Six, Table for Two: April 2013

Wednesday, April 3, 2013

Newness

It seems like there is never a dull moment for us here in the Republic of Korea; so that is what this post is about. But, then everything I've posted on this blog has been new.

Tim and I's good friend Brad Hunt had a birthday in February so we spent a day walking around Seoul having a wonderful time with some of our dear friends here in Korea. It seems God continues to bless us with good friendships wherever we go.

Beautiful restaurant we went to

On the subway with Mason, Clancy, and Alex

And I also had a birthday! I got to go home a couple weeks before my birthday I was able to go back to Indiana and see my family and some friends back home. I celebrated my birthday and Easter with my family which was a wonderful gift. It's amazing how special it can be to be able to spend a holiday back home with your family. My parents and siblings, and my "in-laws" still make me feel so loved when I go to visit them, especially on my birthday! I was only back in Indy a couple weeks and I spent quite a bit of time trying to locate Trigger, so I didn't get to see as many friends as I would have liked but I knew I'd be going back to Indy for a couple months this summer. I'll try to catch up with y'all then!

Love them all so much!

My friends here in Korea also made Easter and my birthday very special. Clancy lives two doors down from Tim and I and she had us over for breakfast on my birthday - so fun and thoughtful! We went to church afterwards and it just happened to be the Sunday that the congregation sang "Happy Birthday" to the March birthdays. So I got to stand up in front of the whole church. After church, we met up with some friends from Kunsan AB who were visiting for the day. We all had lunch and Clancy surprised me with a homemade lemon cake! So delicious! And then Mason surprised me with a funfetti lemon cake he had made for me; so sweet (literally)! I felt showered with love from friends :) Tim got me what I've been wanting: a Korean mother-of-pearl jewelry box - gorgeous! Then to top off the evening, Tim took me to a delicious dinner at Pasta Vino - a yummy Italian place in Songtan. It was a lovely day!

Yummy birthday breakfast thanks to Clancy!

Thanks Clancy :)

My wonderful husband

Lunch at Chili's with cake!

My Korean jewelry box

Cake from Mason!

Some other new things around here are as follows:

* Well, you've met Roki if you read my last post but he is just too cute:

Mr. Mischevious

He loves water, go figure, but he loves the sink, the toilet, and even the shower ;)

He also likes to sleep in some odd places, like luggage...

...or the laundry basket

But he also crosses his paws like Chloe does!

* We got a scooter! And I've even learned to drive it! I ended up on the sidewalk outside the BX already (haha) but no one was on the sidewalk so no big deal ;) I'm still figuring it out, but I did drive all the way from the middle of Base to our home off Base so I figure that is pretty good.

No motorcycle, but at least I can drive this one!

* I make Korean yakimandu! Well, someone else makes it and I heat it up on the stove ;)

Yakimandu...our favorite street food

Mmmm-mmm good!

* Tim and I got named as a Fiend and a Fiendette! Tim's name is "Check" for "Check Six". For those of you who don't recognize that phrase it means to always watch your "6 o'clock", your back, while up there in the air flying; the squadron Tim is now part of uses "Check Six" as their motto of sorts so it is all over their Fiend party suits and shirts. So it was a natural thing to name Tim! He has been called "Check" for a while now but now it's his official call sign, at least until we go to the next assignment. By the way, out squadron is the 36th Fighter Squadron and our mascot is a Fiend...whatever that is ;) So the guys are called Fiends and the wives/fiances/girlfriends are "Fiendettes". That brings me to my name. Not every squadron names the wives/girlfriends as well, but the 36th does. We wives have to fill out a questionnaire before our "naming" party; one of the questions I had to answer was what my pet-peeve was. I said when Tim cuts his toenails and leaves the clippings sitting in a little pile on the coffee table - gross. Especially when I find the pile as soon as a guest walks into the living room - embarrassing and gross ;) Anyway, so they named me "Thirty" as in Nicki Thirty Six...Thirty Six, like our squadron. I think the ladies couldn't pass up naming me Thirty because of our last name. And it stands for "Toenail-Hating Innocent Religious Talented Youth"; it's a good name but not so sure about that acronym ;) So Tim and I are Check and Thirty around the squadron now.

Nicki "Thirty" Six

Andrea became "LOLO" and Jaimie became "SKOUT" - fun night!

The last thing I wanted to mention in this post was the state of things over here in South Korea. As I'm sure most if you have heard, the political climate with North Korea is pretty tense over here right now. That much is true, but what has been reported in the US is about as much as we know over here. That is pretty much all I can say about that right now, and honestly that is about all I know. Tim isn't at liberty to say anything different even if he knew more, not that I know he knows more. He doesn't say and I don't ask. It's safer for us all that way :) But Tim and I did have a lunch date the other day on a rooftop to watch the B-2 and F-16s flyover - very cool! Obviously that doesn't happen often ;) I see F-16s and A-10s frequently, but not B-2s. I always get a little bit of an eerie feeling when I see a B-2 but they are still pretty neat to see. Never a dull moment when you live overseas!

It was foggy that day so we could barely see them in the distance at first

Pretty cool!

Well, my friends, that is all I have for now but I will try to post again soon once I have more interesting things to say/show. We are going to Thailand in a couple weeks for a couple weeks, then Tim is off for some training within S. Korea and I'll be going to China for the Great Wall Marathon in mid-May! So excited for both trips and will post more after we get back from those. Then I'll be back to Indy for June and possibly July. Tim is still waiting to hear if he'll be in the States for some training this summer; if so, he will probably get to visit Indy as well for a little bit. Thanks for all your love and prayers! We miss y'all :)

Much love,

Nicki

New Adventures in the ROK

Hello friends and family who read our blog!

I got a few complaints about not posting on this blog enough - I apologize for that! I guess I need to work on my blogging skills ;) So my last post was after New Year's Eve (eek! that was a while ago), so quite a bit has happened since then; that is what this post and the next one will be about.

SNOWBOARDING

In January, Tim and I went on the Chapel ski and snowboard trip - it was so much fun and we got to hang out with some of our new friends: the Markowski family of 7, along with many other great people from the Chapel. Tim and I learned how to snowboard and, despite our numerous falls, we had sooo much fun!

Snowboarding for the first time!

Success!

All together now ;)

Such pretty colors worn on the slopes

With 2 of the 5 Markowski kids

Fun on the slopes

After all the snowboarding in some very wet snow, we were, of course, hungry. Thus, we got ourselves some odd but very Korean food. Tim being the more adventurous consumer of food ate an...interesting, to say the least, Korean dish. It looked a little like tar but Tim said it was tasty. I had what they called "chicken barbecue - it was rice and chicken and peas and corn. Not quite what I think of when I think of barbecue chicken but it was tasty nonetheless.

Yum!

Chicken barbecue

We were all a bit soaked from the warm weather and downpour of "wintry mix" so Tim had to take his soaked socks and dry them on the heater inside.

Drying out those tootsies!

TRIGGER
On January 27th, our beloved kitty cat, Trigger, got out of my parents' house and disappeared. Tim and I were planning on bringing him here in March when I went back home, but we have yet to find him. Hopefully he will return to us somehow but until then we can just pray and wait. We miss our Trig Trig :(

Trigger Six

NEWEST SIX FAMILY MEMBER
God is providing, though, and we adopted a different kitty while here in Korea. A few weeks after Trigger went missing, Tim and I watched a little boy while his parents were in Seoul having their second child. One day, I took Callum to the park near his apartment on Base with some of the other 36th Fighter Squadron moms. As soon as we arrived, this little orange and white kitten came running up to us and rubbed against my leg. I wasn't sure if Callum should play with this stray cat and none of the other little kids were allowed so I told Callum "don't touch the kitty!" This in turn meant I shouldn't touch the kitty. As most of you may know, I like cats...and this cat was so cute and making it very difficult to not pet him. He was adorable and just followed us around the whole time we were at the park. Well, we were staying at Callum's house so I couldn't very well take him there. So I waited. The next evening Callum's parents came home, but it had rained all day so I didn't figure the cat would still be hanging out at the park. I made a deal with Tim that if we saw the kitty that night we could take him home and find his family - if he had one - or keep him if he had no family. We went to the park after dark. He wasn't at the park. We went home and I looked on the Osan AB Spouses page and there was a picture of the kitty! I was so excited. I figured it was a sign from God that we were supposed to have him ;) Anyway, he wasn't neutered and no microchip and no one claimed him so we figured he needed a home. So he's the newest member of our little family: Roki!

Roki Six!

He has some odd habits

Oh he's so cute! But he also plays A LOT

I think he took to us pretty well :)

We named him "Roki" because we were trying to think of something Korean to name him that we could remember and pronounce so he is named after the Republic Of Korea with an "ee" sound on the end since oftentimes Koreans add that sound to the end of words when they speak English.

DUTCH
So in addition to watching a two and a half year old little boy, we got to watch Dutch, a handsome chocolate lab. His "parents" were busy getting things arranged for their move to Nellis AFB in Las Vegas, NV. Tim got his "dog fix" since Chloe has yet to make the trip to S. Korea.

Dutch! Such a baby ;)

EXCITEMENT AT HOME ;)

Oh, and I just had to document that I beat Tim 3 games of Battleship in a row! :D He'll be so pleased that I shared that, haha!

First game...

That's 2!

And 3!!! :)

CHYEONG PYEONG

Our next adventure this winter was our trip to Chyeong Pyeong. Ms. Andrea Hunt planned this wonderful trip to go see this Christmas lights display in Chyeong Pyeong, and we - the Hunts, Brad and Andrea, and Tim and I - were all excited to spend a Saturday touring the display. The problem began on the bus ride there: it started snowing heavily. By the time we arrived at the Chyeong Pyeong bus station, a few inches of snow had fallen and settled on the ground and there was no sign of the snow stopping. We tried to take a cab to the lights display about 20 minutes away, but we did not make it very far. Between the poor road conditions, traffic, and the language barrier we ended up turning around and ending up exactly where we started. We had about 2 hours before the next bus arrived to take us home so we walked around the small town. About 30 minutes before the bus was supposed to arrive, Tim decided he was hungry. We decided to get a pizza, but that caused us to miss the bus by about 2 minutes because it was early. The next bus was the 8pm bus and it was the last one running for the night! We had an hour and a half so we waited a little closer to the station. The bus ended up being 30 minutes late but it did come much to our relief. It was an adventurous day and we missed the lights, but it was fun nonetheless!