Sunday Night 0ut with Friends

A week ago Court had a 4 day weekend for MLK day. We were able to get a sitter..yay! Anyway we started the night out at the bowling alley on Camp Walker. We met up with Rob and his wonderful girlfriend Sue. As you can see from the above score...I am not the best bowler. But I did have a good time and that is all that matters.

After bowling we walked off post to catch a "kimchi" cab...that is one of the regular cabs. You can catch a cab on post. There is one cab company that is contracted with the military. They are the only cab company that is allowed on post. You can always call for a cab but they tack on an additional fee...I think it is 10,000 won? You can go to the PX and sometimes get lucky and there are cabs waiting. Or you can go off post and just catch a regular cab. And for some reason people call these "kimchi cabs".

The benefit of being with Sue is that she is from Daegu. Also she is fluent in both English and Korean. She was able to tell the driver exactly where we wanted to go. And I wanted to go downtown! I have been here since September and I have heard about downtown but never been. So off we went.

I could not believe all the traffic for a Sunday night! And downtown....wow I loved it! Imagine a mall with store after store after store. All in a row. And now imagine all those stores are outside instead of one building. And imagine that mall goes on for blocks and blocks and block. It was heavenly! I spied a gift shop with Hello Kitty stuff so Sue and I dragged the guys in there.

Rob and Court thought there was a little too much pink for their tastes and were not too keen on getting their picture taken.

Ohhhh the Hello Kitty store... *drool* It took me back to my childhood. There was a Hello Kitty Store in the Long Beach Mall in Long Beach, Ca. I remember that was THE PLACE to go. Ohhhhh the memories.....This place had a ton of everything. And I wanted it all. I had picked out a cute basket that would have looked nice on my table for Valentine's Day. But Court said I should not buy it. He said...what if I saw something later I wanted to have more? So I reluctantly put it back. :(

Here are some restaurants....There was also an Outback Steak House. But the line was miles and miles long. We came across a Dunkin Donuts and I about died!!! Ohhhh heaven. We went in and I said I WANT REAL DONUTS! But Court made us leave...without donuts... *cry*

I am not sure if you can tell what the name of this place is or not from the picture. It is called Uncle Tom's Cabin. Hmmmm does anyone find that an odd name for a coffee place? Do you think they could get away with that in the U.S. ?

Above...some interesting plants that had the guys laughing.

So after not getting to buy anything in Downtown (and I am STILL pouting about that!) we caught another cab and went to the Ariana. Court has been there many times. This was my first. It is a club in a hotel. They brew their own beer as well. Court said it is supposed to be a German-style place?? There were many long tables and all they serve is beer (for alcohol). They have some sort of special..all you can eat and drink for 14,000 won. So I was going to get that since there is a buffet. I think the easiest way to try new stuff is off of a buffet. You can get a little bit of everything. Well as it turns out if one person orders the buffet..everyone has to get it. It is an all or none deal. So I did not get the buffet. :(

I tried to order some sort of dumpling similar to the Yaki Mandu I have had before but they were out of that. I ended up with these strange Nachos. They were very good. Just not the nachos I was expecting. They were not spicy at all and had bits of fruit in them. ALso pieces of meat and a tomato sauce as well.

Court got the Buffalo wings and said they were sweet. I had some of his salad. In the bowl..he said it was fruit?? It tasted more like a sweet onion. I am not sure what it was?


Sue got this bowl of stuff. It came with a burner to keep it warm. I am not sure what it is called. She told me but I have forgotten. I tried some of the noodle looking things. Those were good..but oh my it was soooooooo spicy! My mouth and lips burned the rest of the night. There were also clam shells or something like that in there and big shrimp.. (yuck).

Rob ordered a fruit plate. One thing I really like about the way Korean's eat is it is all social. Everyone shares and eats out of the same bowls. So everyone tried everyone else's food. Steve and Ju-he joined us later on. I forgot to take pictures of their food....lol.

Above is Rob and Sue. I cannot say enough good things about Sue. She is just such a nice lady and I cannot wait until we all can get together again!

The beer came in these glass bottle things. I am not sure how many we went through. I am actually surprised that I drank as much as I did. I am not a huge beer drinker..but this was pretty good stuff.

This is not the best picture but it was really dark in the club. Above is Rob checking out the live band.

And here is the band playing. It was nice to have live music. But.....the band sucked. They sang the song Hollaback Girl by Gwen Steffani and in the song they have to spell the word "bananas". Wellll...the mis-spelled that everytime which left us just a rolling.

All in all it was a really nice time out. I had a wonderful time and I was so glad we got to go. The guys have a 1 am curfew so we always have to get back in time to let our baby sitter go home. McNeil (the babysitter) is Army also and she has to be able to leave our place and get home by 1 am. So that usually makes for a short night. I am looking forward to another night out soon!

Kirstie-Raie now has a web page

Come Home Kirstie-Raie

A dear friend of mine...Dawn Lloyd has set up the page for Roxanna and her family. If you are interested you can click over to that site and it has all of the info, more pictures as well as updates.

Some fun stuff

Your Heart Is Pink

In relationships, you like to play innocent - even though you aren't. Each time you fall in love, it's like falling for the first time. Your flirting style: Coy Your lucky first date: Picnic in the park Your dream lover: Is both caring and dominant What you bring to relationships: Romance

What color Heart do you have?

Have You seen Kirstie-Raie?

DOB: Dec 6, 1989

Missing: Jan 17, 2006

Age Now: 16

Sex: Female

Race: White

Hair: Lt. Brown

Eyes: Blue

Height: 5'3" (160 cm)

Weight: 115 lbs (52 kg)

Missing From: TEMPLE, GA United States

Kirstie-Raie went missing on January, 17th, 2006. She is believed to be with the young man pictured above. His name is Josh Long. The following is information her mother gave to me.

Kirstie-Raie Ward went to school on Tuesday, January 17th at 7:45 and has not been seen since. She was dropped off at Temple High School with her brother by their father. Apparently she got into a car with her friends Ashley McElroy (who has a suspended license and was STILL allowed to drive and had a valid parking permit at high school) and Cody Walker (who is just re-enrolled in school from being expelled for drugs) to skip school and go to her boyfriends home .. Josh Long. By 8:30 am her mother and father knew and were searching for her. Sometime between 11 and 11:30am her friends Ashley and Cody returned to school. Thankfully enough they told the administration that KR was left at Josh's home. When the Carroll county police went to the Long residence (2590 Mandeville Road Temple Georgia) with her mother (Roxanna Ward) they were told that yes they had been there and had left in a Gold Neon. A million things have happened since then and I'm more than willing to tell everybody the tiniest of details. But these are the highlights ...we tried for 5 hours to report her missing but Douglas county and Carroll count fought over who would file the paperwork. even the GBI would not help. FINALLY when Douglas County came out to file a report they were wonderful!!! rumor has it that they went to Alabama to get married and found out that they couldn't. Then things got bad for Kirstie-Raie. She is believed to be with Josh Long, Cody Walker and Zack Walker. All three boys are minors with a long police record. A few of them are possible on probation and in violation of that probation since they are missing.Josh's mother refused to report him as missing because "he'll come back". Cody and Zack's parents can not be found.A few of her local friends have been telling people that they know she is safe. However one of the friends in particular is a 14 year old girl that has ranaway with Cody Walker before and is believed to be covering for somebody. Kirstie-Raie only packed enough for 2 days .. she has been gone for 5. We believe she is in way over her head and have a reward for any information that leads to her whereabouts. We as her parents simply want her safe and at home. We are scared for her safety because of the group of people that she is with. We have every reason to believe that although her intentions were to run to Alabama, that she wants to come home and can't. Her cell phone is off and has not been turned on since Tuesday, however she told her contact friend that we had it cut off. We believe that she may not know that we did not turn off the cell phone and have been trying to call it every 5 minutes for 5 days. Josh's mother is recently out of jail and may be on parole. We are certain she know the whereabouts of her son and our daughter and since he has not been reported as missing .. this leads us to believe that she is hiding something for her son. They have no car and neither have their drivers license .. so SOMEBODY is helping them!!!!We know for a fact that Josh came back to school after dropping out ONLY to see Kirstie-Raie .. we have letters and notes from him that prove this. EVEN more reason to believe that he is doing something to keep her from returning home.We are DESPERATE for somebody to help us find our daughter. TOOO many things are not adding up for this to just be another simple teenager runaway. She is in danger and we need her home and safe. We've started a reward fund and it is literally growing by the second!! The reward fund was started by virtual strangers. Roxanna (me .. Kirstie-Raie's mother) is a member on a Children's Clothing Boutique on eBay and THOUSANDS of members are helping in every way possible from donation their money to donating auctions to help with the money and search, Podcasts, and a webpage for Kirstie-Raie will be going up soon thanks to an on-line parenting community and their support. ANY help we receive will be greatly appreciated!!! The principal of her high school refuses to announce her case to his students .. although that was the last place that she was seen. He even had the missing flyers taken down from around the school. We put her poster on 1-800-THE-LOST and it as mysteriously disappeared. We are getting help from the police, however they donÂ’t see the danger that we know she is in. We canÂ’t seem to get ANY real help other than the police and we just want our little baby home safe!

Roxanna and Stan Ward

770-947-1920 Home

678-910-8145 Cell

For verification you can always call 1-800-THE-LOST

ANYONE HAVING INFORMATION SHOULD CONTACT:

National Center for Missing & Exploited Children...1-800-843-5678 (1-800-THE-LOST)

Temple Police Department (Georgia).... 1-770-830-5921

Just need to gripe a bit...

Mostly this is just gonna be a grip about Gavin's teacher and the school...

Gavin started back to school this week. He had a pretty interesting week. He went back on Tuesday and of course his teacher assigned the usual amount of homework. This is for a first grader... 5 math pages, one science page, page of science vocab words to use in verbal sentences, write a book report, 10 spelling words to learn and he had to write each one in a sentence, paragraph about how he spent his Winter Break and he had to read at least 15 minutes each night. His teacher is an American and despite that we are in Korea he goes to an American school run by the department of defense. He gets all his homework assigned on the first day of the week and he turns it all in on Friday or the last day they are in school. He had 3 days to complete this. I have to tell you there are times we have not been able to get it all done. It can be a real struggle sometimes.

Gavin also had his very first ever spelling test this week. I asked him after how he did and he said he did not get two of the words written down because he ran out of time. And he told me he started crying in class because he could not get it done. WTF?! You think with the very first spelling test his teacher might be a little easy on them? You know it would be one thing for me to bitch, gripe and moan if I had no clue about how classrooms work...but I have taught 1st grade. I have given spelling tests before.

I thought I would take a break in the whining and bring you a picture of Abby. I took this last weekend. Abby got the bike from Santa. She and Gavin got to go downstairs and play at the playground for about an hour. It was pretty chilly so we did not stay too long.

I am impressed with Gavin that he can do the monkey bars. He can make it all the way across. Abby really wanted to get up there and try too.

So I took her to the swings. Now where is her Pa-Pa for times like these? She would have happily sat here and swung all day.

Ok...gripe pause is over with....

Earlier in the year Gavin told me a boy in his class bit him and did not get into trouble for it. I guess Gavin has had some problems with him and says he is a bully. I told Gavin to make sure he always has a friend with him and to stay away from him if at all possible. And to always tell a teacher. Last week this kid took Gavin's drink from his lunch and drank it. So Gavin had no drink at all. And nothing happened to the other kid. I mentioned this to his teacher and she gave me some crap about boys will be boys and blah-blah-blah.... whatever. I told Gavin that if this kid hits him again to beat his head in the wall! Yes I did! I told him that I ALWAYS expect him to protect himself and if someone is hurting him to fight back. Court and I told him he would get into trouble with the school for fighting but it is was one of the few times he would not get in trouble with us.

In other good news...the kids no longer have to wait outside in 19 degree temps to wait for their teachers before school. Friday they moved them to the gym. I was so glad because Gavin's teacher is always the last one out to get the kids. Ok I think I am done griping. Off to show you more pictures of the kids....

OK I just think Abby looks so cute in her panties. Both girls are brushing their teeth here. Everyone got new toothbrushes for Christmas.

Here is Abby in the "playroom". This is really an enclosed patio but I have made it into a play area for the kids. Half of it is set up like a house for the girls. We have acquired a few new items since moving here. Abby is modeling the latest in dishwasher models for little girls kitchens. LOL We got a Step 2 dishwasher and Fridge from neighbors whose daughter had outgrown them.

Here is Maddie with Abby. See our nice new toy box by Step 2? I pulled this out of the trash right before Christmas. It is in perfect condition.

Gavin has lost his brand new Nintendo DS. I dreamed last night I found it in Nanny's Van...that would be Court's grandma. I doubt it is there...lol but if we were in the states I would sure look just to make sure.

I started the South Beach Diet last Monday and after 6 days I have lost 5 pounds. I am looking forward to the end of phase one and beginning phase 2 where I can have some cereal and fruit.

I miss everyone so very much.... :(

Happy New Year!

I will start off the New Year by showing off our "Hoopty" car that we got a few months ago for $500. It is a Kia Capitol which I believe is not available in the U.S. It runs pretty well and works for what we need it for. I cannot drive it cause it is a stick shift. Also I do not have my license here yet. I am hoping we can get a different car before Court leaves for ANCOC in June. I REALLY miss my Kia Sorento we left back home. *sigh*

The week before Christmas we managed to lose 2 kids and so we tried to finish up our Christmas shopping. We went to Walmart for this and I feel like we found a lot of goodies. They had a huge display of books for kids in English and they had amazing prices on them. I think everyone got at least 2 books. Everyone got some sort of hat/mittens/ear muffs etc. I was able to get P.J.'s for Maddie. Seems like most things for girls are Disney Princess or Hello Kitty which is just great for us. Anyways the above picture I took out the window as we were stopped at a light. It was one of the few Christmas decorations off post.

I took this from the parking garage at Walmart. These are all apartments. This is out towards the edge of Daegu but the area seems to be growing fastly.

Here we have the World Cup Stadium shot from the parking garage also.

Christmas Eve


Christmas eve was a crazy day for us. I spent all day in the kitchen baking all sorts of goodies and yummies. Above is Maddie helping with the Magic Layer Cookie bars. We left the nuts off these so she could eat them. I used nuts in so many things that I think all the chopping must have released some sort of oil in the air. Maddie ended up with an allergic reaction. I will have to remember that for next year.


All three of the kidlets dressed in their new Christmas Jammies. Thanks mom for making them!

Court and I stayed up until 1:30 am putting things together and wrapping presents. You can see here what it looked like after Santa came. The desk was Maddie's Santa present.

And another shot. Abby got the bike and grocery cart from Santa. Notice the commercial on the TV is for Malaysia tourism. We get a lot of tourism commercials I have never seen before...Vietnam, Malaysia (...Malaysia truly Asia.....), India and so forth. Also a lot of different airlines. One showing a Muslim man looking like the King of Saudi Arabia flying about.

Ok so back to Christmas....here is Gavin's spread. A Nintendo DS with 2 games.


Christmas Morning


Would you believe we actually slept in until 8 am? I think that is the latest I have ever slept on Christmas Day! Here we have the girls checking out the gifts. Abby was enthralled with the desk and would not leave it alone. In fact she had me up all night wanting to play and at one point I found her wandering in the living room...think this was at about 3 am or so.

Stockings here....
Abby opening a doll from Grandma and her Papa.


As you can see Abby has morning hair. This is what she did all morning. We kept having to drag her back to the presents. She wanted to play with all of Maddie's things. Gavin and I ended up opening most of her gifts.
Gavin showing off the new Dream Station. He was sooooo happy to get it and he loves Kirby.


Abby with another gift. This is a Little Tikes mirror set with play make-up etc. She was pretty happy with it.

This is how Gavin looked for the rest of the day. The DS is really neat and the bottom screen is a touch screen. It comes with a stylus and I was not sure if Gavin could handle it but as you can see in the above shot he had no problem playing it.

This is what the living room looked like after the kids were done. It still looked this way 2 days later.....

Christmas Dinner

Since we hosted Thanksgiving someone else hosted Christmas. We went to Steve and Ju-he's apartment around 2 or so. They are a super nice couple and I love their apartment.

It was Margie's 26th birthday and here is a gift someone brought for her. I thought I would show the neat wrapping job that was done. It looks like a folded shirt.
Steve and Ju-he made a TON of food for the party.

Oysters or something above. I did not try them since I am anti-fish.

Below we have Sweet and Sour Mandu (?). Those are little meat/veggie filled dumplings in sauce. This was fabulous!

Ohhh this was really good too. Ju-he told me she marinated it in Teriaky sauce.
Ok I am still not 100% sure what this was. I heard mention that it was Acorn or nut Tofu. I was not brave enough to try this. We brought sweet potatoes, rolls and a ton of home baked cookies as well as various alcoholic items. There was also a turkey and a ham. Loads of good food.



Abby is always so popular at these events. She does not know a stranger and enjoys all the attention. Above is Rob and Sue. I really really like Sue a lot. Her English is almost better than mine and she does not care if I ask her a million questions. We are trying to get together to go shopping. She is a teacher...think she teachers middle school math.

All in all it was a nice day. We played some cards, Jenga, Scrabble and so forth and just had a good time.

I have more pictures to upload but this took 3 days to do so I gave up!