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.

The Fourth of July in Korea

The Daegu Military Branch of the LDS Church just generally rocks. We had our 4th of July party last night, which included a chili cook-off (David's came in second!), a pinata, a balloon toss, massive bubbles in the parking lot, and one of the most strange "games" I've ever seen - push-up wars. 

Basically, you play rock-paper-scissors. Whoever loses has to do 10 push-ups. Everyone else has to stay in a push-up position. This goes on till you die, pretty much. This game was explained to us by Bro. Mendenhall, the man in the blue shirt in the pictures above. Evidently this is something his family did for fun. His family sounds very different from mine. At the end, it was just David and the missionary on the left. David held on for ages and ages and ages, and we all personally believe that at the end he let his knee drop just so that the poor 20-year-old missionary wouldn't feel bad about being beat by a man twice his age. :) 

The Talbot Monkeys also prepared a few silly songs, so here's a shot of them singing a silly version of Old McDonald. 

 

Today we continued our Independence Day festivities by heading to Camp Walker where they had food and a few rides and live music and a train ride and all sorts of fun stuff.

 This was a bubble magician. He was really fun to watch. His facial expressions helped sell the show.

Random person on stilts - I think she was making balloon animals. I could never manage to get a shot from the front!

Selfie of me and Reagan while we rode a train around post, right after she met McGruff. 

Okay, now for a few random pictures of things. We went down to Seomun Market with my friend Britany a few weeks ago, and found some excellent stuff . 

Pokemon bento box for Aiden! Perfect for picnic lunches. And Lillie picked the Frozen chopsticks while Reagan got the fork and spoon set.

I'm starting to love pigs. Not as much as elephants, but so many adorable Korean products have piggies on them! Like these super cute toe socks. :)

Speaking of elephants, this isn't from Seomun Market (it's from the PX), but I was having a really bad day and David came home with an awesome surprise. 

This is Sadie the Elephant. She is the second stuffed elephant he has bought me since we've been here. She's so fluffy I could die!

Sadie and the rest of the family wish you a happy Independence Day!

A bit of this and a bit of that.

I was looking through my pictures, and I've found a few that I wanted to share, but there isn't really a cohesive story to bring them all together. So I decided I'd just toss them up here for you to see.

This is one of our usual taxi drivers. The military has its own pool of taxis, and since we were without a car for so long, the cab drivers saw us a lot. This man seemed almost surly the first time we rode with him, but now he will literally stop his taxi, roll down his window, and shout "LEAGAN!" if he sees us on the street.

One of the things I'll miss when we leave - random people in animal costumes roaming downtown. This one had pamphlets for a local cafe.

Banana milk! I really like this weird drink. Not as weird as some of the other stuff Korea has to offer, but still not something I'd seen in the states. It's sweet and refreshing - really good for a summer day.

This one is just for my mom - "Bubble, bubble, bubble." It was at a cafe in the Lotte department store, obviously advertising bubble tea. But it made me miss my silly momma.

This doesn't actually have to do with Korea, but Aiden looked so distressed to see that Dobby had been made into a fabric runner that I had to share it with you.

David and some men from the branch took the monkeys ice skating on Saturday. David is preparing to challenge Kim Yuna.

Our Awesome Interns

For the past three months we have been attending a Korean Cultural Club at the elementary school every Thursday, and yesterday was our last day. It's run by Korean interns, who put a lot of time and effort into preparing interesting and engaging lessons for our kids. It was a bit frustrating that hardly any other kids knew about the club, but then again I felt pretty lucky that we could spend as much one-on-one time with the interns as we did. 

Here is an example of one of the projects they did with the kids - teaching the four gracious flowers of Korea. 

We are definitely going to miss you guys! Thank you for working so hard to teach me and my kids!