life with the lieutenant

• Where did we leave off? Sunday afternoon- whiny kids? Oh yes, that sounds familiar. Almost like a Tuesday. Or a Friday. Or any day actually. But on this particular Sunday, we walked to Pang Pangs.

• On the way home, we decided that since I failed to thaw out any meat again, we would have soup and grilled cheese for dinner. But we didn't have any cheese. We stopped off at a grocery store on our way home and spent approximately $6 on 18 slices of cheese. 

another perfectly good dinner deemed unacceptable by my children

• Speaking of overpriced food we can buy in Korea..

• Yes, that is approximately $7.50 for three apples. And can anyone tell me what kind of apples these are? Crack-injected? Anyone? Bueller? Steve and I literally hoard these things until after the kids go to bed and then cut one up and have it for "dessert." I am vehemently against fruit as dessert (what a crock!) but these apples are life-changing, apparently. Korea's food prices are some of the highest in the world, so between our strawberry ($10/carton) and apple ($7.50/3) habit, we are going to start dipping into Sam's college fund soon.

• We had a bunch of yellow dust blow over from China Sunday evening, and the numbers only got worse on Monday, so we kept inside all day long. We stayed in our pj's, made cookie bars, watched movies, played with magna tiles, and actually had a nice day indoors.

• Despite our fun day inside on Monday, I was more than thrilled to send these two off to preschool on Tuesday morning. I swear those are the most productive four hours of my life. I even combined showering with cleaning our disgusting food dehydrator. 

• And while that sounds unsanitary, this is just the bucket that our food waste goes in so that the little machine under our sink can dehydrate it. Dehydrating the food apparently reduces the smell (I disagree) and obviously decreases the weight of the food. We "have" to separate our food waste from our normal trash (they threaten fines and whatnot) but you also have to PAY to dispose of your food waste (tell me the incentive for doing this again?), so since they charge you by the ounce, you obviously want the least amount of ounces as possible. Thus the dehydrating. ANYWAYS, we would sometimes put food in the dehydrator and then sorta.... forget about it for a few days. Insert a raging case of mold and a food bucket that probably should have been burned. But since we don't speak much Korean and can't figure out where to buy a replacement bucket, I decided to just give it a good scrub in the shower. And voila, clean bucket. We won't be using it again because I won't be scrubbing it again. I just stick the food waste in a plastic bag and take it out daily, EXTRA FLUID OUNCES BE DAMNED.
• After preschool, we ran errands and I bribed the kids with beef and leaf to take a picture in front of this mural.

• Wednesday was spent indoors again. I have had some upper respiratory gunk (maybe from the yellow dust??) and after doing some spring cleaning that morning, it just felt easier to read a book and let the kids watch whatever movie they wanted. And speaking of books, I finished another one. Highly recommend. I laughed so much that I cried more than once.

• Thursday and Friday were "spring break" at preschool (how is that even possible in February?). We played at home until a kids cafe opened and obviously stayed there as long as humanly possible.

•  Naturally the kids cafe was packed to the gills with other spring breakers. A quick look at the stroller parking situation. And this wasn't even all of it.

• We escaped our house later to go spend some of Sam's college fun at the market and soak up the sun.

• That night I somehow shattered the lid to my smallest pot (aka my macaroni-making pot) and that prompted a purge of all teflon pots and pans left in the kitchen. They quickly sold on the yard sale page and now I'm on the hunt for a small Club pot. Apparently the company went out of business in the 70s, but my parents have some of their pots from their wedding, and I scored one at a thrift store in Virginia a few years back (remember that turquoise pot, Samantha??), and they sell on ebay for more than I'm willing to pay. So my eyes are peeled and now I'm forced to make macaroni in a big pot in the meantime.

Club pot lid comforting the shattered cheapo lid

• On Friday I made pizza dough after breakfast and we had lunch with Steve on post. The Katusa Snack Bar makes a nice bibimbap and bonus points for being meatless. Being classy as always, we opted to eat in the car because that means the kids are strapped in and you know as well as I do that that is kinda heavenly. Then we headed for Pang Pangs because we are in this weird transition of no naps (aka hell on earth) and if we are at home, I sorta lose my mind during what should be the napping hours.

• We stayed and played until Molly poured juice down the front of her shirt.

• Lately, I haven't been incorporating meat into every dinner, and while it's weird (we are meat people), it's also like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders. It's so easy to throw together a dinner that doesn't involve meat!

sweet potato taco filling (added in bacon) // salad with some college-fund-bought tomatoes // veggie pizza // garlic parmesan pasta and crab cakes with aioli sauce

• Not pictured- steaks and takeout chicken. Because we are not looking to become vegetarian anytime soon.

cool kids

• We headed to Seoul Saturday morning and were greeted with a ton of traffic. Spring break traffic, I guess. I hope they all get to where they're going before spring break ends.

• We finally made it to Seoul and then Steve saw a tv on clearance at the px and that is why Sam is sleeping like this in the car. (TV was parked next to him in the folded-down seat.)

Playing with the Jaegers always tires them out!

• The main purpose of the Seoul PX visit was to get some tubs for the outgrown kids' clothes. Because they've outgrown practically everything they own.

• Sunday morning came and no one was awake in time for church. Sam was also complaining that he didn't "feel so well" so we just stayed home. Finally hooked up the big new tv and watched Cars. Then we noticed that there is a big discolored streak in the screen so now we get to disassemble and take it back. Yay.

• Yesterday was spent almost entirely outside. It was in the upper 40s and just felt GLORIOUS. We walked everywhere and played outside and it made me long for spring. Naturally it snowed this morning.

• We walked down to our regular Pang Pangs, but it was closed (womp womp), so we walked back to town and visited a new (yet similarly named) kids cafe, Cafe Pang Pang. Same price, but minus the sand and toys.

• This burned a decent amount of energy. We walked home and stopped at the coffee shop underneath our apartment to grab Steve some coffee. Drove to post to drop it off and let the kids take a quick car nap. Sold some more junk on the yard sale page last night and now it is almost 11am and time for the commissary to open! See y'all next week.