Uneventful Thursday

Yesterday was very uneventful. Andrew went to work and said that they just played around all day and as did I and girls at home. We woke as we usually do and ate breakfast. After Andrew left for work the girls and I watched a movie or two. The girls haven't slept well since we got here and this night was no different. I had a thought to myself and decided to put the girls down for a nap around 10:30. I figured that if they took a nap now, by the time bedtime would come around, they would be really sleepy and sleep all night. The girls woke up around 1:00 pm and we ate lunch and they took their medicine. I spent most of the day trying to figure out how to use iMovie and writing our big adventure we had the previous day. After Andrew got home, he watched a couple of movies while I filled out some paperwork for the girls about daycare and preschool.

I have a spouse orientation on the 6th of February. Hopefully I can find out some more information about the bases and things to do on them. Andrew saw a banner up around the PX talking about a T-ball league for ages 3-5. We definitely want to sign Mackey up for it.


I also found some packets downstairs in the lobby.

Camp Walker Map

The red heart is where our house is located. The yellow star is Mackey and Story's preschool. The orange star is the Fitness Center. The pink star is the Chapel. The red star is the Commissary(grocery store). The blue star is the PX(department store,hair salon, food court,flower shop). The green star is hotel we are staying in at the moment.

I got more packets, but the others aren't that interesting.

Here is a video of the trumpets sounding:

Not much happened this day, but tomorrow I will have another video for you..we might even get out tonight for the Lunar New Year.... we will see.

Oh yes and the whole early nap totally worked...now let's see how they do tonight!

Bless you all!

(bowing)

The Brand Fam

Off Base Doctor Visit

So yesterday we had quite an adventure! Mackey hasn't shown signs of getting better so we needed to take her to the doctor. This weekend is a Korean holiday known as The Lunar New Year and they told us everything will be shut down for it. It's one of two holidays that are really big here so the interstate becomes like a parking lot. I do believe a lot of you experience something like that yesterday and day before ;) ;) !

Any who! I decided I would video our way to the doctors and much more.

The taxi ride cost us 5,200 won (which is just about $5)to get there and $5 to get back. We found out that Mackey has a really bad sinus infection that caused both of her ears to become infected. She got so back up she started leaking yellow mucas out of her tear ducts, in which irritated the eyes and cause them to become red and swollen. Poor thing, one of her eyes only halfway opens and the other one is on it way down.

The doctor gave her eye drops, antibiotics, cough syrup, prescription tylenol, and something else(??)

Story also saw the doctor while we were there. She has had a cough that she couldn't get rid of and it's a good thing we got her checked out of well, cause the doc said that she was beginning to get an ear infection so she is also on cough medicine and antibiotics.

Mackey's Meds

Story's Meds

The doctor's office was interesting. When we walked in there were a bunch of people standing around and we were absolutely clueless of what to do. This nice Korean lady comes behind us and took a piece of paper with a number on it and hands one to us as well. THANK YOU! Then we wait for our number to appear at the desk and started to try to communicate with the receptionist. She told us to hold on a minute with her hands and she continued to call someone of the phone. She told us someone was coming down to speak English to us. SCORE! A nice lady by the name Jessica came and got our information and we headed upstairs to weigh the kiddos and get their height. I must have been looking at the wrong thing, cause later I told Andrew that it was funny that Mackey weighed 105  here and he said that was wrong that she weighed about 18kg opps...my bad.

Sidenote: There was a gentleman(Korean) holding his phone up at us..I believe he was trying to take a picture or video of us..it was strange but kinda of funny at the same time. 

After the girls got weighed we went to hang out at the door of the doctor we would see.

Side note: You see those mask above the sofa..you can put those on to help open the air way.

The doctor's door to the left. It had an electrical sign above which told us how many were in front of us and an estimated time on it.

Had to take a couple of pics with the new iPhone



When our name came up we walked into the office and their was the Doctor and a nurse to help assist him.

The girls sat in that little stool beside the doc

The translator was awesome, but the doctor was so animated with his hands we knew what he was saying without understanding his words. The girls were also very good for him. It was a nice experience, not stressful at all. Jessica also helped us out with checking out and taking us to a pharmacist to get our meds filled. We haven't had time to go anywhere to get our money exchanged over to Wons, so we ended up having to charge everything to a credit card. Since they do not direct bill the insurance we have to pay everything out of pocket and wait to be reimbursed from the insurance. Luckily their doctors are very reasonable and very efficient. The visit only cost us about $30 dollars and the pharmacist was not bad either. All the prescriptions cost only $50. We don't know how much insurance will cover, but even if it is $0 we are not that bad off.

Side note: Everyone here that is sick always wears a mask over their face, so we also bought the girls a washable mask for the times they get sick.

After we left the pharmacist we walked around the streets a bit and Story said she needed to use the potty. We came up on a Mickey D's and went in to run to the bathroom. It was a two story building and we had to go upstairs for the restroom. When we got downstairs, I suggested when get some ice-cream. It was funny seeing Andrew try to order. I think the lady taking it got a little frustrated.

Notice what she is wearing. Everyone working there looked so nice and clean. :)

Finally we got some ice-cream and sat down it eat.

 After ice-cream we got a taxi and headed back to the base. The girls feel asleep on the way over which only took about 10 minutes. As we left the taxi Andrew handed the guy an American $10 and the guy looked at Andrew and didn't know what to do. Andrew told him we need 5,000 won back and the guy finally realize and gave us our change. Andrew told me later that he saw the guy had a sash of money on the dashboard that he took from to give change to people. But with the American $10 we gave him, Andrew saw him put it in his wallet. I wish I could know what this guy was thinking at that moment.

Andrew's part of the blog:

As far as my job goes...I will be in charge of 113 Korean workers. Some of them are KN and some KSN. The difference is the KN are just civilians; the KSN's are a civilian/military mix. I am taking over a position that has not been filled for 4years. It has been taken care of by 3 people for the 3 different areas that I will now manage. I will have 5 camps that I will have to keep going. The good news is the 3 guys that ran the place while there was not anyone over the entire region will still be on board and available to assist me while I get my feet under me. 

On top of learning all of the regions that I will have to be over, I have a lot more manager responsibilities that I will have to take care of. I will have to take care of time cards, Billing official for credit cards, safety enforcer, on the job spot check, learning the difference between the 20 Mr. Kims and 10 Mrs. Kims that I have already met, performing mid point and year end evaluations, on call 24/7 and arranging with foreman when calls come in at night (luckily I have been told that calls are down from 30-40 a night to around 2-10), and communicating with people who barely speak or understand very much English.

We are definitely way out of our depth outside the gates and will have to learn some of the common phrases to not completely frustrate the locals. This weekend we will probably not go anywhere since it is Korean New Year. None of the Koreans even show up for work today and tomorrow . I'm keeping my fingers crossed that no major calls come in because me and hand full of guys are all that will be available.

If you would like to know anything in detail please feel free to ask in the comments or through Facebook. Hope everyone is safe and avoiding the snow and ice! It is a comfortable 50 degrees and sunny here ;)

WARNING!! TMI ->Funny sentence from Story this week: "The poopie came out."


Until next time!
God Bless

Yay for food!

January 29th 2014

The girls are still not sleeping well and it’s driving me insane! I feel like I have a newborn ..correction ..2 newborns again. I was never cut out to be a newborn mommy since I LOVE to sleep. They wake me up in the middle of the night to go to the potty (story can’t reach the seat) , to put another movie on for them, to get them something to drink (which just makes them go to the potty more). They also get ready loud playing with each other and I have to go tell them to be quite that there are others in this hotel that are trying to sleep.

Side note: On base they have a automatic outside alarm clock of trumpets that goes off at 6:30 am. The first time we heard it, it surprised us a bit. I can’t remember put sometime in the after noon I believe they lower the flag. I knew this because yet again the trumpet sounds went off, but they played the same music a trumpet player would play at 4th quarter of my high school football game when they lowered the flag.

I get up way earlier here then I use to back home. It’s a good thing though cause I see Andrew before he goes off to work and I get to run down stairs to the lobby where they serve food and get the girls some breakfast before he leaves.

Yesterday Andrew came home around lunch and we walked over to the commissary (grocery store) to get some food for this week. When we walked in we had to show our ID and my ration paper. After that, we started browsing the food isles.  We were so happy they had the same peanut butter we use!

 Here are some other things we got there:

Stocked our fridge with pudding,yogurt,salad,cucumbers, hotdogs,juice,cheese, bread,coke, beef,mac and cheese etc etc

Weird Milk..3 quarts

Thank goodness for Alfredo sauce 

Only 52 cents here!

 The walk back to the hotel almost killed me ..lol. I need to get in better shape! Andrew went back to work and the girls ate some salad and took a nap. When Andrew got home, I realized I forgot some stuff at the grocery store so I went back and picked them up. I cooked some pasta Alfredo with salad for dinner and by the time we all got done eating , we wanted our bed.

Andrew found out that we would be staying on base and that we would living in a house with 1500 sq, about 700 less than what we thought we would have. We move in next Wednesday! Here's to not having to stay in a hotel room for a month!!

We had such an adventure today, and I will be writing about it tomorrow. It will also have some video in it..so be sure to read it!

Till tomorrow!

Oh yes! If your wondering where all our clothes are, here are some pictures for you! If any of you have any questions, or want to see pictures of certain things just ask!

Mackey cheesing for the camera

Story wanted some action also!

Better Today

Yesterday was a little better than the day before. We actually got out of the hotel and Andrew's sponsor Mike took us to Camp Henry to get Andrew and I ID cards so we may get on and off the camps as we please. He also took us to get my food ration card which tells how much I may buy at the commissary (military grocery store). After that we went to a nice restaurant on base and ate some lunch. Mackey still isn't well and she didn't eat much. Her and Story are still both on a weird schedule and I think their stomachs are too. Mike came back to pick us up (we don't have a car or driver's license yet, we take the test next Monday) and we took off to buy me a phone YAY! I decided to get the iPhone 5s since all our stuff (Apple Tv, Computer, iPad mini's) are Apple products and they easily link. It's funny looking at the phone charger seeing that the plug is way different than ours back home.

The iPhone links up to our Vonage number also, so if we are out and miss your call from the house number, it calls my cell phone.

Side note: I had a Korean fellow call me earlier today (wrong number) and was trying to talk to me in Korean. All I could say was "HELLO" :). He hung up and called me again..and I declined

After we got my cell phone we went to the PX to pick up some things for the hotel like the kids bath wash soap, medicine for Mackey, washing detergent, so on and so on. It's a pretty cool place considering you can get just about anything there. It's like you stepped into a department store that sells things for the household also.

Mike and Andrew dropped me and the girls back at the hotel and went back to work for the day. Later Andrew came home from work and gave me the notes for the driving test and I looked over them as he played a game on his phone (the girls were taking a well needed nap). That night I ordered pizza (yes for the second night in a row lol) and did much better this time!

Andrew found out that they are trying to get us a house on base to live in. Originally this was the plan when Andrew interviewed for the job. When we accepted, plans changed and they said we would be living off base, most likely in an apartment. The apartments are really really nice here. So we began emailing realtor companies here back when we were in The States. I got really excited after seeing some of the wonderful apartments that we could be living in. Then when Andrew gave the news of we might be living on base...I got kind of bummed. From what I've seen online the houses on base are very basic and old (looks like made in the 70s). Then I realize , HEY DUMMY, It's not about you..it's about where GOD wants you to be! Where ever he puts us, he has a reason for doing so. Any who, Andrew said that it would be a big honor to live on base since they don't let but one or two civilians live on it.Another plus is we will be close to the PX and other stuff for the kiddos.

Side note: I can't wait till our car comes in (no later than the 12th of February) so we don't have to rely on someone taking us places.

Well, that sums it up for yesterday. Hope everyone had a great day! Maybe I can find something more interesting to talk about later.

안녕히 가세요

annyeonghi gaseyo

   (GOOD BYE)

First Day in South Korea

First day in South Korea was a little boring to be honest, but that was to be expected. We woke up around 7:30 on Sunday morning and felt ok for the first 4 or 5 hrs. Slowly we started to feel the effect of not sleeping for 24 hrs the day before. The girls didn't do as well as Andrew and I. They were still sick, so we decided that a nice hot bath might help their sinuses out. After they got out we put them in  their pjs and threw them in our bed for a much needed nap. Mackey keeps complaining about her ear, I believe she might have an ear infection..(crossing fingers) here's hoping we can find a doctor soon. While they napped I unpacked us and put everything away, while Andrew was finding out that we won't be able to stream Hula Plus or Amazon Prime ...boo :(

I also started writing this blog and spent a good while to get it the way I wanted it. Andrew left the hotel in hopes to find us some food. He came back with some Taco Bell, which taste the same as home..YAY! The girls took a really long nap, and Mackey woke up feeling much better. After I got them some food I told Andrew I needed to take nap. Around 5pm Andrew woke me up and I started cleaning up the hotel room from our lunch. Andrew and Story fell asleep watching a movie and I went downstairs to the lobby to find out how to get something delivered (food) here. 

Here's where I experienced my first frustration here in Korea!

I went to the lobby where a Korean man is working the front desk. He was super nice and gave me (2) numbers ( I assumed from 2 different places) of pizzas places. I didn't know if they were on base or not..but was hoping for the best as I dialed the number. A man picked up on the other line and said hello..that is it. I said "Hello, I would like to order a pizza". He started asking me something which I didn't understand considering he doesn't speak good English. It sounded like "what room are you in" and I told him 314 and he confirms what I just said. Then the next question you could plainly here "What room number are you in". Gurrrrrrr...I said "314!".  I thought in my head...he doesn't know where I am! He went on and asked me "What is you phone number?". I told him " I don't have one yet". He continued to ask me about my phone number and I could hear him and someone else on the line laughing their heads off. This is where I almost started to tear up and was so embarrassed, thank goodness no one was around. They just keep on laughing, trying to ask me the same question. Finally they forgot about the phone number and asked me what I wanted to order. After I told him my order, he finally hang up the phone and I took the elevator back upstairs to our room. While I was waiting for the delivery to come I looked up how to tip delivery guys in Korea. All the sites I went to said If you do tip, do not tip much. 

I finally got a phone call from front desk that the delivery man was here and before I could ask if I were to meet him in the lobby he hung up. I got dress and was ready to go downstairs when I opened the door there was the young man with my food. I ask him how much and he said 17. I knew I had 18,000 won and quickly gave him the money thinking that a dollar tip would be good. As he handed the pizza he said, one more please. I gave him an American dollar in hopes he could take it and he did. As he left, I was a little confused about what just happened, but I was hungry and didn't mind tipping him a extra dollar.

That pretty much rapped up our day. Andrew went to sleep early (7:30) and I stayed up watching YouTube videos about  Korean culture.

Side note: Koreans bow when they say hello or goodbye and thank you. It was surprising to me at first when the maid came to our room and bowed. It kinda caught me off guard, that I didn't even think to do it back. The next time someone bowed to me I got excited that I remembered to bow back.

Also I took some pictures of our hotel room we are staying...hope you enjoy!

Living Room/Dining Room

Kitchen/Living Room

Only Bedroom

Same bedroom :)

Closet

Bathroom

Bathroom shower

Our scene from Bedroom window at night.

I'd like to say thank you for all the prayers that have been sent our way. We appreciate all the love and support from each and everyone of you!

On to New Adventures...

January 24 2014

We woke up this morning around 4:30 am. The girls were still sleepy as we left the hotel around 4:50 am. It was so cold this morning..I believe around 11 degrees outside. It took only 7 minutes to get to the airport.The airport didn’t open till 5 but, when we got there, there were tons of asian kids (more than 50) and others waiting in line to get their luggage checked. Andrew waited in line and it took up 30 minutes. I was so worried we wouldn’t make it through the metal detector line to get to our gate on time. We made it on time though. Our first flight was only 1 hr and 40 minutes long and the time seemed to go by fast. The girls sat with me in a row of three and Andrew sat in the other row of three with a woman and her son (they were very nice). The girls were extremely good and we didn’t have any problems other than Mackey spilling some of her apple juice in her lap. That flight seems like ages ago lol (I'm writing this on our 15 hour flight at the 12 hour mark). 

Just a side note: the girls love looking out the window of the airport and also saying this is the big plane that was the small plane. 

When we landed in Dallas,Texas we found out that we didn’t have to check our bags again and that we wouldn’t be going through customs till we got in South Korea. That took a load off of us since we only had 2 hrs there and we decided to have some lunch at TGIF Fridays.

 It was still kinda morning, but we didn’t know when the next time we would be eating again considering it said that we would be only getting one meal on the plane. After we ate we boarded the plane, Mackey first in line. She stopped and sat in every empty seat in each row and said “ Is this ours?” Finally she got to our seats way in the back and we sat down in a row of 5. No one showed up in the 5th spot so after we got in the air we expanded so we could have some more room. It wasn’t very long at all before the girls both fell asleep. While they were napping, the airline fed us lunch, our choice of rice and chicken or something called bb and rice.It also came with a salad, roll, soft swiss cheese and crackers,and a brownie that was very good. 

The girls woke up from a very long nap and decided they needed some snacks. Andrew loaded us up on some cookies and cheese bits and candy bars before we loaded the second plane. The first and second plane were nice and had some movies for all of us to watch. I really liked the place on the tv screen where you could look and see where the airplane was at that moment on the map. Pretty much all we did on this flight was eat drink sleep and watch movies. Story got a little emotional on the plane .. she look over at me and all she said was…"Mommy I love you" and then just tore up crying. We were asking what was wrong with her and she wouldn't/couldn't  say. When she gets worked up enough, she will throw up..and that’s what she did. Then, after she settled down she told us she had to pee and that was the reason. It was a little weird. She is now sleeping in daddy’s arms and Mackey is playing the minion game on the iPad mini. 

I thought I would write all this down so I wouldn’t forget it when go back and post something. Two and a half more hours on this plane and we will be on the next one after a 4 hour layover, then 30 or 40 minutes on the last plane. It still hasn’t hit home for Andrew and I that we will be living somewhere else for 3 years. 

The next day I wrote this:

The Korean airport in Seoul was wonderful! It was a little bit of a cultural shock as we left the plane and got onto the shuttle to get our luggage . The shuttle came to our stop (and also everyone else’s that was on the shuttle) when we went to get off there was a lot of pushing, but that is said to be normal here. We went through a line that asked for our passports and they took a picture of us and got our finger prints (sounds like we went to jail lol).From there we went to get our luggage. They have these big carts for everyone(free of charge) to put their luggage on which was great for us cause we had a lot of luggage and a good bit of distance to travel with some sleepy little girls. We put our luggage on it and topped it off with the girls. They loved riding on top and was waving to the people we passed by. From there we went through customs, which was awesome. We had no line, they asked a couple questions about weapons and Andrew showed them PCS papers and we were off to our next location. 

Sidenote: Everyone we came encounter with were super nice and loved talking to the girls. 

We had to check our bags again for our next and final flight but they weren’t opened when we got there. So we stood around waiting for it to open and several Koreans came up to us and started asking the girls questions,like how old are you, whats your name. Mackey was in a terrible mood(she went to sleep about 20 minutes before our last plane landed and I had to wake her up). I was so afraid she was going to be rude to these nice people trying to chat her up. We had to wait for 2 hrs till our next flight and Andrew got the good idea to get some ice-cream for the girls. We all got a little sick (allergies) from the 15 hr flight and he thought it would be good on their throats. He came back with 3 large cups of of cookies and cream ice-cream and the man next to us said “Way too much”! It was funny cause I was thinking the same thing. We didn’t eat but 1 and half cups of it , but it did feel good on the throat, good call Andrew. 

I also took a picture of one the TV's in the airport..I thought it was cool that everything was in Korean.

            

Finally we boarded the plane and took off into the air, I look over and Andrew is dead asleep with his mouth hanging wide open. It made me laugh a little. The girls were their worst on this flight, but thank goodness it only lasted a half hour. We made it to Daegu Airport and was crossing our fingers that there was someone there to pick us up. Mike, a guy that Andrew will be working with was there and he helped us get our luggage in his car. The moment we rolled out of the parking lot the girls were asleep again. It was fun riding to the hotel, getting to see the streets and shops around the town.The scooters ride on the sidewalk and get in front of all the cars at red lights. They defiantly like neon lights and bright colors! We made it to the hotel and put the girls to bed right away. Andrew and I stayed up and little bit to put some stuff up and post a little message on Facebook that we were here. We went to bed around 11pm Saturday night.

Thank you God for such a good trip over, it could have been a lot worst.

That’s all for now, Thanks for reading.