Happy 3rd Birthday Marley!!

Today is Friday and the boys are out playing golf in the rain. Marley and I have been cleaning the house and organizing all the groceries that I have already bought for our Thanksgiving Day feast. Because of the time difference we are so sad that our family will be deprived of the traditional Cowboy game. Some friends here are putting together a football game out in the field near where we live for all the dads and their friends. This will keep them out of our hair while we finish up all the cooking.

In addition to all the Thanksgiving plans, we are gearing up for Marley's 3rd birthday. I cannot believe that she is getting so big already. She is so excited and has demanded a Diego cake. I am fully aware that Diego is meant for boys, but she does not care. She told me that I get to have a princess cake and she wants Diego. I tried for two months to change her mind and finally conceded defeat. I ordered the Diego cake yesterday.

Since Marley's birthday falls the day before Thanksgiving, I am going to have to tweak my normal three days of cooking. On the other hand, she will have tons of new presents to occupy her and keep her out of my kitchen.

Bennigans

On Sunday my friend Leslie and I decided we would escape our families for a while. We tried to go to the fabric market, but they were closed. We tried to go to the ribbon and flower markets, but they were closed. At this point we were driving around Daegu trying to find someplace to go, because there was NO WAY IN HELL we were heading home. Eventually we found E-Mart (Korean equivalent to Target) and checked out what all they had. By now it was time for lunch. Hmmmmmm.......where to eat??? We decided to go downtown and eat some American food at Bennigans. After climbing the two flights of steep stairs we reach the doors and are greeted by two very sweet Korean young women. We follow one to our table and Leslie starts cracking up laughing. When she caught her breath she finally says to me, "did they just say "Welcome Americans?'" Once I finished crying from laughing I told her that they had said, "Welcome to Bennigans." Now we are both rolling on the floor. Eventually we calm down and pick up our menus. In the right hand corner of each of our menus, in big white letters, are the words "Foreigners Menu." Wow, I have never been the foreigner at a restaurant before! Everything about Bennigans was the exact same as it is in the States. Leslie and I both ordered the Monti Cristo and each of us ended up taking half home to our husbands. It was so nice to have a little piece of home for a little while. While we waited for our change, I figured I better go to the restroom since we had a long walk back to the car. I don't know why this shocked me, but there was a bidet (toilet that squirts you with water). It had a heated seat and buttons so you could control the angle of the water spray. It was crazy! Had I been able to get over my phobia of germs I might have given it a try, but there was no way since it was a public toilet. The really sad thing is that this is not even the strangest toilet I have seen in Korea. Some places just have a hole in the ground for you to use (Americans call these "squatty potties"). I prefer to just hold it until I get home.

Happy Halloween 2009! Jackson was Ghost Rider (Marley was scared of the mask) and Marley was a princess. We all went over to the other base and went trick or treating at the housing over there. It is not a huge housing complex and less than half of the people participated, but the kids still walked away with about 1/3 of their bags filled. It was a whole lot of walking for very little candy, but we had fun.

Band-Aid Princess

Here is Marley in her Halloween costume. Jackson had his costume on and ran out the door before I could get his picture. Tonight was the carnival at the school and tomorrow we will trick or treat for some serious candy.

No the Dora band-aid was not supposed to be part of Marley's costume. Earlier in the day she flipped off the couch and split her eyebrow open. It was not bad enough to need stitches, but I bet it will leave a small scar.

My babies

I love this picture. We were all in the living room watching "The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown" and I could not resist taking a picture of how sweet they looked.

I bought these cowboy boots at one of the markets here for Marley to play dress up with and now I cannot get her to take them off.

Jackson tickling Marley to the point of tears. They were having so much fun that day.

Our Hood

This first picture is of the little Korean grocery store just outside the base. None of the products are in English, but most of the time we are able to recognize packaging. The kids love to stop here because they can get ice cream bars for like 50 cents. Jason and I get such a kick out of the owner and his family. They all love to show off the new English phrases that they have learned. Each time one of us goes in there we try to teach them a new slang term that they might hear from the soldiers and their families.

This is the main street leading to the base we live on. The Americans have nicknamed it Suicide Alley because it is narrow and traffic can be crazy.