suwon AB, Korea. Not exactly what we had in mind when we were practicing our CAS procedures in the desert over Nellis, but things could be a LOT worse.

I thought to start I would post some of the pictures and video of some of the sights the bros have been checking out while here in Korea. The first set of pictures is from our trip up to the DMZ, or Demilitarized Zone, the 4 KM buffer zone between north Korea and the ROK. Seeing as how these two countries are still "technically" at war (which I'm sure if you've been reading the news, isn't that hard to believe), the place is pretty heavily guarded.




This first picture is of me looking across the Han River into North Korea. What can I say? Koreans are short ...






These second two pictures are from the Joint Security Area in Panmunjom. Over my left shoulder you can probably make out a NoDAK soldier giving us the squirrely eye. What you DON'T see is the other four or five guys hidden in the windows taking pictures of all of us. Creepy. The blue building over my right shoulder is where the North Koreans and the South Koreans/US have their meetings/conferences. No kidding, if you look, you can see the concrete slabs that run through the courtyard behind me that denote the border between the two countries. Inside the conference room, the conference table is also arranged so that the table is perfectly on the border between the two countries.


Here is the table I was talking about ... this big guys is one of two South Korean guards posted in the room. In order to qualify in the South Korean Army to be a guard in the JSA, you have to be at least 6'1". In a country full of midgets, these are the biggest Koreans I've seen.

Finally, this is the North Korean village across the border. The flag pole you can see, and the NK flag on it, are both in the Guinness Book of World Records as being the largest pole (gross) and flag, respectively. They blare propaganda music from loudspeakers trying to lure South Koreans to come over to the North. Funny thing is, most of the buildings are only building faces - no backs, just the facade. Anybody defecting is going to find himself mighty lonely, but then again, it's all a big show here on the ROK.

That's all for today, but tomorrow I will try to post some less weird, and significantly more "normal" activities to do in Korea. CP!

Split

Hanami!

Hanami is the Japanese custom of viewing flowers, most often associated with Cherry Blossoms or Sakura. There's a big festival held at Hirosaki Castle every year during this time and it's only about a 2 1/2 hour drive from home. Katie and I made the drive with a few friends this year and had a great time on the grounds of the former castle. Above, you can see Katie smelling some low hanging blossoms and below she's watching a swan float by the bridge.

All that remains of the castle is the building below. It's so beautiful surrounded by the cherry trees.

Below is a lovely view from the top of the remaining building at Hirosaki Castle. I was so busy trying to keep Katie away from the extremely steep stairs inside the building (they were so steep that I was only a couple inches away from sitting on every step on the way down!) I almost missed the mountain!

We wondered around the grounds checking out the scenery for hours and had a picnic lunch in a grassy area surrounded by the cherry blossoms- it was great! The weather was really great too. I was a little worried we'd be pretty soggy that day, but the rain held off until just as we were about to leave. We couldn't have been luckier!

Above is Katie with her friends Noah and Jacob. Below Katie's making eyes at her friend Jacob. I really wish I had my camera ready for that photo a bit earlier. Just before I snapped this one, she actually had her head on his shoulder looking up at him and it was just too cute!

Easter!

I know...Easter was nearly three weeks ago...but here it is!
Katie and I had a wonderful Easter weekend! We really missed Daddy, but Katie kept her "Daddy Doll" close by :)
We started Saturday by giving Katie her new Easter basket. You can see her modeling it for the camera below!
She loved her new Easter basket, and we spent Saturday playing with her new toys. I'm still not sure exactly what happened while I was out of the room though... I came back to the living room after being in another room for not more than a couple of minutes and she handed me several pieces of her new basket...which turned out to be the handle. Needless to say, she was no longer going to be able to hunt eggs with that basket so we made a quick trip to the 100 Yen store and found her a cute little metal bucket to use instead!

Katie also enjoyed her Easter outfit, complete with coat and hat! Below is one of only a few pictures I was able to snap of her without the hat on. She's also trying to get out of the house wearing my shoes....

On Sunday morning the Easter Bunny dropped by to leave some eggs scattered across the front yard for Katie to hunt. She had a great time once she figured out they were all for her. She ran all across the yard and found every egg!

After her own personal egg hunt, Katie and I met up with some friends at the club for Easter Brunch. There was also a big egg hunt for the kids afterward. After her practice round that morning, Katie was ready to go for the big hunt! As soon as the organizers said "Go!" Katie was running away from me to find her some eggs! Can you find her below?
(notice the other kids with Mom or Dad close by....Katie's the only one running around by herself!)

At Easter brunch there was a display on the stage with a large blow-up Easter Bunny and lots of smaller blow-up eggs. It was extremely difficult to keep any of the kids in their seat long enough to eat. They all kept heading for the stage! Eventually, everyone was able to corral them enough for some of us to take a quick picture.

We finished the day at a dinner with our Bible study group (yep, lots of eating going on.) Some friends invited everyone over for a potluck dinner and an adult egg hunt! We did let the kids help us find the eggs...or at least hold on to the eggs after we found them! It was a lot of fun with lots of great food, great prizes and great company!

A day at the park with friends!

Today we packed a lunch, met up with some friends and headed to the Towada Horse Park. It's the first time we've been there, and definitely won't be the last! It's only about a half hour drive from the house and it's amazing! It's spread out over a large area for the kiddos to run around and they have great toys to play on. Below is a huge horse you can climb into and slide down the back side. There are also horses there that you can feed, pet and even ride. Katie LOVED petting the horses, but wasn't too keen on riding one! Actually I'm not sure that it was the horse that was the problem....more the fact that I let a stranger lead her off while I stood watching.

There's also a roller slide at this park, which is tons of fun! There are many tiny rollers on the bottom and you take a pad with you to the top to ride down on. There's a short, covered one that the kids really enjoyed and went down too many times to count. But there's also a BIG one...I thought it looked pretty cool, so I grabbed Katie (she knew what was going on and refused to walk), two pads and began my hike to the top. About halfway there, I realized why Katie didn't want to walk up...but, being the stubborn girl I am, I had to continue. Out of breath and overheated, I made it to the top with all my luggage! It was a fun, fast ride down....and the only ride we took on the big slide.

I think everyone had a blast today...I know Katie and I did! When Daddy gets back home, this is definitely going to be on our list of things to do with him!

Spring!

Spring has finally made it to Misawa, Japan! Yes, there are still some very small piles of snow at the end of our road....but I'm sure they'll be gone in a matter of days!
Today was such a beautiful day that Katie and I decided to go for a walk/ride--I walked while she rode her bike, sort of. She doesn't know it yet, but she could ride that bike all by herself. She just gets upset when she realizes she's having to push harder on the pedals to get anywhere, or if she glances back and sees that I'm not pushing her.
We also took a little time just to run around the front yard and finally get some use out of those slides that have been hibernating under the snow all winter. Yes, Katie's still wearing her bike helmet. I've found that it's easier to make her take it off just before we go in the house. It has Dora the Explorer on it, so she loves it and refuses to take it off.

Katie also loves the new "blooms" in the front yard and brought me the beautiful bouquet pictured below. Believe it or not, she picked at least eight bunches of "flowers" to make it especially for me!

Easter is also near, so I thought I'd post a picture of Katie's Easter creation. She loved making this bunny! She carefully colored each piece (although she did it so lightly you can hardly tell in the picture) and glued them into place all by herself. She especially loved the cotton tail we added...she loved it so much that it was the first piece she tore off! Sadly, this is all we have to remember our little Easter Bunny by ...