Post Christmas/ Wedding!

Well, I had a super time coming home for a few days and then going to my cousin, Kathy's wedding. It's always good to see family. Sorry I didn't get time to visit with anyone from LV though. I spent most the time at home helping mom around the house and doing errands. Next time!

Dave & I had a wonderful Christmas together. Although, in all honestly, we slept through most of it. Still trying to get with this work schedule of Dave's, however next week, he'll start days for 2 months. So, we'll be "normal" for 2 months. Looking forward to it. I hope everyone has a fun New Years! I'm going to be at home, by my self. So, have a drink for me. I'd have a drink but there's something about having a drink by myself on New Years that would seem even more pathetic. ugh.

Enjoy a few pics.


This is after the wedding. The Oliver Clan took over the hotel lobby and had some wine and caught up with everyone. Compared some sweet gagets! :)

Dustin & Kathy during ceremony.

misunderstanding

ALRIGHTY EVERYONE! Apparently my "funny" was not caught. Dave & I are NOT actually getting on eachother's nerves. Promise. Just needed to put that in there....

I fly out this week, for a quick visit home, and to attend my cousin's wedding, then I'll fly back to this home in time for Dave & I to spend our first Christmas together in our own home. yeah! Although, I'm not complaining. I met a girl/lady this week at PWOC and this is her husband's first Christmas to be home in 10 YEARS. crazy. agh!

Alright, got to get back to the game. GO CHIEFS!

Not much

Not much to report. Just wanted to let you know it's still NOT SNOWING IN MARYLAND. ugh. If we weren't poor I'd consider going north for Christmas. Oh-well.

Dave has been working since the first and it's been interesting. He works the MID shift. 6pm to 6am for three days and then has three days off. So, needless to say, our schedule is WAY off.

Other than that, were getting into the swing of things, living a normal life where we live together and get on eachothers nerves like other married people do. :)

I am going to be able to make it to my cousin's wedding next Friday in Arkansas. WAHOO. Family time. Too bad Dave can't come. :( He doesn't get to have time off yet, since he's the new kid. BOO!

it's not fair

I moved to the N.E. thinking, heck yeah, I'll get a lot of snow. So now that I'm here it's the first of December, 60+ degrees outside and Kansas City just got a huge snow storm.

It frustrates us.....

New Living Room!

Hello All! I hope everyone had a marvelous Thanksgiving! I did. The Kozels came for the Holiday weekend. We had a super Turkey Day and then Friday got new living room furniture delivered. Wahoo, a place to sit.

Then we left for Gettysburg, PA which is only a half hour from where we are. We ended up buying a CD that you take in your car with you and follow the points. An auto tour if you will. Anyways, very interesting... I got to stand on top of Little Round Top which was pretty neat.

The next day we headed to Baltimore, also about a half hour, and went to the Inner Harbor. Went aboard the U.S.S. Constitution, and then did some shopping.

Next trip will probably be D.C. Also rumored to be about half an hour from here. Perhaps they should name Frederick, "the half hour town" haha.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I hope you all have a wonderful day of turkey! I made some cookies yesterday and thought I'd show you! :)

quick update

Mom's surgery went well. I haven't been able to talk to her yet, but Dad called and said everything went fine, so thanks for the prayers. Just please continue to pray for a fast recovery.

Also, for those of you who haven't, I have some very messy pictures of my house on my photosite....for those of you, who are curious.

OK...BIG NEWS. We ordered our new furniture about two weeks ago, and they said it would be here on the 28th. Bah... Dave's parents are coming Wed. We want furniture for them... So, I JUST called and they said they can bring it on Friday! WAHOO. SOOOOOOOOOO excited to have furniture. So, I'll be taking new pictures this weekend and you can see the new living room. Yeah.

Uh... hmmm. I forgot what else I was going to say. Oh yeah, Lisa J, thanks for the carpet idea, mom brought that up too. But we decided to just go to Home Depot and get some carpet there. We just got a few 6x8 rugs for the living room right now. We can't afford to do the rooms yet. Maybe for Christmas! :) LOL

Ok, well I gotta go. Still lots to do. WAHOO we're getting furniture.

the dogs are going crazy

We're having a post "exercise" today and all the sirens are driving the poor dogs nuts. In other news....

Wed night I tried to go to PWOC... I walked in and the lady asked me if I was there for Youth Group... *deep sigh* I know I look young, but seriously.... We went to a church event last night and as I was getting ready I asked Dave how I should wear my hair... something that would make it look like he wasn't molesting a member of the youth group... He thought that was funny.

Anyways, for the second week in a row, I show up for PWOC and they're not having it. oye! But they did take down my info and gave me a schedule so i can stop showing up when no one is there.

Ok, well I've got alot to do. Just wanted to send a quick "hello"

If everyone can pray for my momma. She's have knee replacement surgery on both knees, this coming Monday. Thanks!

angels

Just wanted to share...

“If you are a believer, expect powerful angels to accompany you in your life experience.” - Billy Graham

too small

Not the town. The commissary on post is terribly small. It's ALMOST comical. Oh-well Life on a small post. This is most definitely a small post though.

Dave and I have been busy putting things away and then trying to remember where we put them. It's a fun time. They gave Dave off until next Tuesday so it's been nice have the extra help around here. When we first got here they seemed to think maybe we were going to be moving again, to Fort Meade, but Dave found out that it was up to us, so he told them no. Mainly because they weren't going to pay for us to move again.

We're still waiting for living room furniture in the mean time we're trying to find some carpeting. No carpeting in post housing... at least not in the old ones. Oh-well. So, that's about all that's going on. Just waiting and unpacking.

This weekend we're meeting Mom & Dad Colvin in Ohio to bring Jasper here. I'm pretty excited about having him, Dave on the other hand is not all that excited. Hopefully they will warm up to each other.

That's all for now!

A New Home

Well, it's been a crazy week. We left Kansas Monday morning and drove to Columbus, OH. Next morning we finished our drive to Frederick, MD. After Columbus our drive got really nice with all the mountains and trees changing colors. Arrived in Frederick and Dave checked in and we got a hotel for the night. Next morning we woke up and went straight to GMH to see about housing. On our way, TMO called and said our stuff was here. We told them we were on our way to housing, so the TMO gal said she'd give us two hours. (Yeah right, I know... finding a place in two hours)... So we went to housing aka GMH and they had a two bedroom and three bedroom ready to be moved into! *at this the heavens opened up and God personally winked at Dave and I* We went and looked at both the places and decided on the two bedroom. I like the layout more and really I'm pretty sure it was the same sqaure footage just smaller rooms in the three bedroom. So, Dave had to leave at that point to start inprocessing and I went to the GMH office to start the paperwork. Just as she was handing me the keys to our new home, the driver called me and wanted to know if we were ready. Told him "Heck yes and I'd meet him there" Then Dave called and said he was done for the day, so I picked him up and then we drove to our new home and opened the door for our movers. SWEEEEEEEEEEETTTTT! While the movers were unloading I called and set up our cable and internet to be done the next morning. WAHOO. :) All good.

One very sad note. Upon unwrapping our couch from storage we discovered it had mold on it.
:( Very sad. So, we are getting rid of that (it's sitting on our porch right now) and will be picked up next week and yesterday we went out shopping for a new living room set. Kind of bittersweet. We loved the couch we had, but we did find one we liked, so it's all swell now. Now we just have to wait for it to be delivered. They said the end of November but we're REALLY hoping it will come before Thanksgiving when Dave's parents come up for the first visit.

What.....?

So, I'm back on I am fully experiencing the jet lag. I have no idea what day it is or what time it is. The last two days I have fallen asleep at 4 in the afternoon and I wake up at 1:30 am, ready to go. ugh. And let me tell you.. there is NOTHING on tv in the early morning. what a waste.

Anyways. My pictures are on my website but I haven't put details on all of them yet. And there will be a few more when Dave gets home... IN 5 DAYS!

http://skozel.photosite.com/

Back in US

I'm baaaaaaaaaaaack!

Quick back track though... Sunday was my last day in Korea, so Dave and I made sure to eat some more korean food. YES! For lunch we had Mando... a favorite of mine and then his NCO called and invited us for more bowling.. (it IS what they do over there... not so much the Korean's but the service memebers over there). Then we went to eat some more somgibsa.... (NO idea how to spell it) and then Drew treated us to an evening at the casino inside the Hilton Hotel there in Seoul. Good times. Went back to the hotel, packed took a "nap" and then headed to the airport.

My flight there lacked a bit in the beverage dept so Dave bought me some water at the airport. When through security where they told me it was too big. Bah! Got through that, bought a smaller bottle of water and they ended up taking that away from me too. I was under the impression that if you had the receipt for the beverage (airport purchase of course) you could take it on board. Apparently not. When I was boarding the plane they went through our carry on's and that's where they took my second bottle. eh.... :(

But yeah... the flight was FULL, but I did have the movies and what not at my seat . This is me watching House. :)
Anyways. The trip from Atlanta to KCI was pretty eventful too. I REALLY just wanted to get out of the airport but didn't happen. I won't bore you with all the details, but I'm glad to be "home" for now. Now just have to unpack and at the same time pack for the move. Dave will be home in less than a week!

I'll work on uploading all my pictures today. I'll send out the address when I'm done!

Insadong & DMZ

Dave & I went to Insadong the other night with his friend "Sandy". Sandy is stationed here in Korea and has really embraced the language....or is making a good effort too. He wore a t-shirt he had gotten from some bar that he was pretty proud of... I was a bit disgusted at first but as the night wore on, I laughed at him with everyone else... nice huh? His shirt says "I am not a Megook" Megook - american. Peaple would ask... "where are you from?" Sandy "America"... then they'd look at me and dave and we'd just shrug and roll our eyes. We know.... stupid Americans... Thanks Sandy.

Yesterday, Dave & I were able to go on a DMZ tour. For those of you unfamilar, the DMZ is the Demiliterized Zone between North and South Korea. There are soldiers from both of the armies on each side keeping close watch of the other side. Our first stop was the 3rd Tunnel out of the 4 tunnels the South Koreans have found. The North Korean's have atleast on 4 occations built tunnels from their side to the South side heading into Seoul. Each tunnel was found before it reached Seoul, but pretty scary. The 3rd tunnel the found was much bigger than the others and they said that it would have allowed the North Koreans to reach Seoul within one hour with 30,000 troops. We were able to go down the tunnel to a certain point. It's was about 350 meters down. Mini story here.... uh, going down was hard, but coming back up was a bit murderous... When I was down in the tunnel, I thought "Wow.... this is pretty neat" Going up I was thinking "I COULD HAVE JUST READ ABOUT THIS!" I'm glad I went down... now. :)

Next stop was the Observetory. A look out point if you will, of North Korea. There are two villiages inside of the DMZ. One in the south that about 200 people live in, and one is the North that is actually just for show. Nobody lives there.

Next stop was Dora Station. Pretty neat. It's a railway that South Korea has built in good faith. It's tracks stop right on the border of North/South Korea. I saw the plans for the future though and it's pretty awe inspiring. They are building this station in the hopes that one day they will be able to travel through North Korea and the rail with continue thru Europe. I was able to get an unoffical stamp on my passport from here... very cool.

Today is my last day here... .Kinda sad to leave, but excited for the next adventure... living with Dave. Haha. I'll be post many more pictures when I get home. I'll post the website on here when I have them loaded.

Korean War Museum

Yesterday Dave & I went to the Korean War Museum. It's just outside the post here and quite impressive. We took ALOT of pictures I'll only show a few, but when I get home I'll upload all our pictures on our photosite.

As we were leaving, we saw the R.O.K. army doing a demonstration... pretty neat.

Later we went out to a nice resaurant with some of Dave's friends and had ... "sumgibsaw" that's how you say it... That's not how it's spelled... :) On the way back we were walking along the side walk and Dave pointed out the rocks. It's supposed to be a "massage" for your feet. Must say.... it felt pretty good.

kamsamida.... or something like that.. is thank you. :)

towers, jewels & palaces...

Today Dave and I went on a tour in Seoul. First stop was Namdaemun Market. It was a HUGE market of pretty much anything you could want. I think it's Seoul's version of Wal-Mart, but outside. Kidding... kinda.

After that stop we went to Seoul Tower, please find the many pictures taken from there. It was pretty incredible and pretty stinkin high up. We drove most of the way up but there was a hike that just about killed me. I think I know what heart attacks may feel like now. (on a lighter note, my asthma has not bothered me at all since I've arrived). So, we tried to take pictures from the tower, but unfortunately we mostly ended up with pictures of smog. I'm trying to share the more clear ones on here.

After Seoul Tower we made a quick stop at the Amethyst factory where Dave absolutely felt an incredible urge to buy me a necklace! Wasn't that sweet? :)

Next stop was the Changkeok Palace. Very ornate buildings but honestly not at all what you think of when you think of a palace. Probably would have been more interesting if I would have known my Korean history better. But this palace did have the Secret Garden, which was very pretty.

After all that, Dave and I were pretty exhausted. Not much else today. Tomorrow we're headed to Insadong and surrounding areas.

Hongul lesson...

Nay = yes. :)

All is well

Well, we did get some exploring in today. Too tired to go into it, but mainly just wanted to send an update out that all is well...

Dave is with me, and the situation with "the nut job up north" as I like to call him, hasn't really affected my trip at all... I was nervous at first, but there's been no changes that I can see, anyway.

Ok, well more of an update later... Just wanted to say we are a ok. :)

pictures

Some poor guy "moving"?

View from Hotel window, you can see Soeul Tower in there...straight back

BBQ & lost cell phones

So.... The BBQ. Wasn't that interesting? First off, let me say that the housing over here is REALLY TOTALLY different. Korea builds up not out. I'll try to take some pictures soon, because it's hard to explain. Anyways, went to the BBQ off post. The BBQ was actually on the roof of the building, I really wish I would have had my camera with me, but alas, the roof was about 6 floors up and I was too lazy. I'll get some though. So, we're on the roof having a BBQ Texas style.... ie, no actual BBQ sauce. Just a cookout. After several beers someone throws or misses catching their phone... and it ends up on another roof. Someone goes to get it, but isn't quite enough, while gallivanting around on the roof. Makes a speedy get away as tenant comes after him. It was funny at this point. However, when the tenant looks up at all of us we swiftly turn around. It added some excitement to the evening... then more beers later, we went bowling. Turns out, I'm not that great, but I did improve.

Today was Sunday so we didn't do much. Dave & I went bowling again and improved our game a bit. Not sure what we'll do tomorrow since it's Columbus Day. We're going to try to go on a few tours this week, see a palace, Soeul Tower, and the DMZ.

Annyong-hi kashipshio (good bye)

I have arrived

Ok, well this is a blog for both Dave & I. Thought it would be a great way to let you know who the trip is going and then later, in a few weeks, let everyone know how things are in Maryland.

I had a pretty good trip here, to Korea. I had a cool plane which allowed me to watch multiple movies, tv shows and play games at my very own seat. Also... huge bonus, I had a window seat and ended up having the entire row to myself. Eggsalent. So, the 14 hour plane trip turned out to be not so bad after all. Arrived in Korea, when through customs with no problems. Yeah. And a big thanks to mom for the "vitamins" before I left KCI.

So, far I have met a few of Dave's friends and tonight we're having a BBQ at someone's house. Good.

I actually arrived right at the beginning of Chu Sok, the Korean Thanksgiving. So, this city has become somewhat of a ghost town the last two days. Everyone leaves the city and heads "home" for the holiday. Dave and I tried to go shopping yesterday but we were VERY limited, so didn't get much done. But, I did have my first taste of real Korean food via Korea. (I have had some Korean food due to Aunt Ann and various neighbors) I had Kalbi. Today we got quite a bit done though. And had it all boxed up ready to ship home, and we missed the post office by TEN minutes. ah, the fun. So, we grabbed a taxi and took our three boxes of gifts to the hotel. It really was quite the adventure. *see picture of boxes*

Ok, well more pictures and blogging to come!