In very random order.
Let's dig in.
Here we have a photo of the four of us from last week at Josh's promotion ceremony. You may now all refer to me as Mrs. Lieutenant Colonel Schore. Because there is nothing more attractive than a military spouse who thinks she wears her husband's rank. (Read that last line with heavy sarcasm.)
Boo-yah. Pay Raise.
Also, I should probably make this less about me. I am very proud of my husband who can't possibly be old enough for this. He is a hard worker and wicked smaaht. More importantly, he is my favorite husband ever and a great daddy.
Congrats, Joshie!
I mean, Lt Col Joshie.
Can you tell in that photo that the kids had already had some "Air Force cake"? Every cake ordered from the base commissary is obliged to have Air Force blue icing that stains the teeth and lips. It's tradition, I suppose.
Next in the list of random pictures, our Korean apartment.
This is our living room. We got a furnished apartment, so nothing is ours. Except the photos on the wall. We brought those along because canvases don't weigh much.
Kitchen. Pretty typical, except that I can't fit a cookie sheet into the oven. It is very small.
Alex's 8th bedroom of her life.
And Derek's 6th.
This is my washing machine. I come here to play "laundry roulette".
Koreans don't typically use dryers, but we were able to borrow one from the base. The venting system leaves a little to be desired, but it works.
There is a strip of shops & venders outside the main gate to the base.
Alex is quite fond of octopus, so that's what she's enjoying here.
This was from shortly after we'd arrived.
We took the kids to a dog café. Here, you can come in and play with dogs whilst drinking a coffee. They have many live-in dogs and patrons can also bring in their own pets.
They also have cat cafés, but Derek is really allergic to cats so I think we'll have to pass on that.
Along the same line, Korea is full of kids cafés, where you can bring your wild human creatures to blow off some steam. This is one we frequent which is walking distance from our apartment. We try to go once a week for a fun outing during the school day, because we practically have the place to ourselves. It's fun and cheap, as well-- only 3,000 won per kid per hour. (A little less than $3.00 an hour)
The kids have made friends with a family from our church that have a son and daughter Derek's and Alex's ages. They don't have many friends here, so we try to get them together whenever we can.
Derek just learned how to play chess, so here he is losing to his buddy.
I thought this was cute-- Derek and his friend Drew (they go back to Idaho when they were toddlers and then were neighbors last year in Alabama) are playing Battleship via FaceTime.
This is along the route to the base. Pretty typical of what our city looks like.
We did an egg-spiriment. This is what an egg looks like when its shell is dissolved in vinegar and then you soak it in colored water. It felt really weird.
Poor Derek dropped his, but at least we got to see that osmosis did happen-- the mess we cleaned up was the same green as his colored water.
We eat here a lot. It's a sushi place. Alex will eat some sushi with us, and Derek eats rice. He's a cheap date.
We took another trip up to Seoul to sightsee. This was from a palace there.
Eating street food-- these fried fish things were filled with something unrecognizable, but sweet-ish.
On da subway. That girl next to Josh nodded off onto his shoulder.
We had Thanksgiving with our friends, the Typolts. We were stationed together in Texas when our firstborns were babies, and then again last year in Alabama. It was a really nice Thanksgiving, very relaxing (probably because I didn't host).
This is what happens when I say I will bring dessert-- off to the bakery we went ;)
Thanksgiving morning surprise! The kids were thrilled. Josh took them out to play in the snow while I was busy in the kitchen preparing some side dishes. (One at a time-- tiny oven!)
Our funny Christmas tree :)
We didn't bring holiday decorations at all, as we had to watch our moving weight. But all of Josh's books from his course last year were able to be sent as "professional gear" which doesn't count against our allowance. So we made a book tree.
I think we'll always remember the year we had books for a tree :)
Our apartment has closed circuit cameras in the playgrounds, so I can watch the kids from the living room when they go out to play.
So there you have A Bunch of Pictures.
All is well here as we approach Christmas. It is proving to be a low-key holiday season, since we don't know many people. Low-key is good.
We are looking forward to a vacation in January. It should look something like this:
Yes, please!
