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Coming from South Korea!

As much as I'm dreading this, I know I need to get these on here and put a synopsis of my trip to Korea. There's just so much to it and so many pictures! I tried going through all my video as well and finally gave up on that one. I was getting too overwhelmed. Maybe next time with a regular update I'll add some Kore footage, but for today I'm simplifying and just doing a re-cap with photos. Here goes!!

I left on Fri morning, Oct. 16th. I arrived in Seoul at 6:30 Saturday night. (About 3:30 am. our time) and looked for Richard for an hour and a half!! I was amazed how few people spoke English and they were all trying to get me a taxi or a train! I had no way to phone him since he doesn't own a phone there and knew no one to get a hold of him. I figured he was on his way, but didn't know if he got lost or robbed or what! I paged him several times and decided to wait at the USO. He finally showed up and we took the city bus to the base 3 1/2 hours away.

The next day was Sun and I got the grand tour of the base and we went to church, where only 6 other members (give or take each Sunday) attended. Very interesting. On Mon we hung out some more and went to his shop. I left very sick and was still feeling pretty bad. That day the weather was windy, cold, and rainy. Two guys that Richard works with and hangs out with the most came and got us. You can only have a car if your are a Senior NCO so he's the only one that has a car. They took me to the infamous A-town. I've heard Richard talk about this place quite a bit so I was excited to go. It's about a 10-15 min drive from the base and is basically an ally with a few shops, restaurants, and mainly bars that the Americans from the base go to. I had my first taste of Korean BBQ there-Bulgogi. It was pretty good!

On Tues. we went golfing, hung out with this guy that Richard golfs with that wants to learn English, packed our stuff up, went to Gunsan (the town closest to Kunsan) and went out to dinner down in Gunsan with a bunch of people from Richard's shop. I found the Hanbok's (which is the traditional dress worn for holidays and back in the older days) but discovered that they are pretty expensive (about $200) so I decided my girls would not be getting one of those for sure! They are very pretty, though.

On Wed. we left the base. I couldn't leave that place fast enough! I don't know how he manages to live there! We took a city bus to Seoul and then figured out the Subway station. Here's our cards we each had with pre-loaded money we put on. We just set it on a sensor and it paid for our trip to the next station. It was so easy to get around and find everywhere we needed to go once we figured out how they had it organized. It was an amazing system they set up.

On Thursday we went to the Army base in Seoul and took a tour we had arranged through them to go to the DMZ (Demiliterized Zone) between North Korea and South Korea. I wish I would have gone back and taken a copy of the release form we had to sign stating that we understood our risks for being shot and killed by the North Koreans during our tour and how we were to behave. Our cameras could be confiscated if we ever took a picture that was unauthorized, etc. We went to the Joint zone that we share with the North Koreans and went to a briefing and then go to see the building where the peace treaty was signed. We even got to stand in North Korea for a few min. Richard is standing in front of the door that the North Koreans enter when they meet with the UN. He's standing with a South Korean gaurd. This picture on the left is a picture of the North Korean side of the Joint Force area. I am standing on the steps of the "Freedom House" a place built for the North Korean and South Korean families that were seperated to be able to meet and visit with each other. The place has never been used, however, because the North Koreans will not authorize their people to meet there. The building on the left is where we were in at the picture above. You can barely see the North Korean gaurd standing on the front of their building. He kept pulling his binoculars out and watching us. It was a little creepy. We were told that if approached by a North Korean we were not to acknowledge, smile, wave, etc. as they could shoot us immediately. I was allowed to zoom in and get a picture. You had to ask permission before you took pictures if you weren't sure. I thought it was odd that I couldn't smile or wave at the North Koreans, but I was allowed to take a picture!

We were then bussed to the actual Strip of land that seperates the 2 countries. You weren't allowed to take pictures of the area... I'm guessing they didn't want people to be able to map out the land to prepare for infiltration or something. You could take a picture from behind the yellow line. There was a viewing area before the yellow line with those binocular things you can put a quarter in (I'm sure it was won and not a quarter, though) but no cameras were allowed. I thought it was a funny sight to see all these people trying to get a shot from the yellow line, so that's the picture I took. After we got back from our tour we went to the Korean War Memorial Museum. This day was probably my most favorite day. I just found the whole DMZ thing very fascinating and really got a grasp about how terrorized the South Koreans are with the whole North Korean thing and how much North Koreans hate the US and South Koreans. My grandpa fought in the Korean war so it was very interesting to learn so much about it. We spent several hours in the museum and enjoyed watching all the videos and clips and displays there. Never could have done that with 5 kids trailing us!! These pillars lined all the way around the front of the museum. Each pillar has so many names of people that died in the war. You can see how many pillars are down the row on each side with that many names, and then these pillars surrounded the museum on the sides and front. I had no idea how many people had died in this war!

On Friday we found the South Korea temple. It was right in the middle of a neighborhood! We weren't able to do a session but it was neat to be able to find it and see it. We could see the Moroni from the main street and just kept following it into the neighborhood where the temple popped out around the corner!

After finding the temple we decided to find some of the palaces on our list. There were only certain times that English tours were and fortunately in all my online research, I found the times as well. It coordinated so well! We were able to go to the

Changdeokgung Palace and had an English tour at 1:30 and had just enough time to go across to another side of Seoul and make it to the 3:30 tour of Gyeongbokgung Palace.

So the Changdeokgung Palace was the 2nd palace and built in 1405 and was the principle place for the Joseon Kings and also the best preserved. The grounds has a public palace area, royal family residence building and a rear garden. This picture is the public palace area and these markers are where the dignitaries had to lind up next to their assigned marker based on rank when events happened. The picture on the left is inside the building you see where the people line up and it has the King's throne. This palace had descendants of the Royal family living in the family quarters until sometime in the late 1980's. After seeing the quarters, I decided I would prefer my own home. It was nothing like the castles we saw in Germany where it was totally decked out! These palaces were very sparsley furnished and had no updating at all!! The floors were heated with underground pits they stocked coal in and then chimneys to the side of the buildings released the smoke. It was very interesting.

So next we went to the Northern palace, Gyeonbokgung Palace, placed in the northern part of Seoul. The Changdeokgung palace is the Eastern palace. It was built in 1395. It is known to be the most beautiful (I thought so as well ... seemed most complete and furnished the most). The set up was almost identical to the other palace as far as main court, King's quarters, Queen's quarters, concubines, etc. The inside looked very different inside the quarters, however.

This is a picture of the pond on the grounds and the building was where they would do outside dinners and dances. I just thought it was so serene and beautiful. It is one of the most complete areas of the palaces. After touring the two palaces we also went to the National palace museum and the National Folk Museum.

This is an example of the queen's chambers. They had all these room right next to each other and with door ways into each other, but each room is very small.

Behind the palace is the "Blue House" Blue represents royalty and power. This is the President of South Korea's house. I thought it was funny that their president has a Blue house and we have a White house for our president. An interesting story about this that we learned at the DMZ was several years ago some North Koreanv soldiers came through an underground tunnel and showed up on this street to assassinate the President. 28 of the North Korean soldiers were killed, one escaped back into N. Korea and one was captured.

In the National Folk Museum, they had a display of different Hangbok's. I wish you could see the craftsm

anship and handwork they do on some of these dresses!

After going through the museums, we went to Insa-Dong, which is a huge market place meant for every tourist! It has all the traditional items one would want to remind them of the their trip. I was able to get pretty much everything I wanted for all the kids and I. I really wanted to get a celadon vase, which is a type of pottery that the Koreans perfected back in the Dynasty ages. China and other countries have tried to copy the technique but weren't able to. It was once so precious that only royalty could own it. Now that modern technology is here, it is more readily available, but still very expensive. I was able to get a pretty large piece for a great price so I was very excited about that. I had really wanted to get a "knock-off" hand bag from Gucci or Prada or something, but there were not booths that sold anything like that. I can't believe I didn't take any pictures of the market place because it was crazy! But I was probably overwhelmed with everything! We could barely walk back to our hotel from the subway we were so exhausted that night!!

Saturday we got up and knew it was our last day to get everything finished off our list! We went to the last Palace that remained out of the 5. It is the Deoksuggung Palace and located on the corner of Seoul's busiest downtown intersectio. It is from the Joseon Dynasty as well. We got there just as they were doing a change of gaurds ceremony which was so fun to watch! Maybe another time I'll add video of it. The costumes and music were amazing! There must have been some heritage thing going on because they had a fashion show going on from the main palace as well as different booths set up demonstrating how to do the knot work they are known for, tea ceremonies, a booth where they did people's hair in the traditional way, etc. It was so fun to watch and see. On the outside, they had a place set up where you could try on the Hangbok, so I decided to take them up on that opportunity. I was glad I didn't spend $200 on one because I totally felt huge and prego! We were not too far from the Dongdaemum Market, which is another huge market, but more locals go to it. It is more clothing. I was really hoping to get a good purse, but after being on the army base and asking around, we found out that really the market outside of Osan (base Richard was supposed to go to) was the best place for a knock-off. It was still fun to go through there, but since it was a Saturday it was incredibly crowded and crazy! After going through the market we went and looked for the Korean Village. It was so wierd because it's right in the middle of the crazy city. It's another one of those walk through neighborhood streets and then you come across it.

It was like stepping back in ti

me 100 years ago. It was really neat to see demonstrations of schooling, Kimchi cooking, floor mat making, rice grinding, etc. It was neat to walk through. We got to watch some traditional dancing and music as well.

The last main thing that was on our list was to ride up the North Seoul Tower, which is like the equivilant to the Space Needle in Seattle. It was probably one of the hardest places for us to find, but after asking several locals, we found it. It is a very popular place to go ... at least on the weekend! We should have went on Thurs, but oh well. We walked to the base of Mt. Namsam and then waited in line for about an hour and took a cable car up the mountain. After getting off we still had to hike a bit to get to the tower. After getting into the tower you have to buy another ticket and we waited almost an hour for our number to come up to get on the elevator to take you to the top of the tower where you can overlook all of Seoul. There was a huge multi country air show going on and we just happened to get to the top of the tower and in front of one of a few windows that overlooked a huge firework show going on. It was really cool to see. Then we waited in line for another hour to get down the elevator and waited another hour to get on the cable car. Then we dragged ourselves back to the hotel room.

Well, believe it or not, I didn't post all my pictures. I am now glad I didn't add video!! I'm exhausted and my kids are hungry and fighting, so I better get off. It was a great opportunity and a fabulous trip! I'll post again in the future and add some video and Halloween updates. So long for now! Kim

Quick update

It's been a while since I've posted! I don't really have any pictures to add, but I wanted to catch up before leaving for Korea, as I know I'll have lots to put on then. That's probably the biggest news right now going on. I leave Friday for Korea to spend 10 wonderful days visiting Richard, seeing what his daily life is like, and then touring Seoul. I'm so excited! I'm flying Richard's mom in on Thurs and will leave Fri morning, getting there Sat. evening Korea time. I am so grateful for Richard's mom to be willing to watch my kids, as I know this is not just a simple task! It's a wonderful opportunity and experience I get to have thanks to her. I would not have been able to go had she not been so gracious to volunteer! My thoughts and prayers will be with her and the kids, since this is the first time I've really ever left them (discounting when Bradly was in PICU in San Antonio) and have a lot of anxiety with this, but I couldn't pass by this opportunity!

Since last posting, Rylan has broken his wrist jumping off the trampoline and landing on his hands. It broke his wrist and into the growth plate. He's had a cast for 5 weeks now and will be getting it off tomorrow. He was able to participate in the first tournament of the season and the first weekend of games and then missed the rest of the season. The team had their last games yesterday. We thought for sure we'd have rainouts, but of course they didn't so he pretty well missed the whole season. It was heartbreaking for him, since baseball is his entire reason for existing, but he's survived. They are continuing practice on Fridays and have try-outs in Nov. The Spring season will come on quickly as they usually start regular practice in Jan.

Morgan continues to do Tiger Talents on Tuesdays at the school. This year they are going to do more singing then dancing and cheer, so she's excited about that. She loves to sing. She is also doing Achievement Days with the church twice a month on Tuesdays and also Volleyball for the next 6 weeks on Tuesdays. Tuesdays are a busy day for her!

Addison is in swim lessons that just started last week. She is just down the street at the Rec Center and goes Mon and Wed. She absolutely loves it and it's good for her to have something that is just "her own".

Bradly wants to sign up for basketball and that will be in Nov. It will be fun to see how he does. He is pretty tall for his age (even taller then Rylan was) so it will be fun to see how he does. He and Rylan go out and play baseball everyday and Rylan has been working on teaching Bradly to pitch so we may have another pitcher on our hands as well. They are outside everyday for hours.

Elayna is extremely verbal and has really changed over the summer! At the beginning of the summer she talked a little, but now she talks like a mini-adult. She's potty trained and loves to read. Her favorite is Dora the Explorer and we really have to monitor tv time. She loves to play pretend with Addison and enjoys playing board games with me and going to the park. Now that it's getting cold, we haven't really gone to the park and she really misses that. It's so quiet during the day with just her and then mass chaos when kids get home from school.

As for me ... my biggest accomplishment is finally running 3 miles straight. I did that right before the mornings turned cold. I've been going to the base each morning to work out, but it takes longer to drive back and forth then my actual work out! When I get back from Korea I plan to pay the $25 the Rec Center charges to use their facilities each month and then when the weather warms up again I'll run outside again. It has become a fun passion and great stress reliever. It gives me a sense of accomplishment and pride that I can do it. I never was a runner and really struggled with it, so it's been a great sense of satisfaction for me. Most of my spare time lately has been researching Korea and the things I want to see. I've got it pretty well organized and am just ready to go.

Well, that's about it for now! Look for my posting the end of this month with fabulous pictures!! I can't wait! Love to all! Kim

Busy as always!

Well, I really shouldn't so long between postings!! We have had so much going on, that I'm afraid it's another long posting. Since we last left off ... My sister came to visit near the end of July. It was a lot of fun to have her come with her kids and let cousins play and her and I have some stress relief and shopping fun! Two days before her coming, I ended up going to the ER for what ended up being another kidney stone. This one was by far the most painful one I'd had, but apparantly I passed it, because I haven't had anymore problems. It was a relief to have her here in case I was going to have to have surgery again! We took the kids swimming and we also took them to the Dinosaur Park in Ogden. It's such a cute park to take kids to. They had a great time.

She left and I took a few days to regroup and then packed up and headed to Richard's parents house for the last week of July. They live in a beautifuly area of Idaho called Garden Valley. I always love going up into the mountains and being there in the summer!! We stopped at Aunt Bobbi's house in Mountain Home and the kids had a blast catching chickens.

Rylan got to help Grandpa out by mowing the lawn for him. I don't know who was more happy ... Grandpa that he didn't have to do it, or Rylan for feeling like he get a pre-driving lesson! He thought it was great to ride on the lawn mower. I was a little worried, since a few weeks before his Uncle George hit a hole and flipped into the river, lawn mower and all. We didn't have any major accidents and he really enjoyed himself.

Going to Grandma and Granpa's in the summer just isn't complete without floating down the river that is just right outside their house. By the end of July the water had gotten so low that we couldn't take the raft out and they had to use the inner tubes. It was a lot of fun and Elly enjoyed her first cold water experience!

We weren't sure if we'd be able to take Grandpa's 4 wheeler out because the battery was dead, but Grandpa fixed it and the kids had a great afternoon riding the loop around their house and through the yard. Elly kept screaming and raising her hands up high like she was riding a roller coaster. Rylan and Morgan enjoyed being able to drive it by themselves, with me on the back.

Our final day at G&G's was the last day of July. We headed back towards Boise and stayed at Annette's house. Isaac was getting baptized later that afternoon. Aunt Liz was there with all her kids as they were heading to Jeff's family cabin in Montana. Grandma and Grandpa Holman were there and we had fun hanging at the water park. My kids slept in a tent out in her backyard and the adults stayed up late into the night chatting.

My parents followed my home and they stayed with me for a week. We got home Sunday, Monday was catch up day, Tuesday we went to Temple Square and went through the Conference Center and the Beehive House . This picture is at the top of the conference center and you can see the top of the SLC Temple on the left of the fountain. Wed my mom and I went shopping for some furniture decor that she needed for her house and that night my dad went with me to Rylan's pitching lessons. I can't remember what we did for the next two days now that's it's been so long, but I'm sure we had lots of fun!

After my parents left it was time to get ready for school. Morgan's 10th birthday was the day before the first day of school, but she went with her Aunt Shelda to a family wedding in John Day, OR and didn't get home until late so we celebrated her birthday on the first day of school.

Rylan is now in the 8th grade Morgan is now a 5th grader!

And the twins are in the 1st grade together, in the same class.

Morgan had a good birthday. She asked for a Tinkerbell theme and got a Tinkerbell cake. She got a Ripstick, a Korean outfit from Richard, and I got her a cheerleading type skirt with matching skirt.

This last weekend was my birthday, Labor Day weekend, and a baseball tournament for Rylan. My Visiting Teacher made me my favorite cake and that was a great treat. Richard sent my flowers, and we enjoyed awesome weather and watching Rylan's team win 2 and lose 2 games in the tournament. We traveled to Spanish Fork (about an hour 1/2 away, but with construction it took 2 hours) and had a game at 6:00 and 8:00 p.m. on Fri (my birthday). Most of the team got a hotel in Provo and stayed the night. Rylan stayed with his best friend and I packed pajamas with me and the other kids and I drove back. We got home around midnight and then left about 10:30 the next morning for the other 2 games. It was fun. So ... I'm all caught up now. 34 doesn't seem so bad. Wonder if my mid-life crisis will come at my midlife age of 35? Hope all is well and enjoying the beautiful fall! Kim

Summer Fun!

Ok, get ready for a long post! Now that I've learned you can make your postings on here into a photo book, I've decided that this is my best journal! I'm excited to learn about this new feature and can't wait to use it and see how it turns out. Now on to the posting!

The end of June sent us to the Oquirrh Mt. Temple open house. Rylan didn't go but the rest of the kids and myself went to South Jordan area and met a friend that I hadn't seen since high school. It was so neat to go through the temple and so much fun to meet my friend and get to know her and her family!

A few days later, the twins celebrated their 6th birthday!! YIKES! Where has the time gone? Bradly wanted a Transformer's birthday, and Addi wanted a Barbie Princess brithday. They seemed to have a lot of fun and enjoyed it.

We've done so much this summer, the time just seems to be flying! We decided to go on a "fun family" vacation. Well, as fun as it can be with a single mom and 5 lovely, LOUD, kids!! We broke up the trip by families geographically. This allowed only a few hours of driving each day and a chance to visit just about everyone on my side of the family.

The first stop was Boise, ID, to visit my sister Annette and her 3 kids. My kids always love to go visit Annette's. They have so much fun with dress-ups and their backyard. We just stayed one night and then the next day we headed to my parent's house in La Grande, OR. We took the kids to a fun park they have there and then we got some KFC. We just stayed one night at their house as well, and the next day we got up and drove to Portland, OR, to my grandma's house. The kids had fun at my Grandma's. She always has some bizarre toys she's collected somewhere and they played with those things and then she took us out to Red Robin. We took the dogs for walks around her track below her neighborhood and showed her the DVD that Jered made of our Disneyland trip. The next morning it was time to get up and hit the road again. We drove to our final destination, Eugene, OR.

My sister Liz lives in Eugene. She just had a baby and we couldn't wait to see her! It was my sister's first girl. She is so cute! The first day we got there, I heard of a highschool friend in the hospital on bed rest with a baby. I thought it would be fun to surprise her. It took her a while to figure out who I was until I started talking and then she recognized me right away. It was fun to visit with her and catch up on things.

The next day, we decided to go to the beach. I love going to the Oregon Coast. Liz lives fairly close to Florence and I really wanted to go inside a Lighthouse. We went to one of the brightest lighthouses along the western coasline. Unfortunately, we didn't have enough cash for the parking, so we decided to risk it and just hike up there and back "real fast" before anyone realized we didn't have a tag. It was only a 1/2 mile, but with 8 kids and one in a stroller hiking up to a lighthouse in gravel seemed to be slower then we thought! After we got up there, they told us that it would be 40 more minutes before we could go through a tour. The tour lasts 20 min. Well, we all know that there was NO WAY my kids could wait 40 min to go through a 20 min tour and we had our car illigaly parked anyway! I had hoped they'd just let us poke our heads in. I really didn't care about a tour ... I just wanted to run to the top and go back down! Of course, they wouldn't let us. Oh well. We bagged the tour idea and ended up just going right back down. It was a beautiful lighthouse, and I really wish we could have gone through it, but I guess I'll add that to my list of things I plan to do once I have no kids left at home!

After that, we went and rented sandboards. It was extremely reasonable in price and so much fun! The sand dunes in Florence are huge and so bizarre, as you can't see ocean anywhere around the sand. The wind was out of control, and that made things a bit frustrating and made our time short there with little ones, but we had a great time and enjoyed trying a new activity.

After we got done hanging 10, we went to Moe's for some famous seafood. After leaving dinner, we went down to the beach to let the kids have fun. Once again, we came to a paid parking lot, so we thought we'd be daring criminals again and risk it. I had my sister's two boys while she fed her baby and the kids made me pretty nervous following the tide out. Sure enough, a sneaker wave came and got Bradly and I saw him about 1/2 a football field away, tumbling head over heels as a wave hit him from behind. Fortunately it pushed him to the shoreline, but I was afraid that when it retracted, it would continue taking him. I screamed at Rylan to grab him and fortunately he was able to get him out of the water. He was pretty worked up and that ended our day at the beach! Fortunately I had packed extra clothes for the kids!

We just chilled out the next day, and the day after that, we headed back on our way home. We stayed at my parents house for 2 days and got there the 4th of July. I was getting quite exhausted this time and Addi lost her chance to see the fireworks show so I put the younger kids to bed. I started feeling pretty guilty by 10 p.m. and so I took Morgan and Rylan to our church just a 1/4 mile from our house. We were able to see the fireworks at the college perfectly, so I sat in the car while they ran around the baseball field at our church and watched the firework show. Great 4th of July, huh!

We stopped at my sister's house in Boise and they took us to a fun park that has play equipment as well as water shooting out in fountains. The kids had so much fun and it was great to get them running their energy out! The next day, July 7th, we got home later that night.

It was good to finally be home, but we didn't have much time to recouperate! Wed., I had a friend that we'd been stationed with in Mt.Home come visit and spend the afternoon and evening. The next day Richard's parents and nephew came for 2 weddings we had that weekend. On Thurs. I went to my SIL's house to help set up for a dinner that her son and future bride were having. They decided to have a Luau, which the girl's and I performed in. For those that didn't know, while living in Italy, Morgan and I were able to take houla lessons and did some performances on the base there. So the girls and I did a houla for Dan and Ally's dinner. It was a lot of fun.

The next day (Fri) was their wedding in the Bountiful temple. I left the kids and went to it with Richard's parents. The officiator did an amazing job and I really loved listening to the things he had to say. It would have sucked to be the ones getting married, however. I'm sure they were wishing he would stop talking and just marry them! I can't remember a thing our officiator told Richard and I when we were getting married! But for me, it was wonderful to sit inside the temple and receive a reminder of the covenants I've made and listen to this man's wonderful words of wisdom. That night they had their reception at a beautfiul reception center down in SLC, so after the wedding, we got home, had lunch and got the kids ready for the reception. It was a very pretty place, but not a great place for my kids that get bored so easily. At around 8:00 I was pretty well done wrestling and intercepting my children so I opted to head home. I am so grateful I made that choice, because about 15 min after getting home, Elayna threw up ALL OVER THE PLACE!! During the reception, 4 other kids also got sick. I was sure it was food poisoning. Elly contintued to throw up every 10 min or so until finally at 12:30 a.m. I decided to take her to the ER. Finally at 3:30 a.m. they saw her and we got home shortly after that. When we got home I noticed that Addi threw up all over the couch. After getting her cleaned up and in bed as well, the phone rang at 4:30 a.m. Rylan had been spending the night at a friend's house and he also threw up at their house. When I got him, I saw he threw up all over their carpet, so I went home and got the carpet shampooer and shampooed their carpet. The parents never did wake up with me walking in and out of their house and shampooing their carpet! I finally got to bed at 5:30 a.m. and the kids got up about 8:30. UGH!

So now it's Sat. and we have another day of wedding plans. Shelda's last daughter was getting married that day. They had a luncheon, but I opted not to attend, with kids home sick. I took Morgan and we went to the wedding. It was such a sweet ceremony, but the poor bride and groom were so ill that they couldn't stand much and had trash cans behind them. I felt so horrible for them, but it will surely be a day they will never forget!!

They had their reception right after and unfotuantely, it was so nice outside and beautifully decorated. I wish I would have been able to help with the set up and take down. They did a great job, but with sick kids at home and no hubby, I ended up not being much help. The next morning, we got a phone call that several more people got the flu bug. Richard's parents were heading out to West Virginia and Rylan had a talk in sacrament. We have so many elderly in our ward, that I kept the kids home and sent Rylan to give his talk and come straight home. Besides, I had a friend in the States visiting while she is living in England. We had a house to clean and disinfect! Unfortunately that night I got it. Angela stayed away for most of Monday, but on Tues we went to SLC and met with another friend from Aviano and we had pedicures done. It was so relaxing and so much fun. We went out to dinner that night. Angela left on Wed and at about 1:30 in the morning on Wed Bradly came up from his room. He threw up all over the floor. Now we had one more person to finish it. Morgan got sick on Thurs and we have about a week before we have visitors again, so we are now done and catching up! Whew! It's been an exhausting few weeks. Angela's family ended up also getting it and I think almost 30 people that I now know of have been infected by this horrible stomache flu!

Our other news is that we got word that we are just keeping our follow-on here at Hill. We knew that orders would probably change with Richard making Master Sgt. He called me while on vacation saying they officially canceled our orders to South Dakota and to put in another dream sheet. He asked the assignment clerk what his options were and it was, Kadena, Japan; Langley, Virginia; Warrens AFB in Georgia; and Shreveport, Louisiana. He wasn't too thrilled with those options, so he asked to just follow-on here at Hill since we are already here and they approved it. Of course, things can still change, but it's not likely, so it looks like we're staying put. I'm a little disapointed, but it's where we're supposed to be, so I'm fine with it. I think we'll go ahead and move to another house in the area, as we'd really like to have a garage and live in a better school district. Well, that's about it for now. Hope all is well with everyone else and enjoying their summer! I just got my passport in the mail this weekend, so my next big thing will be going to Korea in Sept! Can't wait! Love to you all!

Kim

The first few weeks of Summer Vacation

Rain, Rain, Go Away!! That is now my theme song! It has rained here everyday minus just 2 days in the last 3 weeks!! It has been very hard to go to the pool and enjoy our "schedule free" days when it rains all the time!

We have kept ourselves busy, as usual! We had friends come stay with us that we were stationed with us in Italy. They were in the process of moving from Alaska to ...? Not really sure. It was CA and now may be Hungary ... still waiting to find out. They are currently with family in Arkansas. The Decker's have 6 boys, so it was quite the houseful but so much fun! It was just like having family come!

The Decker's left on a Fri. morning and right after they left, I took off with Rylan, Bradly, and Elayna for a baseball tournament in Idaho Falls, ID. Morgan and Addi got to stay with their Aunt Shelda. It makes it so much easier to have 2 less kids! My brother was able to come meet us down there and we were able to meet his girlfriend. Rylan pitched a great game on Friday, but the 2nd game got rained out. Saturday at 2 a.m. Richard called from Korea and woke me up. He was on the baseball website and found out our games and schedule were changed and we weren't even playing in the same town! After frantically changing my ideas for the next day, we arrived to games just to have those rained out and the tournament canceled. That was the most expensive 1 game tournament I've ever spent!

The next week I had the opportunity to go to the Salt Lake Temple and go to another set of friend's from Italy's family sealing. They adopted 2 little girls into their family and had them sealed to them. I'd never been to a sealing (except for my own, which I don't remember)so it was a neat experience!

I experienced the flu twice in a one week span of time, and last Sunday was suffering through my latest bout. I heard Addi cry from outside, but was too sick to get up, and I figured she'd come to me if it was bad. Later, she laid down with me and took a nap, but never really told me what was going on. That night, I was picking up the bathroom and found blood all over in her underwear. Turns out she flew and landed straddle on the outside bar of the trampoline. I checked the source of the blood and sure enough, she had quite a tear that looked fairly deep. I contemplated taking her to the ER but being without a hubby, very sick with the flu, and getting Rylan ready for a week-long scout camp, I decided to just take her to the base dr. the next day.

Mon. June 15, I sent Rylan off to camp (praying he wouldn't get the flu!). We heard of several other scout camps closing due to Swine Flu, a stake canceling Stake Conference due to their Stake passing it around, as well as the next stake over also canceled their Girl's Camp. While he was gone, the first death due to Swine Flu happened in the next county. I just found out today that my neighbor had Swine Flu last week. He seems to be fine and was teaching Sunday School today.

Anyway, back to Addi... I called the base and after looking at her they decided that she would need to be seen by a Pediatric Surgeon and sent us to Primary Children's in Salt Lake. She needed the surgery before 24 hours and since it happened the day before we were a bit pressed for time. Thank heavens I have my Sister in Law here!! This is the first base we've ever lived with family and I have sure needed it this time! She was such a blessing to be able to watch all the rest of the kids while I drove Addi and I to Salt Lake. They immediately decided to do surgery and was able to work her in right away.

Her surgery lasted 45 min and they repaired the tear as well as inserted a drain tube through the scope sight, which was through the inside of the upper fatty part of her thigh. She came out of anesthesia very well and was even able to talk to her dad on the web cam before they released us. We got home and settled late the night and had a pretty rough night, but each day got better and better and she's doing awesome now! You can see the drain tube hanging down between her legs. The bottom is a bulb that collects the blood that drains and I had to empty it several times a day.

Bradly has finished t-ball and really enjoyed it.

Elayna is now potty-trained! I think she was the earliest and easiest child to potty train! She's only 28 months old. We've had 2 accidents at night, but I'm fine with that! It's so nice to be done with diapers FOR-EVVVV-ERRRR!!

Her big thing is to act like a puppy dog. It's very cute to see her crawling around on the floor. She loves to do tricks for you ... for treats, of course! She also loves to lap out of a bowl! She is always cracking us up. I can't believe how big she is getting and that I'm slowly closing in on this stage of my life. I'll miss it, but I'm excited to be done at times as well.

Our biggest news of the week is that we are now parent's of a TEENAGER! Yes, Rylan turned 13 years old today. We changed our normal tradition of presents after dinner so that Richard could watch before he went to work. We met him on web cam at 3 our time. He requested Chocolate chip waffles for breakfast, 24 hour cake, and pizza for dinner. He got a baseball that measures your throwing speed (like a built in radar in the baseball), a titanium sports necklace (supposed to be magnetic healing energy ... all the pros are wearing it and a big thing around here with a lot of the kids on the team), and a NY Yankees baseball jersey (#13, A-Rod, which is his baseball number for the Jr high and Sandlot team) Notice that Rodriguez's name is spelled wrong? Richard had it made in Korea and I guess they made a bit of a mistake ... still trying to decide if we want to fix it or not!

Richard is doing very well. He just got called as 1st counselor in the branch presidency (branch of about 15 people! LOL!) and is also umpiring softball. He enjoys golfing at least once a week and his team placed 3rd in the golf tournament last week. He was playing on his squadron softball team, but I think the team kind of fell apart with a lot of people on swing shift and deployed or home on mid-tour. We've been so blessed to be able to talk with him on the web-cam twice a day. He's completely involved with everything we do (even surgeries!) and it has made such a huge difference! I'm hoping it will really help with the transisiton when we get back together.

As of now we don't know what's going on with our orders since he made Master Sgt. There are too many Master's in South Dakota, so we think that is probably out now. We are looking into a Military Training Leader position at the AF academy in Colorado Springs, but don't know if openings coordinate with when he leaves Korea. More to come later on this!

Coming up this next week is the twins' birthday and we leave for our big summer vacation!! Hope everyone gets to enjoy some nice weather, since we aren't! That's about it for us! Love to all! Kim