Thanks Giving

This Thanksgiving I've been thinking specifically about how grateful I am for my family. We lost David's mother last week, and although the phone call telling us that she had passed wasn't unexpected it still somehow felt very sudden.

Mom Talbot was so loved. She had a big family, and so many friends who loved and supported her. However, she was also very human. She was a lot like me, in fact. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that we had the same birthday. She could hold a grudge just like me. Her self esteem could plummet in moments, the same as mine. She sometimes needed to be reminded that people loved and cared about her - and I'm sure she and I are not alone feeling like that. She was so much better than me in a lot of ways, too. More loving, more patient, more forgiving.

She used to make cards to send her grandkids, since she wasn't near most of them, and my munchkins LOVED seeing those envelopes in the mail. We just got her last card yesterday, and I could not help but cry as I thought, "I did not write to you enough, Mom. I didn't call you enough. I didn't tell you enough how much I loved you and how special you were to me."

If you love someone, tell them. They need to hear it, and you need the peace of knowing you've said it.

Our visit to CEV

Our friends Nick and Lauren live and work at an English immersion camp in Changnyeong. It's in the countryside, with trees and rice fields and glorious nature everywhere. When we went to visit them I took some pictures of the school. Kids come to this school for a week or so at a time and basically are surrounded by English and examples of what it's like to live an English-speaking life.

 This is their "duty-free shop". My girls basically just wanted to buy everything in it.

 Art class - there were some really cool Picasso-style drawings on the wall.

The post office! Where they can practice standing in a single line for an hour till the only clerk goes on lunch break. Or learn how to mail a package correctly - that's probably more like it.

 Here's their bank, with an ATM and everything, so they can learn about money.

Teacher Lauren's room!

 This is their doctor's office. In the front half there are a ton of medicine bottles, as well as a skeleton which I didn't take a picture of. In the back it's set up as an exam room.

This is a train/subway/bus stop, as well as the entrance to...

 The restaurant/hotel/airport! Teacher Lauren is ready to take our orders with her menu. :)

Their hotel is pretty fancy, I must say.

 And at the airport, kids can put their luggage on the conveyor belt and go through a security check.

Here's the science room - I love the way this is decorated.

And a handy little phone on the wall with some English phrases to practice.

Talbot girls and CEV kids - I wish we could have stayed longer!

Stepping Outside of Daegu

Today we got to visit our friends Nick and Lauren. They always come to visit us - we've never, ever been to see them in the countryside where they live, and I really really regret not going sooner! We had such an amazing experience. I got fantastic photos of the area around their town, as well as a lot of pictures of the English immersion camp where they work.

We started by taking a walk around a beautiful lake with lovely bridges and pagodas.

There's always something calming about a pagoda.

 The kids running to explore both shores.

Pretty bridge!

 This is a shot of an onion field next to the lake. Each onion is poking through a little hole in a plastic sheet. The area where Nick and Lauren live is well known for their onions and garlic - must smell great at harvest time!

Later we went to the school where Nick and Lauren work. This was a practice sheet on a pretend phone. Helpful phrases in English. LOL

 The superintendent of the school asked us to stay a little while longer so we could meet the students. I wish I'd taken some video so you could see the reaction! My kids were mobbed. You can see some girls running up towards Lillie and Reagan. Aiden is shaking hands, because the boys in the front row ran up to him and shook his, so he just kept going. :DSorry this shot is fuzzy, but everyone was moving so much!

 I love, love, love this photo. Lillie was absolutely in her element. She loves people and would have stayed there forever.

 Just another view of the mass of people surrounding the kids. Poor Aiden was not loving it so much. Most of the time he was trying to sort of get out of the mob, but people kept pulling him back in. I did get one or two shots of him smiling, just because kids asked him to.

 Forced smile. He's trying, bless his little heart. Lillie and Reagan are eating it all up.

So not loving it. After this we pretty much started clearing this up. My kids ended by bowing and saying thank you and goodbye in Korean, which of course got massive happy reactions.

 Us with Nick, Lauren, Christina, and Suzi (one of the directors of the school). They gave us all headbands that have the Korean flag on the front.

Me and the kids with Suzi and Sohee.

 Sohee and the monkeys.

 We had such a great time! I just wish we had more time to spend there. It was so kind of the directors to let us stay longer and meet the students. The school was absolutely adorable - I'll put up pictures of it later. There are classrooms, an art room, a science room, and then separate areas representing different experiences like an airport, restaurant, post office, and hotel. It's really cool! Further photos of our awesome time to follow. :)

My baby turned 6.

So I've got some photos from Reagan's bowling party - I didn't take most of them, our friend Britany did. Thanks, B-bomb! :)

She was pretty much the happiest girl ever. Giant teddy bears, My Little Pony, oodles of arts and crafts, plus bowling. Best party ever. Plus she got this from me and David:

It's a pokemon - Tepig, to be exact, I think. I'm not as obsessed with them as the kids are. This one actually roles into a pokeball. It's very exciting. I'm not sure David will give it back to her.

David's been gone this week, so our friends Nick and Lauren came up to celebrate a little more with her on Saturday, closer to her actual birthday. We had lunch at Dos Tacos, where the music kept insisting we put our hands up.


Everyone was very obedient.

Later that night we had galbi at our favorite Korean BBQ place. We could seriously eat galbi every night. 

And the night ended with cake at Baskin Robins. I wish I'd gotten a picture of the "cake" before we destroyed it. It was a half-sphere of ice cream decorated to look like a monster. Here we are singing happy birthday before demolishing the cake.

Happy birthday, Pom Pom. I love you more-mostest-foreverest.

Reagan Finds a Friend, Missionaries Leave, and We Find Horrifying Couple Clothes.

       I think one of our favorite things about Korea is their food. Of course we appreciate some good Korean food like bulgogi, bibimbap, olgigogi, and deokbokki. But there's also something to be said for a plain old Big Mac. The McDonalds here are amazing. The employees seem to be actually interested in working there, the buildings are clean and tidy and well decorated, and the food - it actually looks decent. I mean, a burger can only look so nice when it's coming from a fast food place, but here's how they do a Big Mac.

This is brilliant! Maybe they do this in the states, but I don't think I've ever seen it. All the parts stay in place, and it so much neater and tidier. If you're going to slowly eat yourself to death, it might as well be pleasing to the eye.

Somewhat related to food, we have a hamster now. Its name is Croissant.

I told the kids it was to help them learn some responsibility, but really it's just because I like to play with it. Seriously, Croissant is adorable. So squishable! So pettable! 

Since we moved here, we've become really attached to the missionaries. I'm not sure why, but we haven't really had a big connection to missionaries in our other wards. Somehow in this branch they are just a really big part of our lives. Our kids sit with them in sacrament meeting, we love to feed them, and I really look forward to seeing them. So whenever they leave, it's a huge bummer. Another pair of Sisters just left us, and as usual it was quite a downer.

However, we recently attended a Kids's Day activity on Camp George and we had the opportunity to make another new friend. The kids had all made visors for themselves and on the way home, we passed an adjussi who had evidently made one for himself as well, so I just had to get a shot of him with Reagan. It was even funnier to me because he was just lounging on the grass with a few other men, not actually involved in the festivities at all.

And finally, I'm sure most of you have seen me write about "couple clothes". It's a thing here. Couples wear matching shirts, and when they are apparently really devoted they'll sometimes wear entire matching outfits. Pants, shirts, shoes, backpacks, hats... it's pretty crazy. But dude, this takes it to a whole new level.

I don't think most of us have ever really felt the need to coordinate underclothes with our significant other. At least I haven't. 

Korea! Oh, Korea. I'm going to miss your weirdness so much.

Band-aids with Booby and Veggies in Ice Cream

Hi all! Summer is finally winding down here in Daegu, I think. Well, at least it hasn't been so utterly brain-meltingly hot that I want to just climb into the fridge. I hope that means we'll be up and moving around more, because doggone it I'm getting bored! Daegu is too awesome, and Korea is too pretty, for me to let myself get shut up in my apartment, but holy cats does it get hot in the summer! And heat+Heather=nomovingatallwhatsoever.

Since I've been in summer hibernation I don't have any really interesting stories to tell, but I do have a few pictures to share with you. The first one is just a band-aid, but Korea... oh, Korea...

So, Gentle Reader, any thoughts on why a bandage would have a dancing puppy with the word "booby" all over it? I'm amused and baffled. Pretty much always, actually. Because Korea also offers things like this.

This was at a Baskin Robins here in Daegu. Being a sane person, I did not try this particular flavor. David, not being held back by such things as "qualms" or "taste buds" or "reasonable thought" decided to give it a shot. He said he couldn't really taste the veggies, and it wasn't too bad. I love the man, but I don't think I can trust him about things like that.

Baskin Robins did make up for that abomination by giving us the most delicious dessert creation (not counting Gregory by Juli), Oreo Bingsu.

Bingsu is shaved ice usually topped with red bean paste and fruit. Right now milk bingsu is popular (and delicious!), but I was really craving something sweet and kind of familiar, so Oreo it was. Shaved ice, cookies 'n cream ice cream, actual crushed Oreos, and I think they must also add cream or something to the ice. I dunno. It's delicious. I hope it catches on in the states by the time we get back. Otherwise I'll be forced to attempt to recreate it myself, and that's almost certain to fail.

And here's my last food-related picture. This is ddeokbokki. It's super yummy, but also pretty spicy. My poor mouth doesn't do so well with spicy, so I need to have lots of milk on hand when I eat this. 

We started school again a few weeks ago, since my kids were literally asking for it. Evidently they get quite bored after about 6 weeks of nothing to do. So here's a picture of some of the books they're using. They're working on a few projects for science, history, and art which I will post as soon as they are complete.

And finally, to force a smile to your lips, here's a shot of Lillie when she found a Hello Kitty stamp among some school supplies a friend gave us.

Holy cow, I love my spaztastic kids. They're seriously the best.