{Seoul, South Korea}

I can't post all the pictures on this post, BUT i did post a lot on this post alone! Picture heavy!  We arrived to South Korea sometime aroun the afternoon. This is part of the airport. By the way, i am about 9 weeks pregnant in all these pictures....

 We boarded the free shuttle provided by the military, and headed to Dragon Hill Lodge, our hotel. It took about 45 minutes to get there.

 Here's a picture shane captured on our way. We noticed a lot of their buildings look exactly the same. In New York, or any city in the states, the big city has a variety of different looking buildings. That wasn't the case here. They were so close together, the same building, and they each were numbered.

 This picture below is from our river boat cruise. Turns out this river separates north seoul from south seoul. You know that song, Gangnam style? Well, in that song he is referring to the south part of seoul, which happens to be the rich and high lifestyle area. He is talking in that song about how south seoul people live and how they party and such. meh.

 Here we are right before our boat left the dock.... I am about 9 weeks pregnant here. We usually were able to get in a taxi where the driver knew some english, but they didn't know english like the okinawans know english. We couldn't even say one word and have them know what it was. We hopped in a taxi, and quikcly hopped out because we realized we were going to get nowhere with him. One night we had a taxi driver, and were stuck in bad traffic with her for like 30 minutes. The first 25 minutes she was falling asleep because the traffic was so slow. And when she wasn't falling asleep she was chomping on her gum louder than i have ever heard anyone chomp on their gum. Finally, Keldon who was sitting in the front seat, turned her music on. She went and turned it off, and i figured she didn't like that he tried messing with her music. But she turned on a CD of greatest hits. As soon as it came on she started belting out the music, singing. It was like a switch turned on with her. It was hilarious. Then a song came on that we all knew, and we all started singing with her. She thought it was hilarious. We did too. :)

 They provided umbrellas on the boat so we could block the sun out. Here in Asia, people use umbrellas more for shade than they do for the rain. In the states you never see people walking around with an umbrella on a sunny day. Here, its very common.I don't know if you can tell, but the umbrella was shaped like a heart.

 Our friends, the Carrolls, came with us....

 Eating at a south korean bbq restaurant. This wasn't really bbq. Here, at this place, you cook it in boiling broth, rather than over a small grill. We couldn't quite figure it out, and the waiters weren't  helpful. We had some girls next to us laugh at us and they helped us on their way out...

 We went to see a show called Fantastick. It was a korean performance that took place in a garage repair shop, but the story goes back to some korean story where this girl and boy fell in love. He became a drummer and she a flute player, but the drum caused a rift in their relationship and he loved the drum playing more than he seemed to love her. So, she broke his drum stick. And then she was doomed to take on a different form until she could find her flute, which she ended up finding in a garage repair shop. It was something like that. It was so weird. And i found myself laughing through half of it...not beause it was funny, but because i was laughing at how dumb it was. :)

 We took a half day tour to see the DMZ and the north korean border. On our drive to the DMZ we drove along side the border for a while.  There was a fence  and on the other side of the fence is a big river, then there was another fence and on the other side of that fence is north korea. So, what you see off in the distance is north korea.  This military hut that you see had korean soldiers in it. It seems there was one of these huts placed every 1/2 mile apart. Everytime i looked for the soldiers they were all watching for anyone trying to defect into south korea OR for anyone trying to escape to North Korea. They were watching with binoculars. People who try to escape to north korea are those who are trying to escape jail time because of something they did.  They just shot and killed someone the day before who tried escaping to the north korean side.

 This was our first stop before we reached the DMZ. It was a spot where a few important historical events ocurred...

 The peace bell...

The freedom bridge....

A fake village on the north korean side....

Here i am , in the picture above, looking across the border of north korea. We were able to see a couple small villages, and i was able to see some north koreans riding their bikes or working in their fields. We also saw the fake villages that north korea set up. It was so interesting!!!

 Here we are at the railroad station. This is where they used to have trains you could take into north korea. They shut it down, not too long ago.

 Eating donuts! yum yum. I hadn't eaten a donut in so long. We grabbed a few and ate them while we walked across the street to the WWII memorial. That memorial was HUGE!!! There was soooooooo much to see and you could spend an entire day in there. I wish we had more time to spend in that place.

 The outside was filled with many ships , tanks, jets, bombers, etc. That were used in the war by various countries.

 The war museum...

 Loved the lashes on this car....

 Brion lives in Busan, the south part of Korea. It's right by the ocean. He has lived there for a few years teaching english. He came up to visit us while we were in Seoul. He stayed with us in our room. We went and ate some korean bbq, and some brazilian food with him. And we went to an old tradtional village, which is where we were in this picture below....

 We took this picture for holly... :)

 This is one of the shopping districts. They have lots and lots of shopping districts here in south korea...some of the best in the world, apparently. I couldn't find anything i wanted though.

 We were in Korea during one of their big holidays. It's their thanksgiving, and its called Chuseok.

Here at this temple(above) they were giving away free songpyeon. It's a quintessential dish they eat on thanksgiving day. It is a rice ball filled with sesame seeds, beans, and other nutritious ingredients. It didn't taste bad. It tasted alright. We had a bowl of them, but could only handle eating two.  All the other people around us are eating all of their songpyeon. I felt bad throwing the rest away.

We also went and visited the royal palace...korea's most famous royal palace,Gyeongbok Palace. Just around the corner from this we saw the Blue House(the Presidents residence).

 While we were there we watched a ceremony happen. I don't remember what it's called, but they came bringing in flags, banging drums, and doing moves while singing. It was very different from Japan. The music wasn't pleasant sounding at all. The way they were dressed was very different. Maybe you can see the two feathers sticking off their hats. It was very unusual, but so interesting to watch.

 One day we went to the trick eye museum. It's where they have paintings on the wall and floor and when you stand in the right position on the painting, take a picture with your camera, it looks REAL. It was tons of fun...

 I know this is totally gross and random, but that was our reaction too. When you first walk into the museum the first thing you see is this statue.....   WEIRD.

 Inside the Trick Eye Museum there was an ice room. It had a slide, and rooms made out of ice. It was really cool.....pun intended. At first i thought it felt great because it took my mind off not feeling good, but after a couple minutes i was freezing to death and it reminded me that i don't like freezing cold weather. :)

 This one cracks me up...hahahaha!

 I am about to fall off the bridge into the water, if you can't tell. :)

 Looks real, eh?

Pretty disgusting huh?! haha....Brion wasn't thrilled about participating in this one...shocking.

 HELP!!!....

 shanes getting swallowed up!!!!

 my brother was thrilled to be pushing all my bags for me...hahaha

 We hopped on over to Italy for a nice relaxing ride...

 For ONCE, i am bigger than shane and can pick on him!!! :)

 come on shane, you can do it!!!...

 Went and did some shopping in the myeong dyeong district and the dongdaemon district. We took a break and got some ice cream... :)

 

In this picture below we were about to go walk down a long tunnel way underground and walk through small tunnels that the north koreans dug to get over to the south side. When we reached the bottom , the tunnels we walked through were small and kind of claustrophobic.  The deeper in we got  the more i felt light headed, like i needed to get out. You had to bend over the whole time so you wouldn't hit your head on the ceiling. It was crazy....

Also, while we were here, there were some very obnoxious asian people in a big group. They were soooooo loud, and when they talk to each other they are like yelling. Our whole tour group was staring and watching them....thats when our tour guide must have felt the need to fill us in on the fact that they weren't koreans. haha! He said, "Aaand that's a group of chinese people over there." haha... Since being here, one thing we have learned from asians, from friends who have been to china, and from our own experience is that the chinese are fairly rude, have no sense of personal space, are loud and very pushy. It's a different world over there. :) Japanese and koreans are quite the opposite. Okinawans are even more so. I love Okinawans. Our trip to south korea was fun. We are glad we did it. It certainly wasn't a Thailand trip(the best trip ever), but it was fun to see a different culture. It's so interesting to me.

{I really need an update!}

I want to get on here to fill you in on some things that have been going on around here. It's been awhile!!!!

1. Gavin and Tanner are in soccer right now. They love soccer, and i LOVE watching them play.  I hope Gavin sticks with soccer for the rest of his life. He really excels at it, and is always a top player on his team. I really love watching him play games. He makes goals for his team and is such a good asset for the team. Tanner has also made some goals. He is a great defender.  He really tries to use his strengths. It's very interesting watching him and his strategies. I think he realizes his strength isn't running and kicking the ball, so he lies in wait as a defender. And he is great at stopping the other team from making a goal. He has been like  that since he has started a few years ago. I remember his very first coach telling me that Tanner was good at scanning the field, seeing where the ball is going to go, and getting in place to stop it. He doesn't chase the ball. They both do really well. They play soccer inside the house all the time too. Even when we were recently locked up in the house due to a typhoon, all of us played a game of soccer in our house. It was fun. :)

2.  Gavin has accomplished quite a few things so far this year.  He was one of the top three in his class to reach having read 1 million words so far this year.  And he was also voted by his classmates to be the first student of the month for the school year. He LOVES reading, and reads and reads all the time. I am glad for that. Reading is a GOOD thing.  He just became a member of his school's Firebird Drummers Group. He will learn up to 21 performances doing taiko drumming. Tanner is a good little reader too. I mean, i know if he can read the Book of Mormon then he is doing really well. He was already reading from the Book of Mormon in his kindergarten year(towards the end).  The reading level of the Book of Mormon has got to be a Z. I was very surprised when he first started reading to us out of the Book of Mormon. He can pronounce most of the words in it. It's awesome. He is also doing the 100 mile club again this year.  He really likes to accomplish things. It makes him feel good.

3. Jaydon is my little pill. He really likes being at home with me, which i am glad about. Now that my pregnancy mood swings are kicking in he is driving me up the wall a bit more than usual. It's not him. It's me. Poor guy. I noticed myself being grumpy with him the other day. I stopped and said, "Jaydon, is mommy nice?" He said, "yes, you are the nicest mom." I smiled. I said, "Do i ever get grumpy with you?" He quickly replied, "NO. you don't get grumpy." haha!  I was surprised. I think he loves me so much he just doesn't notice my grumpy moments, AND those moments must not phase him. He just blows it off. I love that. He can certainly get VERY bossy with me, MORE than i like, but he is so sweet to me. He often tells me he likes me, and cuddles me, and tells me im beautiful. I love that. He is a good good boy. He has playtime with a few friends every thursday for 3 hours. He really likes it. Plus i have  scripture study class i go to every tuesday, so he plays with the kids in the nursery for that. Plus we see friends during soccer practices and games, and at church. He definitely gets plenty of interaction with friends.

4. Shane is doing great. He was picked as the 1st alternate for the pediatric program. So, we need to know by February wether we are getting out of the military or staying in. He just finished a program called the C to B program.  It ups his yearly bonus a decent amount.  We are thinking we should take advantage of it, stay in a few more years to pay off our loans, and then seperate.  We will see what happens. I know that whatever is supposed to happen, will happen. He is still in the branch presidency.

5. I am good. I am getting over the nausea, mostly. BUT the headaches still persist. I had major food aversions during the first trimester, something i didn't have with my other pregnancies. I mostly ate Inari sushi, a tomato, pickle and onion sandwich, soups, crackers. Those were the things i could eat mostly all the time. Everything else was on a day to day basis. One day i liked something, the next it made me gag.  Or i thought i could eat something and about a fourth of the way through i couldn't eat anymore because it made me sick. I had a hard time eating vegetables. I couldn't do it. Now that im feeling better, ive been craving vegetables...and hummus! yum! And my appetite is crazy! Ive forgotten the hunger pains! oh my gosh. Ive done a good job over the past years learning to control my appetite, learning what real hunger pains are versus emotional eating.  Now, i feel like a slave to my hunger pains. I have to do what my body tells me to do. :) I feel like im eating something every 1-2 hours. I was released from the RS presidency and put in as a CTR7 primary teacher. I miss RS. But im excited for a change.

6. Shane and I took a trip to South Korea recently. Im hoping my next post will have all the pictures and details of that trip. It was lots of fun. AND our TEN year anniversary is coming up very soon!! woah!!!

7. I can't believe our time is coming to a close here on Okinawa. It has flown by. We have less than 10 months left here. That's insane. We are having a baby in April, and probably 1-2 months later we will start packing up our house. crazy. We don't know what we are going to do yet for a job. I can see us getting straight out next year. I did some chatting with some friends last night and learned about a few options we have for getting out next year that won't make the transition so scary. I could see us getting out. BUT i could also see us staying in for another 1-4 years.  Decisions , decisions.

8. For halloween, i think we are going to be zombies. That should be interesting. I get to put my makeup skills to the test. :) haha!

{Aaaaaand we did it again}

We are now expecting baby #4! I am just about 11 weeks along. I am actually 10 weeks and 2 days, according to my last period, but the baby is measuring at 10 weeks and 6 days along. We've got a good strong baby so far. We are really excited, but still can't believe we are doing this again! haha! All the boys are very excited. It's been fun having some older kids who actually show interest and understand what it means to have a baby. They can't wait to hold and take care of it.

Shane really thinks its a boy. He has that feeling, he says. I don't know what i think it is. A big part of me thinks its a boy, but mainly because that's the way our history has been. Why wouldn't it be another boy?! I am planning on a boy, honestly. BUT a small inkling in me thinks its going to be a girl....kind of basing this off of a feeling i had a while back, but maybe that feeling was nothing(maybe just me getting my hopes up). I would be happy either way. The baby was moving around a lot during the ultrasound. The heartbeat was very fast(174bpm), said the ultrasound lady, but still a healthy heartbeat.