2 years down, 1 more to go.......I hope

We've been in korea for almost 2 years now! Crazy....looking back now it doesn't feel like it's been that long, but from day to day it seems to draaaagg...

Anyways, this last month has been hard. Tim was sent to WLC which is a warrior leadership course for soldiers in an NCO possition. Anyone who wants to be promoted to E5 has to go, now he just has to go to his promotion board and he'll be promoted. In fact, he got a call from an NCO in his platoon today trying to get him to go to the board in 2 days....yeah..right.. that's not enough time to prepare. He'll most likely be going in August though. Which is a good thing...he wants to go, just not when he's told only 2 days in advance and given no time to study. Anyways, he was gone at WLC for 17 days, it was like basic training all over again. He wasn't allowed to use his phone all day so usually called me after 7 sometime to say goodnight.

That weekend after he came back he was given the weekend off to recover so we took advantage of that and went to a festival and Luau that was going on at Camp Casey. Which i was really excited to go to, until we got there... We went at about noon and were surprised to see that the only thing happening then was their "yard sale" which was just two little areas set up with peoples "junk" scattered on folding tables, and a tent in the middle selling beer and liquor. When we checked the schedule for the events nothing else started until 3:30, so we weren't about to just stand around for 3 hours doing nothing while we waited for the concert of some guy we'd never heard of, and a "luau" hosted by koreans.....no thanks. The Luau might've been alright, but nothing compared to a real one in Hawaii, which we are going to Honolulu in 3 weeks..so I would rather experience one there. So that was pretty disappointing... it would have been nice if they had advertised the schedule better so that we would have known to go later in the afternoon.

Tim on the company's softball team, though he left for WLC right when they started having games so he's only been able to go to 2-3 of them. I've make it to 2 of the games this week to watch him play. They were saying tonight was probably their last game though..I don't know why.I hope not though, I enjoy watching my man play. =)

Next week Tim's Mom and Sis get here, on thursday morning. We're planning on taking the early bus to meet them, we'll arrive like two hours after their plane lands. It's okay though because they'll be waiting on a bus that leaves at 10 so we'll still be there before that, so either way they would have been waiting.

We're really excited for them to get here =)) we'll have so much to do! I just hope Tim gets enough days off to spend with them. It just sucks because he is on night shift so when we do anything or go anywhere he'll have to pull an all nighter and just not get any sleep. And there is always the risk of being called in. EVERY TIME we try and leave Uijeongbu, especially when we try to go to Seoul he gets called in. I'm not exagerating in the least bit. Last time we went to Seoul, we were half way there on the train(which is an hour long ride incase you're wondering) and he got a call to come in to work. It never fails. So we'll be worrying about that anytime we go anywhere. It's not like he can put in a pass either, since he's "in system" it's the same as being "in the field" and they're not allowed to put in passes when they're in the field.

All day I've been looking at other people's blogs that are living or lived in the Seoul area to get ideas of places to go and things to see. I got to looking because I was trying to find how to get to Dobongsan Mountain and came across someone's blog that lives in Seoul. Then from there I just kept finding more and more blogs of people around here talking about the food and places they like to go. It's awesome! Made me realize I really should take pictures of seriously "everything" I see and do here, because I didn't realize til now how interesting it is... I forgot just how excited I was coming here and learning about their culture, now I'm so used to it, since it's now my LIFE...I forgot how interesting other people would find it. So from now on I am going to try my best to remember my camera and take pictures of my favorite places and things that we do from day to day. Maybe I will add some pictures to this post that I took when I first got here... I think I will. Actually I will make New posts specifically for those pictures since there are so many, but I will add a picture I found on someone's blog of the view from the top of Mt. Dobongsan.

April 27, 2010

Spring is finally here!!! I've been waiting sooo long for that. =)
Okay, going to try and update the best I can but I know it's been awhile, again!
First of all, Tim and I are STILL in korea... Tim has been working craaazy hours and I hardly EVER see him, but we make it work and try to stay positive. He is now starting a new shift schedule and working 60 hour weeks instead of 44 so now I REALLy won't see him at all. So things are pretty stressful right now, but we are going on vacation in a couple months so that should really help!
We are planning a trip to Hawaii for the summer. June 24th-July 6th. Tim's mom and sister are coming here to korea to visit from June 10th-June 24th. Then the 4 of us will fly to Honolulu and meet up with Robins mom and Vicki. It should be an awesome time, but it's always stressful planning, since I have to wait on Tim's leave packet to be approved, and we all know how slowly the army moves, and there's no guarantee they will approve it so we can't really make any hotel or airfare reservations until that is done.
The last couple months have been pretty eventful I suppose. Tim had to travel to Camp Carrol which is about 5 hours away from here, to work for about a month. So since I wasn't going to see him for so long we decided I should fly home to visit with family and friends. I was home Feb 26th-April 2nd. It was a really great time catching up with everyone and doing some things that I can't do over here. There's sooo much shopping in America! =) Even going grocery shopping is sooo much better there then it is here. We are VERY limited on what we can get here. The best part of the trip was all the baby time I got with my now 1 year old niece! Since Margaret and Jamin were living at our parents while I was back, I got to see Elena pretty much every day. She had grown SO much since the last time I saw her in July! She's starting to walk a little, and she's imitating sounds.. we taught her how to tickle people and as she does it she says "tickle, tickle", kinda. She says, "dada", "mama", and she also trys to say "thank you", "hi","achoo" after she sneezes which is more like "choo!". I can't remember any more.. but it's really cute to listen to her try and talk. Her favorite things are going through mommy's purse (and pretty much everything else) and playing with every one's cell phones. She almost always had a cellphone in her hands! I definitely got my baby fix for a little bit! =)
I did a little traveling on the road while I was back too, my cousin Alicia and I drove 8 hours to Milwaukee to stay at our Aunt Vals, and from there took a day trip to Chicago. That was such a blast! It was a very spur of the moment trip, so we were really wingin' it. We got there mid-morning and started out just walking around and found a visitor center, from there we did a little shopping and found souvenirs. Then we grabbed a bite to eat at Gino's Chicago-style pizza, which was amazing! After that, did more shopping and made our way over to Sears/Willis tower and did the skydeck tour. They have this new addition where they built a glass floor that you can walk out on to, 1500 feet in the air! crazy scary! It was so much fun though. By the time we had made it to the Sears tower it was about 7pm so this was the last thing we did. I will post some pictures later from that trip.
The last weekend I was home, my mom had invited our family over for lunch and games. Family from Lincoln, and Milwaukee came, along with our family that lives close by. It was a really good time! That same weekend I also made it over to Tim's family gathering, all of his aunts/uncle and his grandparents got together for dinner on Sunday, that was really fun as well!
Other then all that, most of the time I just caught up on some much needed shopping, and hanging out with friends.
Since I've been back not a whole lot has been going on with me because I was really sick for 2 weeks. It all started on the 10th, my throat was really sore, congestion, and I had body aches and just felt completely EXHAUSTED. So I was in bed for 3-4 days trying to get rest and taking flu/cold medicine. I had a fever of of 102 one of the nights. after the 4th day I finally started feeling better and actually managed to get out of bed for a couple days but then on the 16th it took a turn for the worse, my throat really swelled up and hurt and white spots appeared, and I got a really bad ear ache, my congestion got worse, and my stomach ached as well. So I went in to the TMC to see a doctor about it, it was a complete waste of my time though. He took one look at my throat and was just like it looks like a viral infection, I can't do anything. He didn't even test me for anything or examine my body or anything. He wouldn't prescribe me anything for my throat OR ears. He just gave me naproxen for pain and sent me home. Well obviously that didn't help and I was getting worse, my fever came back so I went into the ER on Saturday. The medic there thought I might have strep throat, so he tested me but told me he couldn't prescribe anything until the results came back. So once again went home with no meds, but he did set up an appointment for me on Monday. So went back in to the TMC on Monday and this time actually got a GREAT doctor, she actually examined me and said she wanted to do blood work to test me for mono because the strep test they did came back negative. So they drew some blood. Then they hooked me up to an IV because I was dehydrated and they wanted to give me some steroids right away to get the swelling in my throat to go down. After giving me 2 bags of fluids for my dehydration she came back in and told me they looked at my blood work and saw signs of bacterial infection so she wanted to go ahead and give me a penicillin shot for that. (Hmm if the first doctor would have actually tested me instead of diagnosing me on an assumption then he would've known it was bacterial, not viral, and I wouldn't have been in pain for so long) After that I got 1 more bag of fluids since I was still a little dehydrated, and then sent me home with some medicine!! A couple days later, the swelling went down a lot and white spots went away..it's taken about a week for the swelling to completely go down but I'm much better now, still taking my medicine until it's gone for good. Praying it doesn't come back!
Since I've gotten better I was finally able to hang out with friends this weekend, Sunday we had people over to play rockband, and yesterday Tim and I went golfing with our friend Jared. I think today we are just going to take it easy and spend time just the two of us. These are the first days Tim has gotten off in over 2 weeks so we've been taking advantage of it since starting tomorrow he will be working 60 hour weeks.
Well, I think I got everything!! haha that was really long!

Christmas Time is here!

I know, I've been slacking again. It's been really busy this time of year with the holidays.
We had another big(ish) thanksgiving this year with friends and some of the single guys from Tim's platoon. There was lots of food of course! & I made my first thanksgiving turkey.. I think that's a milestone event isn't it? I had Tim carve it, he was afraid of breaking it *rollseyes* because it was so pretty, he's silly. Also made honey glazed ham, stuffing, green bean casserole, & pumpkin cheesecake.
Another thing that happened since I last posted is we got a beagle puppy, he was 2 months old, and very very cute! We named him Ralphie, like from "a christmas story". Well, things didn't really go well with that, turned out he had distemper..he died a week after we got him. =( That was really hard on us because it happened really fast.. He got sick on friday so I took him to the vet, they tested him and there was a faint possitive for distemper, they told me to keep an eye on him and if he gets worse to bring him back, Tim found him dead saturday morning. Poor little guy.. we know there wasn't anything we could have done, he had it before we got him.
Since then, nothing eventful has really happened. Tim's been working night shift this month, and this week he's working half days before he goes on christmas break thursday!
We're really excited for christmas! We plan on just staying home that morning and afternoon, just the two of us.. opening gifts and making dinner. Then our anniversary will be on the 29th, we're going to a korean movie theatre to watch New moon. =) We haven't been to an actual theatre in korea yet and we hear they are amazing, they're technology here is just so much better then in america, I guess we will be the judge of that! No plans for new years eve yet, probably will spend that with friends.. A lot of our friends leave the first couple weeks of January =( we'll only have a couple left after that.. our best friends left in october.
Anyways, nothing else really, I'll update again after the holidays!
Ruthy♥

lovin' the wheather!!

I'm getting a little better at this huh! My life has gotten a lot less hectic recently so I actually have time to keep up with this thing.
Tim is back in system so he is working day shift(8am-8pm), he's working today and has tomorrow and Friday off, then works Saturday & Sunday and then has the next three days off after that. It gets confusing sometimes but that's the army! He's been really exhausted lately since Monday they went to the field they had to draw weapons at 4, which means he had to wake up at 3 after working late Sunday night, I believe he said he slept for 3-4 hours. He has to wake up at 5 to go to p.t. by 6...so he's pretty worn out. I'm sure these next days he has off he's just going to want to sleep.
I've really been thinking lately about looking for a job. The only reason I'd been waiting before was because we were supposed to be moving down to Carrol so I didn't want to even bother, then we went on vacation, but now that we're back and we know we won't be moving to Carrol until next summer.. I really think I should get a job. We could use the money since we're looking at buying a car and we want to take an MWR trip. I'm not even sure that there's anything available.. the only thing that they probably have here is either the commissary or px as a cashier.. but I'm not even sure that they'd have anything because it seems they already have more then enough employees. I guess I'll just have to wait and see what happens, I'll keep ya'll posted.
Anyways, I need to go sweep and mop because our landlord is coming over... and our floors are pretty dirty!

♥Ruthy

09-24-09; Fall is fiiiinalllly here!! YAY!!

It is such a beautiful day today, I felt the need to write about it!!!
Fall is here, finally! I woke up today at around 6am, started some coffee and went to check my email.. our computer is on the East side of our building so we can get a perfect view of the sun rising from here. I glanced out the window and realized there was a bit of fog so I opened the window to see how it felt outside. The moment I opened the window I got this gush of cool, fresh air! It was wonderful! Not really that cold, maybe to some people..but this is my kind of wheather so it's beautiful to me! I can't wait to finish my breakfast and take a shower so that I can go for a walk! I can't wait to be fully emerged in the beauty of this day.

Sorry to those who follow this blog, I've been absent for a while now..it was a busy summer with Ashley coming to visit us for almost a month and then going home to family for a month..it was a GREAT summer! One of the best times we've had together..
While we were home we spent a lot of time with family, Tim spent EVERY DAY with his best friend Greg.. we went camping, went to Worlds of Fun in Kansas City, spent a lot of time just hanging out with family and friends. I miss it already, have to wait another 9 months(at least) until we can see them! We're not sure if we'll visit home between transitioning to our new duty station, or if we'll have to wail until later.
As of right now, our tour is subject to change from 2 years-to 3 years(boo..I know) because just this month I believe they made accompanied tours automatically 3 years, but since we got command sponsored a few months ago we don't really fall under that rule but it's still subject to change. Anyways, we'll know maybe within the next 6 months.. our luck they'll probably tell us the month before we're supposed to leave that we have to stay another year.
Right now, we're just trying to enjoy our time here the best we can! Hoping to go on an MWR trip sometime. They organize tours to different places that surround here, e.g., China, Thailand, austrailia, etc.

Anyways, I need a shower, I stink! ;)

♥Ruthy

April 23, 2009

First things first, I am an auntie!!!! =) Sooo excited about this. Margaret gave birth to her first child, Elena Lupita Howell on April 20th at 9:55 A.M. She is 7lb 12 oz, 21in long. She is just so precious and beautiful! I cannot wait to meet her in July!! It's really quite frustrating only being able to see pictures of her.
Tim and I have been quite busy lately. He's been working almost every day for the last 12 days..the beginning of last week he had warrior stakes on mon-tue, it's a huge competition between all the companies at CRC to challenge them physically, he had several different races and ruck marches. So, that just drained his energy completely. Then he had to work shift the rest of the week and now this week he's started softball practice.
I've been busy trying to keep him happy, and take care of things. We just got our guest bed so I've been trying to get that room ready for Ashley's visit next month. I'm teaching myself some new recipes as well, tonight I'm going to make adobo, it's a filipino dish, kind of like stew.
It's amazing just how hard it is to keep up with house work, I'll be cleaning all day long and it'll seem that I haven't gotten much accomplished at all! How irritating is that? I try though...
Other then all that, we are trying to get things set in place for our visit home, Tim's leave packet has made it to quite a few people to be signed, I think only 2 more people need to sign their approval and we'll be good, not sure what we have to do once that's done..I guess just purchase our plane tickets! I really wish I could have done that a long time ago though because fare prices have gone up $200.
Our Command Sponsor paperwork keeps coming back to us!! Tim just took it to captain King this time and asked her what all needed to be finished because it gets to S1 and they look at it and tell us one thing at a time that isn't finished correctly and send it back, so it's like everyweek we are geting it back and have to make changes then send it to them just for them to send it right back. Anyways, King just wrote down everything she saw was wrong and Tim now just has to take it to the people that didn't finish filling out whatever areas. Ugh, people are so frustrating.. I just want it to be done so that I can get the rest of our belongings moved here finaly!
Well, I would love to update more but I really have a lot to get done today so I better get to it!

04.07.09

Hey Everyone, I had a little time to kill before I have to run errands.. so just wanted to give some updates!
Tim and I are doing wonderful here in korea, we have found some really great places to shop and eat. In fact, there is a ribs place we go to just about every week now! The food is awesome! We get to grill our own ribs and they bring out sides of vegetables and a macaroni/crab salad, this really good vegetable soup, it's really spicy but we have gotten used to spicey since moving here =). The owners there have memorized what we eat so we don't even have to order anymore!

We FINALY got our command sponsor paperwork in! I think I told you we already did earlier, but it came back to us saying I had to get a checkup at the TMC to make sure I wasn't retarded. That was really frustrating, and they tried sending it back another time saying some information was wrong, but it was stuff that we hadn't even filled out it had to be someone at the office there. So anyways, everythings taken care of and hopefuly they will just approve the darn thing already!
We've been looking into geting a car here, it's one of the things we are permited here. We were just going to have Tim's car sent here but we would have to pay for that and it would cost us in the thousands, so it doesn't make any sense when I was going to buy a car soon anyways and they will send it home for free. I've already contacted someone who had put an ad in the stars and stripes paper.. so we're waiting on that info. I'm really excited to get a car! I am so sick of cab drivers and them ripping us off, never knowing if they are going to take us where we want to go!
Oh, and we got a computer!!! It's really nice, HP.. I don't really know much about it, Tim's the one that picked it out but he said the storage on there is good size, graphics are great and it's really fast. we got a monitor to go with it for pretty cheap too. I'm pretty sure we bought this for cheaper then what our laptop was! And this one is so much better..so I am happy. =)

One thing I have done here, is learned to cook! haha! I must say.. I'm pretty amazing. =) I found this chili recipe that is exquisite! Tim's favorite is my fried tacos, it's probably the least healthy thing on earth! I am so excited that it is warming up now! I am hoping to grill soon, maybe on easter?
Wow, it is almost easter.. Margaret is supposed to have her baby next week!! I can't even believe how soon that is!!! I have been spoiling that child way too much though, and I am going to keep on spoiling her! Haha I love being an aunt.
Okay, well I really need to get going now, get some stuff done!
More later.