Sixty-Seven

Update!
I haven't updated in months. Like literally, MONTHS! How depressing. Sure there's not many who read this, but that's okay. I will just talk to myself!
First update, Hess (Joshua's very good friend from Korea) was living with us for the first 3 months we were here at Carson. It was stressful but I'm glad we could help house him in his hour(s) of need.
My best friend, Ashley, came and spent Thanksgiving weekend with us. We had just moved into our house so we were literally dodging boxes everywhere we walked but I was so glad to have here there. We had been living in a hotel for the entire month previous to that and I had been stuck with two boys. Needless to say, I NEEDED to have some girl time.
It's so nice to finally have our house...an American house! There's not much about it that I don't adore. It's so nice to have an oven that I don't have to convert from Celsius to Fahrenheit every time I want to cook something (I still remember that it's 180C when you are trying to cook at 350F).
Let's see...what else is new?
Oh! I know! Sirius!
Sirius is our newest addition to the family. We got him about a day after he turned 3 months, on December 23rd. He is now 4 months old and a definite mama's boy. He sleeps with me (won't sleep on Joshua's pillow..only mine) and will fall asleep at my feet while I'm washing dishes. He's such a little cutie and we just adore him. He's black with grey white behind his ears and his back is a bit peppery. He's got little grey and white hairs mixed into his black fur on his back. I always tell people he looks like a 45 year old man who just started to grey.

^This is our sweet Sirius Lupin Delp

I am job searching but haven't had much luck yet so for right now I've just been doing the housewife thing. I make sure lunch and dinner are done, floors are clean, clothes are washed, and our pantry is stocked. It's been a lot of fun but I really would like to find even just a part time job.
I've got a few recipes to add to the blog, so I'll be doing that over the next few days. :)
Xoxo,
Hannah

Mini Ice Cream Sundaes

This was our dessert for our mean on Thursday! They were SO yummy and I got tons of compliments on them!
Mini-cookie icecream sundaes.
1 pkg pillsbury Ready to Bake sugar cookies (24 pack-break and bake)
1/3 cup chopped walnuts (I used a shaker of sprinkles instead)
1/2 cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/4 cup seedless red raspberry jam (I didn't use this either)
1 1/2 cups vanilla bean ice cream
24 fresh raspberries (I used cherries instead)
1 can whipped cream

Grease mini-muffin/mini-cupcake pan. Place one cookie dough round in each muffin cup. Bake 12-14 minutes on 350F
In a small bowl, microwave choco chips uncovered for 80 seconds stopping and stirring every 20 seconds until smooth.
Let cookies cool in muffin pan about 20 minutes or so before removing. To remove-run knife around edges or cookie (I didn't do this because with the pan greased, they came out very easily)
Dip the rim of each cup into the melted chocolate and then sprinkle sprinkles around the edges. (If you were using walnuts, at this stage you would dip the cup into the chocolate and then dip it into the chopped walnuts)
In another microwaveable bowl, microwave jame uncoverd for about 15 seconds until melted. Spoon half a tsp into each cup. (I did not to this step)
Freeze on cookie sheet for about 5 minutes or until chocolate is set.
Spoon small scoops of ice cream into each cup. When ready to serve top with whipped cream and a cherry (or raspberry) on top.
I got this recipe from Pillsbury on the back of their cookie package and it was so very great. I changed it up a bit as the original recipe didn't even call for whipped cream, but seriously, how can I not have that?! I'm sorry I don't have a link for it! I do have a picture though!

Fifty Five

One week down and only a couple more to go! Since we have officially received orders, we were able to get Joshua's flight. So exciting! One step closer to home :) We have a meeting to go to before we can figure out what day they will come and pick up our household goods that they will move to Colorado for us. This is all so exciting. I am leaving a little earlier than Joshua so I am about 5 weeks out from my date of my flight :) Woo!

In other (semi-less exciting) news, this past week, I cooked the ever-yummy broccoli, rice and cheese for the boys. This week is going to be a little different. This week, we have a birthday and someone who's leaving. We are doing two cooking nights. Tuesday, we're going to make homemade lasagna with homemade bread sticks (I'm going to try and make cheesy bread sticks) and we'll also have salad and pink stuff for dessert. Then, on Thursday, it's going to be a mix of a going-away party for one of the guys and a birthday party for another. We're going to have mexican food night. Tacos, taco salads and I'm going to try my hand at enchiladas. I'm sure they won't be so fabulous, but that's okay. These boys tend to be easy to impress. lol. For dessert, I'm going to make a flan. Yum! Flan is one of my most favorite dishes!

Anyways, I'll let you know how it turns out! It's sure to be fun no matter what.

This Friday, I went out with some girlfriends to say goodbye to one of the ladies. We ate dinner and chatted for a while. Afterwards, the group split in two. The two ladies I went with found a shoe store that had shoes that actually fit me (Heaven!!!!!) and went to the accessories store nearby. After we had our fill of shopping, we ran and got some Baskin Robbins ice cream. Yum! It was lots of fun and relaxing. These are the memories that I will cherish when I get back to the states and aren't with them any longer. Just silly little evenings, but meaningful none the less. Saturday, Joshua and I had a date night. We went to Daegu, ate dinner, stopped at a little cafe to have some cake (they had red velvet! Yum!!) and then walked around a bit. We ran into some of our friends from Waegwan and so we stopped to chat with them a little. It was a nice night out. I really enjoyed it.

Do I have pictures? Why yes, yes I do :)

The restaurant we ate at. Italy Italy. It's pretty good italian food.

Joshua enjoying his alfredo.

My heart-shaped pizza. I figured it was appropriate for our date night out :)

The red velvet cake we had for dessert!

I just thought this was interesting....I found a "Sex and the City" clothing store lol. It's not legitimate or actually have any sex and the city style clothing, but I thought it was cool that it had the name.

Okay, I'm off to go read some. I'm working on the Twilight series for a while just to get myself back into my 'reading zone'. Will write again when there is more to tell :)

xoxo,

Hannah

Homemade Fresh Peach Jam

I have stolen a recipe. A delicious recipe. From: here. It's a recipe for homemade peach jam.
I made a white peach jam with this recipe and it turned out quite well.
Here are the steps in case you don't want to link over:
2lbs (or 8) peaches
2 tsp lemon zest (I didn't do this one)
2 TBSP lemon juice
2 cups sugar

-Blanch peaches.
[How to: put peaches in boiling water for exactly one minute, no more, no less. Remove and place peaches in cold water bath for one minute, no more, no less.]
-Peel peaches, cut out the seed and cut peaches in to slices
-Put peach slices, lemon zest and lemon juice in large pot on low/med heat.
-Cook for 15 minutes or so until the peaches are soft and juices have been released. Once peaches are soft, smash with a potato masher or spoon. (I used potato smasher)
-Once your fruit has been smashed into mush with small pieces, add your two cups of sugar and stir until dissolved.
-On Med-high heat, bring mix to a boil. Cook for 5 or so minutes, stirring constantly.
-After 5 minutes, reduce heat to low-med and allow to slow cook (not boil) for 40-60 minutes (I did 22 or so minutes).
-Remove from heat and allow to thicken.

Enjoy :)

All of it went as planned as said on the recipe except blanching didn't work on my peaches. Not sure if it was the fact that they were white peaches instead of yellow or if maybe my peaches weren't ripe enough (or overripe). The second thing that didn't go well was the last step: putting it on low heat and letting it stay warm, but not boil. I couldn't get my pot to stop boiling so after 20 minutes, I cut it off and it still turned out very well.. maybe a little more 'watery' than what they wanted it to be, but it's really tasty.

Now for the pictures!

First step, cutting and peeling the fruit.

My lovely chopped peaches!

Peaches in the pot

Slowly being smushed into submission :)

Just before I let it simmer over the stove....almost finished!!

Finished products. Just as delicious as it looks!

xoxo,
Hannah

Fifty Three

This past week and weekend have been so busy. Joshua was gone all week on a field mission and it seemed that no matter how positive or happy I tried to be, every day something worse would come along. By the end of the week, I was defeated so I was happy to have Joshua back home.
During the week while Josh was gone, I had dinner with a friend of mine (whose hubby was gone, too) and her little ones twice. First at our house and then the next night, we ate at her house. It was nice to have someone over to our house since that's such a rarity due to the fact that we live so far away from everyone.
Late Friday night, Joshua and I went to Daegu and saw Harry Potter.... *sigh* Loved it but was so sad that finally Harry was over. All those years of reading and it's finally done.
I have been reading a lot. I ordered 5 new books from Amazon about 2 months ago. When they finally came in two weeks ago, I picked them up and haven't been able to put my books down.
I have read The Help, Sarah's Key and am starting on The Hunger Game series.
This past weekend we went to the Boryeong Mud Festival. Now, THAT was interesting. It's basically just a bunch of people getting together getting really drunk and really dirty. I didn't do much of either. I sipped on my water bottle and got a little muddy. Joshua, however, drank a few beers and got VERY muddy. I didn't get in any of the pictures that we took because I knew how yucky I looked, BUT I'll post some anyways :)
The prison you climb into and get sloshed with mud every 2 seconds..
The aftermath of the prison

The aftermath of the mud wrestling pit

Joshua's face all calico looking from half of the mud drying and the other half being fresh! haha

That's all for now..
xoxo,
Hannah

Fifty

I had a ladies movie night at our house in Waegwan tonight. All the hubby's stayed home and kept their kids while we hung out. I tried my hand at popping pop corn on the stove top. (It was okay.. Some of it tastes a bit burnt to me, but oh well.) We ate chips and salsa, homemade popcorn and some cupcakes! I made some yummy cupcakes that I found the recipe for on the Kraft food website. They were white cake cupcakes with cool whip frosting then I cut up marshmallows and pieced them back together to make it look like pop corn on top. They were cute and I felt the need to share it with everyone tonight :)
I took a picture of them, so I will have to share soon :)

EDIT:

Caramel 'popcorn' (caramel dribbled on top of the marshmallows), Plain 'popcorn', Buttered 'popcorn' (half a cup of water and 3 or 4 drops of yellow food coloring brushed on top of the marshmallows give them the yellow color!)


There is one recipe that I have tried numerous times only to have it flop every. single. time. Pudding. Seriously, pudding?! How hard could it be, right? Well it was apparently difficult for my mind to comprehend.
When mom came to visit, I had her show it to me again. And finally it clicked! Now I have been on a rampage of pudding making. I have made it 4 times since mom left. LOL! That's 4 times in one and a half weeks!!
This was the ubber yummy banana pudding that I made!


All for now.
Xoxo,
Hannah

Tater Tot Casserole

Last night, some of the boys came over. We ate tater tot casserole. It was my first time making it. I couldn't find a recipe that I thought would be fabulous, so I just created my own. :)

Tater Tot Casserole

1 32oz. Bag frozen tatertots

2 cups cheddar cheese (seperated)

2 cans cream of chicken soup

1 lb ground beef

2 green onion stalks

1/2 teaspoon onion powder

1 Tablespoon garlic salt(we REALLY like garlic :))

Preheat oven to 350F

Brown beef

Cover the bottom of a greased 9x13 with the browned beef. Top with salts and slices of green onion.

Layer chicken soups and 1 cup cheese on top of beef.

^Meat and soups before cheese and tater tots

On top of soups and beef, press in tater tots. I didn't end up using the entire bag, just about 3/4ths or so.

Top off tater tots with 1 cup cheddar cheese.

Bake at 350F for 20 minutes or until tater tots are cooked and cheese has melted.

^The finished product before the oven

The boys LOVED it. Usually, they eat one helping and they're through. They ate two BIG helpings. I had to make them stop going back for more so that the others would have some left! This was definitely a hit and will be made again soon.

Yum!

Enjoy :)

xoxo,

Hannah

Fourty Nine

Promised to write again soon, didn't I? Yes! I did! And look, here I am!
We sent mom off on an airplane on Monday. She made it back to Austin safe and sound. I made sure to take Wednesday off from volunteering so I got to straighten up the house and get it back to working order before heading off to 'work' today.
Friday, mom went with my to one of my schools I volunteer at. I think she really enjoyed it and as soon as the kids realize that my mom was present, they either acted REALLY good or they acted REALLY silly. Ha! It was fun to watch, that's for sure :)

These are three of my girls in my last class. The two in the front are VERY good at english. Even if they don't know how to pronounce something or know how to speak it, they comprehend a lot!

My last class is almost ALL boys! Only my three sweet girls in the above picture.

This past weekend was a busy one. The Army Birthday Ball was on Saturday night. It was fun to get all dolled up and go out looking pretty. Joshua wore his Class A's (his Army dress clothes) and I wore a long black ball gown. We ate a yummy three course meal at a very snazzy hotel and listened to them gab about the Army. We enjoyed a couple glasses of wine and overall just had a nice night. It was fun to get out, get dressed up, and hang out.

On the bus to the Exco

Joshua and I outside the Exco center

Our fancy-shmancy table

I mailed out quite a few postcards this week, also. Maybe 7 or so. Check your mailboxes, people. You never know what you can find in there... besides a cobweb or two ;)

Also, I just had to share since I recently discovered this. So so funny! I think one day this kid will laugh at all of this and realize how cool his dad actually is!
http://waveatthebus.blogspot.com

xoxo

Hannah

Fourty-Eight

I am restarting my count on my blogs. Going back to the number I had BEFORE I started with some of the recipes.
We have been busy bees. There is always something new, everyday.
My mother has finally arrived. It's nice to have another hand to help me, but sometimes hard to adjust since usually I only have one set of hands! Either way, we are glad to have her come visit. We haven't made many 'exciting' or 'adventurous' dinners while she is here, but hopefully today will change that. My mother and I are making Shrimp gumbo today. I am beyond ecstatic because I haven't had any in a LONG time and I have always wanted to know how to make it. Intriguing to say the least :)
Let me start at the beginning of this week.
I traveled to Seoul to pick mom up. After making it to Seoul solo, I rode a 45 minute subway to get the airport and get mom. After we finally found each other, we rode the subway 45 minutes back to Seoul. Once our exhausted selves finally made it to the hotel and checked in, we were ready for resting lol! Instead of resting (because of course you can do that when your dead), we went out and walked around the streets for a while. We ate at KFC (a safe place for a tourist) and waited on Joshua to get up to Seoul from work. He finally made it to the hotel around 11pm and we all fell asleep promptly after he arrived.
Saturday, we went shopping. Oh boy did we go shopping :) It was great. We walked around in some traditional Korean markets. I bought a little bit of fabric and some buttons to add to my button collection. I also got a new floppy hat. It's big and I love it :) Then we went to the shopping district. I was lucky enough to discover H&M and Forever 21. *Sigh* I haven't shopped at a 'normal' store in a long time. Normal meaning a place where they don't follow me around the store and they don't chastise me and tell me that I can't wear those clothes because they won't fit me. It was divine. And I loved it. I haven't felt so American in a long time.
Sunday was Insook's wedding day.

^^Joshua and I had bought new clothes for the big day. We had some slacks tailor-made for Joshua and I went shopping at a local Korean store and bought a dress, shoes, a belt and a jacket! We felt pretty authentic in our Korean clothes :)Anyways, back to the REAL story! Ha- Insook is a friend of mom's from church. She is Korean and came home to Korea for a bit to have her traditional Korean wedding. It was amazing. I have never seen anything like it.

^^This is Insook. She was all dolled up and looked great even though I can only imagine that she was sweltering in all the layers of clothes she was wearing.

^^This is Jim, her American husband! I can only imagine that he was sweltering, as well!
After the wedding, we went to a local wine bar and ate some little appetizers and drank a little wine and chatted with Insook, her husband and some of their Korean-American friends that came out to the wedding, as well. After a couple hours of socializing, we went and saw Kung Fu Panda 2. Needless to say, Joshua loved it. I think he laughed more than the little kid behind us Ha!
Monday, we headed home with all of my new shopping bags in tow. We had a nice time in Seoul and I can't wait to go back and visit again soon.
We are now back home and happy to be sitting in our own casa!
Welp, off to make some Blondie Brownies for the dinner tonight. Will hopefully write sooner next time :)
And I will leave you with the quote I found today. I love Julia Child :)
"Non-cooks think it's silly to invest two hours' work in two minutes' enjoyment; but if cooking is evanescent, so is the ballet." - Julia Child

xoxo

Fourty-Six

^^This is a picture of me and a few of my students from the place I volunteer with on Thursdays. These girls are super fun.
Things have been busy here in the Delp house. I have continued my volunteer work 3 days out of the week on top of making sure that the house is taken care of (for the most part at least ;)) and making sure dinner is cooked/prep'd. I juggle all of this on top of Joshua's crazy schedule of "Oh, I have to work late" and "We go to the field in 3 days". It's quite the juggling act, but all fun for the most part.
I have been trying my hand at different foods. I've made garlic bread sticks, homemade cresent roll stuffed crust pizza (Yes, it IS as good as it sounds! Yum!), different kinds of pigs-in-a-blanket, what I like to call "grown up grilled cheese", and just today I tried my hand at homemade butter. I got my hands all gooey and buttery for the cause! It looks good although I haven't gotten the chance to try any!
Last Monday, I made homemade lasagna. It was good! And it made SO much more than I thought it would so we invited some of Joshua's friends over to eat with us the next Wednesday to help us clear the leftovers. Boy did they eat! They ate the entire 9x13 pan of lasagna, devoured about 20 bread sticks and about half a bowl of my granny's pink stuff for dessert (my favorite-and so easy to make, too!). Tonight, we are making dinner again for some of his friends. I'm making Joshua's step-mother's famous broccoli, rice and cheese casserole, fresh corn cut off of the cob (all fresh: shucked and de-silked by yours truly!), homemade butter, and some cresent rolls. For dessert, we are having a Mountain Dew cake. A friend of mine over here gave me the recipe. You use an entire can of Mt Dew so I KNOW Joshua is going to love it.
I have been on a roll lately with the cooking and I am loving it. It's such a good hobby although it is SO bad for my waistline. Eeek! Oh well. At least it tastes good in my belly before it hits the waistline LOL.
About two weeks ago, we found out that we are headed for Fort Carson, CO when Joshua's tour here in Korea ends! We are stoked to say the least :) It's not Bragg and it's not Hood, but from what everyone else had been receiving, we count ourselves a part of the lucky ones! I am just excited to live less than 1000 miles away from a Walmart!!! WOO HOO!
We are about a week and a half away from mom coming to visit. She will arrive here on the 27th and will be staying with us until the 8th of June. I am excited she will be coming to visit! She is going to help me attempt to make Shrimp Gumbo with the fresh shrimp we bought in Busan a few weekends back. Should be delicious :)
Signing off for now. Got a lot to do before all those hungry boys get here in a couple hours!

Xoxo
Hannah

Fourty Four

Sorry for such a delay in posting. I have been a busy bee. In fact, this week is the first week in close to a month that I actually sat around for two days straight.

The beginning of April brought my 23rd birthday. I spent the day out with some girls. We went and got our toe nails painted and had some good Korean food. They had Joshua working an overnight schedule so he was sleeping while we went out. Even though Joshua didn't want to be awake much on my birthday, it was nice that there were some cool girls to keep me distracted!

Volunteering is going great. I'm volunteering three days a week, each at a different place. Korean children are so fun. They aren't afraid to ask questions. They ask me why my hair color is the way that it is, why my eyes are green and why my skin is so white. They are SO curious. It's so fun though. In Korea, everyone has straight or wavy black hair and dark brown eyes so to see someone with dirty blonde hair and green eyes is very odd to them. In Korea, everyone strives to be fair skinned. Their prejudice is that the darker your skin, the poorer you are. I explained to the kids that it's opposite in America. Everyone wants to be tan, not white. I told them that I was the sad one because I couldn't tan! Haha They didn't believe me! Then they said "Well what about your president? Did he tan too long?" Haha They have no idea about political correctness. I explained to them that he wasn't white- that's why he was darker! Nothing to do with tanning. "Ohhhh..." was all they had to say about that. They are talkative and I am starting to understand them better. I learned a new word. 'Sorry' in Korean is pronounced Mee-yun-sam-nida.

I have also started riding the city bus. I've never ridden a city bus in the states... I mean, ew! But here, it's not nearly so bad. It's pretty easy (even though nothing is in English) and it saves money, which is always nice!
In other news, Easter is fast approaching! We are planning on a cook out with some friends at the nearby military housing base about 30 minutes from us. Mom sent me some confetti eggs for Easter so I'm going to take it to the little ones who should have a blast with it! I'm going to cook some corn casserole (Aunt Nancy's recipe) and make some little Easter rice crispy treat snacks! I'll have to make sure and take pictures of the snacks! They should be lots of fun!



This weekend, we went to a nearby city (about 50 minutes south of us) of Cheongdo and saw bull fights!
It's kinda like a rodeo in Korea. Two bulls would come out and they would be led in by their trainer. They lead them in by having a rope looped through the bulls nose. They lead them right to eachother and the bulls head-butt eachother until one gives up! We got there around 1 or so on Sunday afternoon. The first couple fights were pretty quick. They would start head butting and then one would give up very quickly. The fights got more intense as the day went on. By about 3, there was a fight that lasted probably 30 minutes. They would just sit there and push on eachother. At one point we thought it was over because one started to be pushed in the opposite direction and then he would catch himself and start pushing back. They took forever! But it always made it interesting. Our rodeos are more exciting, I think, but this was definitely something to remember! Glad I got to experience it here. We all had lots of fun. The boys enjoyed ice cream and they even had an "intermission" where they had a singer come and sing. We got pictures of her because she was so close to us, but we didnt' have any idea who she was and what she was saying lol. People near us told one of the guys we were with that she was "Number one!!!" Ha! So maybe we saw someone famous!
Anyway, we are trying to enjoy our time here as best we can (even though I would love to be sitting in Austin, TX typing this!!) and will continue to try and do so. About our bed time so signing off for now.
Lots of love.
XOXO,
Hannah

Fourty One

Okay. So let's start from the beginning. Tuesday (02/22/11), we officially received the paperwork saying that we can live off post. FINALLY. (As if we hadn't been trying to get that for over a month.) We spoke with housing and they said we could officially move in. So in we moved! We were ecstatic. Our own house is something we have been looking forward to since BEFORE we got married! Ha :) The first day or so, we were without internet as it hadn't been hooked up yet, but we've got some now! I tried to email out some pictures of the house, but for some reason, my yahoo doesn't like to cooperate! I don't understand...
Either way, I will post pictures and explain as there are a couple different things in these houses.

This is our front entry-way. The cabinets are so that you can put your shoes in there. They swear (I'm not sure how true it really is...) that if you wear your shoes inside the house, you will ruin the floors so we take them off in the little entry way.This is the first bedroom. It's door is right next to the entry way. It came with one bed in it. The mattress is a Korean mattress. The only word to describe it is: Hard! Their mattresses are really hard. Little less than a box spring, but still feels just as rough. It's pretty basic and we decided to put sheets on the bed just in case we have a visitor one day :)

This is our living room. It's a bit smaller than an average American living room, but it's pretty decent size for a Korean apartment. She prefurnished the house for us. The couch (burnt orange leather LOL.), the "entertainment center" and the coffee table are all hers since we couldn't bring any of our stuff over with us. The glass doors in the back are to our "porch". Since we live on the 8th floor, we don't have a real porch, but this leads out to a hallway that has a bunch of glass windows that will let the summer/spring breezes in when it gets too hot.
This is our dining room. It consists of a table and a mirror haha! The table was also furnished with the apartment. The door up against the wall in the kitchen leads to our washing machine and dryer.This is our kitchen. It's actually pretty big for a Korean kitchen. Probably one of the biggest I have seen. It has a lot of cabinet space, but no drawer space which is one of my complaints. There are only three drawers and they're all really skinny which means my silverware holder/tray is sitting out beside the sink since I have no other home for it :( I guess I'll know what to look for next time!
This is our master bedroom. The windows that you see actually open up to the hallway that is filled with the glass windows (that you saw in the living room). It's not gigantic but it is a good size. I would say it is a bit smaller than my mom's master bedroom but for a Korean apartment, the size is good. Koreans live in smaller houses and live more conservatively than Americans. They don't rent/buy places with lots of space because they know they have to pay more to heat them or cool them down. Korean houses also aren't insulated so it takes a LOT of keep them hot or cold.This is our neat little bathroom... Now this one takes some time to explain! Koreans don't use bathtubs like Americans...at least for the most part they don't. The Master bathroom (there is another bathroom in our apartment that has a bathtub but it has no shower curtain or rod in it) is lined in tile and has covers for all light sockets and toilet paper. The whole bathroom IS the shower. You just turn the sprayer on and then go to town. The whole bathroom is water proof. The sink is a seramic and the toilet lid is plastic so the water just beads up and rolls off. The toilet paper has a metal flap that shields it from water. It's amazing. It just makes drying off a big difficult since everything is wet lol. But still, very cool to say the least!This is our "office" area. This is the area that has our closet (because they don't keep a closet in any of the bedrooms) and it's the place that has all of our internet jacks. It's interesting because they don't sell this house saying "We are renting a three bedroom apartment", they say "We are renting a two bedroom that also has an office". It is a closed off room that can be turned into a bedroom, it just doesn't need to be that way for us since we have no other reason to! :) The windows in this room lead into the laundry room/hall.

This is the view from our little "hallway" that runs from the back of the living room to the back of the master. If you can see faaaar in the distance, there are two red and white checkered water towers. That's the Army base. We are probably about 1/2 to 3/4 miles from the base. Joshua walks it every day to and from work (and at lunch) and I walk it anytime we need something from Joshua's barracks that we still have or anytime I need to go shopping,etc. It's a nice little uphill walk to get to the apartment so it's definitely a good work out. I love that walk....except when I have my hands full! Haha.

Well that's all I have for now, guys. Thanks for joining me on my "tour" of our apartment. Wish you all could be here to see it in person! If you guys have any good recipes that you think I should try, please do share. Since this is the first time I'm a housewife, I need all the help I can get! Ha :)
xoxo,
Hannah and Joshua

Fourty

Lordy, lordy. Look whose turning 40...posts?
So this week has been a stressful week. No memo....STILL. Which means still no apartment. GRRR. I've officially began bugging everyone I know (Army-wise...not civillians) about it. I've even practiced what I would say if I happened to run across either of the "gentlemen" who have been holding back my move off post. It starts off nice and sweet and ends with a few rude words and a hair flip.
The guys are gone to the field...yet again. Joshua won't be back until the end of the week, I assume. Then we have a 4 day weekend that will be full of extra duty shifts. They left for the field on Valentine's Day which just further aggravates me with this Colonel. It's just a silly little day with a silly little name, but why wasn't this just delayed for an extra day so that we could spend it with out significant others? It's killing moral for anyone with any kind of family on a day like this. Just a silly day but it just makes it worse when they take them all away. I'm ready to rip someone's head off.

Sorry for the rant.[Daegu]

[That's an awful picture of both of us, but it's all we've got to commemorate the day]

We celebrated our Valentine's Day a day early- on Sunday. We got dressed, took a train to Daegu and did a few things that we don't get to do on a regular basis. We ate at a little burger joint that is the closest thing to a good hamburger that you can get over in Korea. It's called Gorilla Burger. It has all kinds of hamburgers. My favorite is the Original Gorilla Burger. It's a burger with a slice of (real, not Kraft) Cheddar cheese, smothered in Barbecue sauce with lettuce, tomato and pickles on the side. It may not be the classiest restaurant or classiest dinner, but it was good, and that's all we were going for. After wards, we went to Krispy Kreme donuts to get a little extra American lovin'. It was delicious. We sat down and started eating. In about thirty seconds, I had already eaten one and Joshua had already eaten two! Ha. They were so so great. After we fattened up at Krispy Kreme, we headed back to the train station. It was so cold that Joshua even let us grab a cab back even though the donut shop and the train station are really close together. When we got back home, we swapped gifts. He even bought a red bag and pink tissue paper! [My Red Bag present with Pink Tissue paper!]

Haha he did so good picking it all out for me :) He gave me an x-box Kinect work out game that I really wanted and I got him a laptop bag. The second present that I bought for him didn't come in the mail yet so we are still waiting for that one to come in!
Even if we didn't get to spend the official holiday together, our Valentine's Day was great. It was nice to just get away and do something together...alone. We are almost always with others when we go out and do stuff. Even though I enjoy the time we spend with others, I also enjoy the time we get to do things solo.
Hope your Vday was grand!
Love,
Hannah

Thirty-Six

Cold.
That's pretty much the best way to describe this season in Korea.... COLD!
It's the kind of cold that just burns your skin when it touches you. Makes you wish you had indeed put that third layer of clothes on! lol And it definitely makes you miss Texas a lot.

Christmas came and went. It was nice. Bradley (my little brother) came up on the 23rd and hung out for a couple days. It was nice to have extra family around during the holidays! Joshua worked an overnight shift on Christmas Eve. Since I was going to make a dish to go along with our Christmas Day lunch/dinner, I made sure to cook that downstairs where he was working so we could hang out a bit for Christmas Eve. On Christmas morning, as Joshua got off work, we opened presents. Joshua's Staff Sergeant bought us a new TV...yes.. you read that right. A TV! How sweet of him! They snuck it in our room on Christmas Eve while I was cooking and Joshua was working. The guys that Joshua works for are so so sweet. Truly we are blessed with such sweet people in our lives.Bradley opening a present from mom!Me opening a present

Our present from Joshua's SSGJoshua's big Christmas present

All of our Christmas Presents!

Then we went to one of our friend's house and had a Christmas dinner with all the guys Joshua works with. The food was delicious. YUM! It was a lot of fun as those guys are a barrel of laughs when you put them all in a small room. They crack me up. My abs definitely got a workout! We watched the movie Three Ninja's and all sorta hung out for the evening. It was nice.

Dinner with Joshua's friends

I don't have a ton of wives as friends here yet, although I have met a few that I really like which is a great :) The only problem is that within Joshua's platoon there are only about 4 wives (there are about 40 soldiers) and only one is actually here in Korea!
Our New Years was fun, as well. We went with some of the guys (of course, I was the only girl.) to the neighboring city of Daegu. We went to TGI Fridays (It was $15 for a burger but it was just so nice to have American food in my tummy!) then went to one of their favorite bars which Joshua and I had never been to. We had a few drinks and popped a bottle of Champagne for the New Year. It was interesting to say the least! Although, I do have to say it's a little nice being the only girl because they protected me like none other. There was always some guy standing next to me to make sure that drunk guys didn't walk up and try and hit on me! Haha It was fun.

Either way, that's all I've got at this point. So for now, I say adios, amigos y amigas!!