life with the lieutenant

• Steve's car has sold. About a month too early. But better than a month too late, I guess?

• Steve likes to pretend that it sold so quickly because of how well it was taken care of. I mean, that hoopty was spotless if you overlook all the dings and scratches and that duct tape on the floorboard! Spotless, y'all! He also posted signs at all the bus stops about what a great family car it is. Because you know, deployed soldiers love a good family car. I like to tease that my FB ad did the heavy lifting for him.

• Only had to weed through a few Nigerians that might not have understood the sarcasm in the ad and found a soldier that wanted it right that very second. We also got word that my car has made it to Baltimore. Less than a month to get from Korea to America! And to think we could have kept it here for another month! Grrrr...... Oh well. I'm happy to know that AC and private transportation awaits us in the States.
• Sam and Molly eat SALAD now, which has to be the weirdest development in our house in 2015.

Yep, I'm that weird mom documenting baby's first salad.

BEHOLD!!!! I am so proud.

• Here we have a random picture of Molly posing with a receipt. What can I say, we are a bored people these days.

• Our apartment complex fills up the rock pit with water once a year and all the kids go nuts. It only lasts for a day or two, which begs the question as to why we even have this rock pit. Molly was overjoyed that it was full and promptly hopped in and got to "swimming." (Although note: no one will set foot in an actual pool.)

• The cabin fever started setting in and the kids and I hopped a train to the closest "big city" to us. They haven't been on the train since we first arrived in Korea, and it was kind of a nightmare then, so I was curious how they would do now and wanted to test the waters before we attempted riding all the way to Seoul.

• There is a section of every train car that is reserved for "old, weak, pregnant, with baby, or disability" and every time the kids get on, some 200 year old person always stands up and offers them their seat. This fills me with nothing but embarrassment and awe, but if the kids don't sit down, the ancient person that stood up usually looks very offended at me and keeps barking at the kids in Korean to sit down. So they do. And these two older train friends promptly took the kids shoes off for them and gave them candy and made sure they were comfy. 
• Once we arrived at the big mall that is attached to the train station, we headed up the escalators to Molly's Pet Shop. Talk about being in heaven. Wild horses couldn't pull her out of there. But the promise of the big playground upstairs eventually did.

•  But first, a stop at the facilities.

As much as I loathe taking the kids to public bathrooms, I will greatly miss Korea's bathrooms. Usually clean, always a kid-sized option, and big ol' changing tables.

• And finally, the playground.

I have an identical picture of these two from the first summer we were here, except Molly was looking at the bear next to her and screaming in terror. She was still leery, but managed to be bribed for this photo.

The playground is on the 9th floor of the mall and this is the view from the "treehouse."

Coming down the escalator, this shirt was front and center. Had to stop and take a pic. The sales girl looked at me a little crazy and I returned the look because "I don't think you know what this says."

• On the bottom floor, there is a food market and lots of bakeries and coffee shops and other pretty edibles. Let's not forget, an Auntie Anne's, which may or may not have been the entire reason for the trip that day. Molly and I split a garlic pretzel (that really just evaporated too quickly) and Sam decided that was not for him. Luckily they were selling these right around the corner.

• The kids were well behaved on the train and gave me hope that we'd make it to Seoul eventually. Once we got off, Sam ran to this statue and asked me to take his picture in front of it. I am pretty sure he has no clue what this is.

And I'm not sure why our town has a breastfeeding statue on the main corner, but whatever.

• Later that evening, we took the train in the opposite direction to our favorite beef and leaf. Pregnancy kinda turned me off to beef and leaf for a while, but my guilt over not seeing our ajumma for so long was stronger, so we went. She jumped out of her chair and said that she thought we'd moved! Then she reminded us that it had been two months since our last visit and I vowed never to go that long again. After stuffing ourselves full of yummy food, we decided that taking the train home was irresponsible and we needed to walk back. Molly just couldn't hang.

• Finally built up the courage to take the train to Seoul. Our first train ride to the mall was only 6 stops (~20 minutes). The train ride to Seoul is 26 stops (~1.5 hours). Despite the crowded conditions and lack of air, the kids did well and we made it to Aggie's house in a nice puddle of sweat.

Lollipops are the easiest way to get everyone to behave.

• The next day we decided to try out the kids on the local buses. 

• We rode up to post, ran some errands, then tried out a bus to see if it would take us home. It didn't, but it did drop us off in front of the kids' cafe with the trampolines and sandboxes. Steve thought it would be super fun to walk home from there.... the kids did not necessarily agree (neither did I...) but once Steve mentioned ice cream, 2/3 of us perked up.

As seen inside the convenience store- they sell these cups of ice, then you pour in whichever packet + booze and voila- you don't mind sweating your guts out while walking all over creation. Sadly, I cannot partake, so I continued to mind walking everywhere and sweating my guts out.

Ice cream and lotto tickets

• Monsoon season is in full swing here and we haven't seen the sun in well over a week. We have been trying to keep busy, but with no car, it's feeling a bit difficult. We've tried some indoor activities.

Chores

Staring at each other

Modeling eye pro

"Cooking" lunch

Reading

Napping (who needs pants?)

TV

Rainy walks to the store

Rainy walks to the bus stop

• And thanks to Aggie's generous hospitality, we have been to Seoul about three times this past week to cure our rainy boredom. She is so sweet to host our sweaty selves. The kids have the time of their lives and everyone sleeps good that night.

"Learning" all the way to Seoul

Meanwhile, those of us without a seat are smushed into this...

I scream,

you scream,

we all scream for ice cream!

Riding the bus through Seoul

Waiting to catch a train home

Sleepy babes

• Yesterday we rode the train up to post (in the pouring rain) to go bowling. Unfortunately, everyone else had the same idea, but there were two lanes open. The kids beat the pants off of us and I found bowling with kids (while trying to bowl a game myself) to be quite stressful. Sam is already asking to go back to "the bowling pin" and play again.

• In closing, here is a picture of my only friend left in town.

Love her and hope she never dies