Gavin lost his first tooth!

Gavin has had a loose tooth now for weeks. But being that it is his first loose tooth he was a little afraid to work on it or pull it out himself. Another tooth started growing behind it so I knew with patience the darn thing would eventually fall out. Last night Gavin went and brushed his teeth. He came out and told me it hurt to brush his loose tooth. I said let me see you wiggle it and he went to wiggle his tooth and he shouted IT'S GONE!!!!! Of course we had no idea where the tooth was at the time. I looked and it was still in the sink so I grabbed it up. We stuck it in Gavin's tooth fairy bear to await the visit of the tooth fairy.

Now there was a lot of discussion about the tooth fairy. Does she visit Koreans as well as Americans? Would she leave won or dollars? Turns out while in Korea she leaves Korean Won. Gavin ended up with 5,000 Won or about $5.00.

Gavin is in First Grade!

Gavin is attending Taegu American School. It is on Camp George and run by the Department of Defense. He started Friday, September 16th. So far I think he really likes it. It is really hard for me as I have taught and worked in first grade classrooms. I try to not compare how this teacher works because I realize we all have our own individual teaching styles.

Here is a picture of the front of the school. It is really close to home. If there were not trees hiding the view I could see it from our apartment. We just walk and even if we had a car we would still walk it is super close. I can hear the kids at lunch/recess from our place. It is nice to be so close.

Here is Gavin after school on his very first day as a First Grader. He said it was the best day ever. He is surprised that not only is it school but it is fun too. I hope he continues to love school as much as he does now.


Open House

Last night was the open house for his school and I was very eager to get inside and see what it looked like. When we take Gavin to school he lines up out front so I had yet to see his classroom.

It is a small school. Maybe 600 students total and that is k-12 all in the same school. This is a shot of the hallway going into his classroom. It was packed with parents and students all coming to the open house.

His room is really tiny and crowded. I am used to Spencer and McCormicks creek rooms. They are about twice the size. This shot is part of the class. There was not much room to move around and take pictures.

Here is Gavin at his desk. They have tables of 4. He is at the front of the class room which I feel is a good thing! The books on his desk are the various books he will use this year. I think there are 3 literature books, health, science etc.

His class has centers. Gavin is showing me the computer center. There is another table of computers I think there were 4 in all? I could be wrong. He told me they have to work on the computers. No games.

Here Gavin is by the job chart. His job this week is the "standards helper." I am not sure what that is and he did not know either.

Here is Gavin and his teacher, Ms. Shinholster. She reminds me of my elementary school principal Mrs. Smith.

Gavin is super excited this year because he gets to go to art class. He also has P.E., music and library. I think they also do Korean Studies of some sort but I am not sure if his teacher does it or someone else.

The last two pictures are of the playground. It does not look so great from the pictures. But the equipment is new and under the play equipment the ground is padded/spongy. I just think the painted concrete looks tacky. Of course the fence all around has razor wire. Guess they don't want the kids getting out? LOL

Maddie's birthday again

Maddie got the rest of her birthday presents from the grandparents last Friday. She was soooo excited. It was like Christmas at our house. So many gifts!

Mamaw Ginni got her a Disney Princess Sheet set.


Mamaw also got a matching comforter. Also included but not pictured are a purple princess pillow and a pink princess mesh canopy that we have hanging from the ceiling.
A princess camera that talks and has pictures of princesses inside.
A yellow princess cell phone. Every princess needs a phone to chat with the other princesses!

From Grandma and Grandpa came a bunch of Angelina Ballerina stuff. Not only is Maddie a pretty princess but she also wants to be a ballerina. She is all girl!
A nice sized Angelina doll.
Another figure to go with the neat Angelina Ballerina playset from Grandma Sally and Grandpa Gordon. You can see Gavin looking on in the background.
Grandma and Grandpa also got Maddie an Angelina book and DVD and 2 outfits. Thank you to all the grandparents for the wonderful gifts!

Walmart Part II

Here is another shot of the walmart we visited on Sunday. The first floor and then the 2 basement floors are for shopping. The upper floors are a parking garage.

They seemed to have a pretty good DVD selection here. You can see Brother Bear and Kim Possible. It is neat to see how their covers look compared to the titles in the US. I know that a lot of DVDs will probably not play on our machine but they had a bin with DVDs in it for 3990 won which is around $4.00. Pretty cheap not unlike the $5.50 bin back home. And they had this in it so I said what the heck and we got it. I read if nothing else we could watch it on the computer. Well to our delight it works on our DVD player! Maddie is in heaven because it is her all time favorite movie ever. It is in Korean but I messed with the settings and was able to get it in English. The funny thing is even when Cinderella speaks with Korean dubbed over she still sings in English.

Here is another food shot. They're GGGGGRRRREEEAAATTT!!! Frosted flakes. They had several different American type breakfast cereals available.

We decided to be brave and try some Korean Dessert. This is some sort of rice cookie. We took a bite and it tasted exactly what I would imagine Styrofoam to taste like. YUCK! Spit it out and tossed the whole thing. The kids did not even try it. We ended up with some really sticky hard candies that are pretty good. I do not have a picture though.

Walmart

I finally got Court to take us to Walmart. I was just so happy to leave the house and be out in the city and off post. We called a cab and went to the Walmart way on the other side of the city near the World Cup Stadium. It was an expensive cab ride...9000 won or around $9. The walmart was 5 stories tall and was also a super center. It was like walmart back home...but not the same thing either. Here is a picture from across the street. You can see how huge it is. It is much bigger than back home but the selection was not the same...of course.

The cab ride was great and I really was happy to get out of the house and off post and get to see something new and different. It was a beautiful day out and the kids were all for the most part pretty well behaved. Here are some diapers. Generic, huggies...and looks like pampers but they are called cutie. Probably the same thing just a different name.

I tried to get some pictures of various items in the... grocery part but the battery on my camera was about dead and I did not know how the store would feel about me taking pictures.

It comes in a can and goes great with beans...it's.....SPAM! Up yours? They are slimmer and taller than the stuff back home but the can assures me it is the same American flavor of 7-up! Oh and evidently it is NEW!Here are some eggs. The ones on the right appear to be just your typical brown eggs. The ones on the left??? Couldn't tell you what kind they are. They were small and speckled and Gavin and I had the strange suspicion that the specks were poop. Ew. Also this was really weird but they were not refrigerated. Not sure why? In the US our eggs are and I am thinking that an egg is an egg right? Or maybe we stick different hormones and such in them? Who knows. Court and I laughed about getting the little eggs and making fried eggs with them. I am sure they would be really cute! But I am not that brave.

I have a bunch more pictures but for whatever reason Blogger is not letting me put up any more. I have been messing with it since last night. Argh. So I will do this in a part two later on.

Maddie's Birthday

Maddie turned 4 on the 15th. We had a big scramble to get gifts for her but we seemed to manage ok. At least she seemed happy enough with what she got.

Here she is in the morning with a doll set that came with a crown. The crown lights up and she loves it.

Present time! Here Maddie is that evening digging into her gifts. She got a DQ food set which she loves. She also got Korean toy food set that came with a little table and burner/stove to cook with.
Here is the food set. She really likes it and the table folds up. You can put the food and dishes in it and carry it around.
Another pic of her out in the patio/play area with her new stuff. She also got a Hello Kitty Shirt which she is wearing. Some other clothes. The new Lilo and Stitch movie. Barbie cup, chopsticks and spoon set.
The cake did not turn out so great. I usually do a fancy special cake but I have none of my baking stuff here. Could not even find candles for the cake. But Maddie did not seem to mind.

Last one. Yummmmmm licking the frosting off the bottom of the bear. I cannot believe she is 4! Seems like just yesterday she was born.

The search for a cat

We saw a cat like this in a pet store off Camp Walker a few days ago but the owner said it was not for sale. Too bad. Because it is the only cat I have seen since being here. It is really strange because in the US there are free cats everywhere. Thousands to choose from. I have emailed some breeders that are listed for this area and gotten no response.

Last night while Court was out at the bars he was told there is a pet store off Camp George so we may try and check it out. Not sure if it will be open since it is Chusok. Which is Korean Thanksgiving and many places will not be open.

At first I wanted a kitten but I am now to the point where I will settle for any sort of friendly healthy cat.

Update

We went on a mini adventure Saturday after lunch to search for this store Court was told about. We went out the back side of Camp George and walked and walked. We saw several pet stores but they only had dogs. And then we thought we hit the jackpot! We found this store. Maddie is just grinning up a storm so glad to finally find cats. They had at least 20 or more and most were in cages. They were almost all persian but a few were siamese as well. So we are all excited because we think we will be getting a cat. And then Court asks how much.....

The cute puffy persians were going for 400,000 won and the Siamese kittens were 150,000 won.

Most of the cats look sick. They all had the runny eyes and crusty stuff around their eyes. No way am I paying that for a cat unless it is 100% healthy and comes with papers and has had shots etc. etc. Maybe I am expecting too much?

Here is a shot of some of the cats. Don't know if you can tell or not but their eyes are all yucky.

Oh well....we will keep searching.

Welcome to my blog

I am just your typical Army wife who has followed her husband to Korea. We live on Camp George in Daegu, South Korea.

Court has been here almost 18 months now and me and the kiddos only arrived a week ago. It has been a long long hard separation and we are slowly getting reacquainted as a family.

We left the US on the 7th of September. It was just me with 3 kids, 8 pieces of luggage, 3 car seats, 4 back packs and a stroller. I am amazed that I managed it!

Here I am with all the kids...Abby is on the left, Gavin, then me and Maddie.

The flight from LAX to Narita, Japan was about 11 hours. We were super lucky to have bulk head seats. The kids were actually really good. Abby who is not quite 2 was a bit fussy but numerous trips to the bathroom helped. AS well as a bribe of candy now and then....

We did not have a lot of time in Japan to look at the shops. So I just gave the kids time to run around and stretch their legs.

We flew into Busan and met Court there. Took a shuttle to Camp Henry where one of Court's friends picked us up and took us to Camp George. We like on the 4th floor of a 5 story apartment building and there is no elevator. The good news is that they are putting one in and I think it should be done by the end of the year.

Here is our apartment building. You can see the green construction fence around part of it. The windows you see on the 4th floor are part of our apartment.