SNOW!!!

It crazy snowed here on Saturday night!! this is the snow couple that luke made. we also started snowball fights with random koreans.... they loved it. :) and luke threw snowballs at cars too, it was very funny! don't worry, no one got mad or hurt! :)


Luke and I went to our friends Boe and Tracie's house for dinner and movies, and all of a sudden the snow started to flurry. it started around 7 pm, so we went out and played in it for a while.


Me and Tracie all bundled up....There is a little hut out at the park area that sells snacks and drinks, so we got some beers to warm ourselves up. hahahahaha :)


we made some snow angels too. i couldn't believe it was deep enough for it! it probably snowed about 6 inches just while we were out there!


this is the next morning out of boe and tracie's window looking at the park we played at. amazing amounts of snow! it was too cool!!!!


and this is the scene out our window the next morning. seriously, there is so much now! and it hasn't even all melted yet. there is still so much left! and it is REALLY cold here, like 19 degrees this morning when i got to school, and the overall high was 40. brrrrrrrrrrrr
i hope we keep getting snow like this! i love it, and maybe the ski resorts will have more REAL snow this year!! :)

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turkey day at the phlegmings

hey guys! here are some pics of turkey day.... we sure had fun, but we missed everyone a whole lot. and we have TONS of leftovers!! :)

me and luke at our table. we tried to get some of our view in the background... you can see seoul tower and the hill behind us and some rooftops.

look at the spread!! seriously, SO MUCH FOOD!!!
look at our cute little turkey. yummy for the tummy!! :)


and here's our living room, all pretty and clean. do you see our cute fishies?!? they are really adorable and all named after surfers :) i know we're supposed to send more house pics, and we will, as soon as we clean the rooms! :) hahaha

anyways, i put up the christmas tree and i'll be posting some cool pics of that soon too! hope you all had a great turkey day! love you lots!

tag

okay, here's a fun new info tag thing from elan...enjoy.

2 names you go by:
1. mimby
2. tinty

2 parts of your heritage:
1. puerto rican hottie mama
2. good ol' americano

2 things that scare you:
1. ants, lots of ants
2. driving in korea

2 of your everyday essentials:
1. hearing and telling luke "i love you"
2. english breakfast tea in the morning (wouldn't gammy be proud!!)

2 things you are wearing right now:
1. warm fuzzy socks
2. counting crows sweatshirt

2 of your favorite bands or musical artists (at the moment)
1. counting crows
2. mas flow (spanish rap/hip hop) i have no idea what they say half the time, but the beats are great!! :)

2 favorite songs (at the moment):
1. she don't want nobody near (cc)
2. mona lisa and mad hatters (mandy moore remake of elton john song)

2 things you want in a relationship (other than real love):
1. honesty
2. laughter and silliness

2 truths:
1. i am a pack-rat... soooo messy
2. i am slightly??? impatient

2 physical things that appeal to you (in the opposite sex):
1. the forearm area. i love the muscles and veins and tendons...
2. tall, skinny

2 of your favorite hobbies:
1. taking pictures of anything and everything
2. doing logic problems

2 things you want really badly:
1. movie making software for the mac
2. puffy vest

2 places you want to go on vacation:
1. thailand
2. italy

2 things you want to do before you die
1. have kids
2. live in europe

2 ways that you are stereotypically a dude/chick:
1. i like skirts
2. i like painting my nails

2 things you are thinking about now:
1. we have to send our boxes out soon for christmas to make sure they get there in time
2. do i have homework due tomorrow for my masters program?

2 stores you shop at:
1. GAP/ Old Navy
2. Yongsan military base PX :)

2 people you would like to see take this quiz:
1. mamma mia
2. horne

so there you have it.... some new insight into the world of melinda.
have a good day!!
:)

end the strike!!

okay, i know its been a while, but i have been really busy. but anyway, here i am and here is an update of my life....

first of all, i'm pusuing my masters degree. its all online through university of phoenix, and i'll receive a Masters in Education: Curriculum and Instruction. the online thing is a little weird to get used to at first, but i'm getting the hang of it more and more. it's a lot of writing, but i like doing that, so i'm okay. in my class right now, i am in a group for a team power point presentation. my team members live in taiwan and hawaii, so the time difference is sometimes hard, but it is so cool learning about the different cultures through them. and the classes are pretty in-depth, and fast paced, so each is about 6 weeks long, so i'll be completed in a little under a year and a half. pretty cool. :)

last weekend i went to the boyz II men concert here in korea. i won tickets on the base radio station and i took my friend tracy who REALLY wanted to go. i even had to sing on the radio for them!! hahaha anyways, we had an awesome time and sang along and danced and screamed adn acted silly. i don't think the korean really knew what to do about us. :) but we did meet another couple tehre from the base.... they saw us dancing and singing and came to sit by us because they felt out of place inthe middle of the koreans who were just sitting there. it was AWESOME!!

the countdown has begun for our trip to hawaii.... only 35 more days!!!! yay! we are so excited! i think i want to try to shortboard when i'm there. i'm not sure if i have enough strength, but i'm going to try! and we're going to go to the pipeline masters tournament and see some cool people surfing. hey, maybe we'll see rob machado again and we'll talk, since we're old buddies now!!! hahahaha kelly slater already won the world title last weekend in brazil, but it'll be cool to see who wins the triple crown title there. surfing is cool.

so there you have it.... a good update.... the rest of the stuff is the same old.... luke is good, getting antsy to surf, my kids are great, our concert is the 8th of december, school is good, the weather is getting colder but not too frigid yet...
i miss you all lots!
stop the strike jess, i want to see halloween pics!!!!! :)
love you, love you too

some fun things to see....

while out and about in south korea.
here's some pictures luke and i took 2 weekends ago when we drove to the east coast to go surfing. they brought us some laughs, so i thought i'd share...

in case you were wondering... you can get electrocuted from this strange box on the picture. however, in reality there was no strange box on this fence. hmmmmm........

oh, and don't go holding any really creepy balloons with faces on them or super long fishing poles near these electrical wires......

this was a HUGE flower covered statue of a mermaid on top of a turtle. i immediately thought of violet and lady azuza. but i was a little creeped out by the size of her hands in proportion to the rest of her body. they are almost as big as her head!

and this is what we drive around trying to find a way to the water. it's just on the other side of the barbed wire, but its everywhere, and these military huts are everywhere and there's guys in most of them. we're not exactly sure where we can and can't go, so we wait until there's an opening. so even though the surf may be great (for korea), we can't always get to it.

we're taking a drive again early tomorrow morning, so i'll take some more pics. hope you enjoyed and got a little laugh out of it! :)

mondo magic and other funnies......

lately there has been this show on tv called "mondo magic" and i am IN LOVE with it. it's just a couple of guys who go around and do some crazy magic tricks, but they are seriously awesome! and it's not just the slight of hand crap that you always see, it is REAL magic. i keep telling luke that these guys must have gone to Hogwarts or something, but he just calls me a dork. :) if you get a chance to see it, you should definitely check it out. you'll be amazed!

so anyways, here i am, back from japan. i had a great time there. we were in meetings all day for our new technology training, and we are getting some REALLY cool stuff. i can't wait for it all to arrive so i can start doing the cool music writing and recording stuff they taught us. but, in the evenings we were able to go out and see some stuff.

here's a view of the tokyo harbor. you can't see it very well, but everything is just built on top of something else. it is SO crowded! but, as you can see, our weather was so nice and it only rained a little on our last day there.



and here i am at night in front of some big building that i thought was pretty! :) we took the subway around and went to a "pearl lady" who is very famous and sells to rich and famous people and i bought a really nice pearl and sapphire bracelet. and then we walked back to our hotel because it was such a beautiful evening.



and now, i'm back in crazy korea. luke and i went to a bar the other night to hang out with some friends, and this sign was in the bathroom..... i was dying laughing!!! only in korea.....

i'm it

you know, in tag.....
okay, here are my 5 quirky things...
1. i've been struck by lightning. july 4, 2001. my dad and i were hiking wheeler peak and a storm overtook us and the lightning knocked me backwards off my feet and out for a few seconds. my arm was numb for a while, but i'm recovered now.... but i do get a little jumpy when an electrical storm hits. i really wish it had given me superpowers though!! :)
2. i'm afraid of ants. i know, i just act like i hate them and kill all of them in sight, but i really am afraid of them. they have no problem attacking in force, and they have huge armies. it's not like just one will get you, there's always like a hundred. and, interesting fact, did you know that there are 1 million ants to every 1 person in this world??? something to think about....
3. if i weren't a band teacher, i would like to be an investigator. you know, like CSI or something. it fascinates me. i'm always trying to be all deucive (is that a word??) and trying to figure things out and solve mysteries. i'm a dork. maybe that's why i love my logic problems so much. mmmmmmmm, being logistical... :)
4. i don't like feet. i don't like touching other people's feet or people touching me with their feet. especially if they have socks on and their feet are warm. it grosses me out. sitting on the couch near someone and their feet wander over...blllleeegghhh. jess knows this though, and being the wonderful tormenting big sis she is, touches me with her feet every chance she gets. i still love her though. and i don't really like looking at feet either... except liane's cuz she has the cutest toes, she gets it from mom. :)
5. i think i have a mild case of OCD. if i step on a crack with my right foot, i must immediately follow it with my left. if i scratch my right arm, i have to do the same to my left. if there is a stretch of tile and then carpet, i must take equal steps on the tile with both feet before moving on... which makes for me walking really funny sometimes in order to get an extra step in or avoid one altogether.

so there, i'm a strange person. but hey, it's all good.
so now i tag mamalali and papa (who need to update anyways) and horne.
:)

guess which one they lost....

bag, that is. yeah, not one of our silly bags with clothes, but our SURFBOARDS!!!! whatever. we had to fill out some forms and hopefully they call tomorrow and tell us that they found them.
we had to run through the San Fran airport to get to our connecting flight to Korea because our first one was delayed, so we think that somehow the board bag just didn't make it in time.
but, come on...... how do you lose a bag that is 10 feet long???
no bueno.
but, we're home safe, and no bacon exploded..... it doesn't even smell too bad, ;)
and i'm very tired, so goodnight. :)

locks of love

hey!
luke cut off all of his hair and donated it to locks of love. it was 12 inches long. and now he has a shaved head and it is very white since it hasn't seen the sun in quite a while. hahahaha
and he gets really cold while surfing now too. very silly.
but he decided that he'll just keep growing his hair and keep donating it. how nice!!
won't grandma jane be SOOOOOO happy! heehee
i kept having to sneak these pictures since luke is a very non-picture taking individual.
he's a silly booshke.
oh, and his favorite beanie that he used to tuck all of his hair into is so big now. he put it on and it fell over his eyeballs.
:)

check this out....

hey, here's me and luke at disneyland with rob machado, my favorite surfer, and his little daughter!! when we saw him, luke and i looked at him, looked at eachother, and then looked back at him. it was very movie-like. and then i told him how he's my favorite surfer... all the while luke is just being silent because while we were in hawaii he saw a pro surfer and said "you're good" uh, duh!!! ;) so he let me say the silly stuff this time! the guy who i asked to take this picture looked at us kinda funny because he had no idea who this guy was and why i wanted our picture with him. silly.
and then i shook his hand, which i proceeded not to wash until after i bought my new board the next day to rub off the pro goodness onto my new board! it might have helped too, because i'm doing great with my new board.
anyways, seeing him there was so cool! after we saw him, i was totally freaking out and carl thought i was having an asthma attack. hahahaha. and then we saw the cooooolest fireworks ever!
all of that, plus seeing how cute violet and riles were seeing all their characters and going on the rides with them and jess and rick and papa and mamalali and elan and carl, it was fabulous. a very good disneyland day!! :)

hey there

so, here i am, in santa cruz!! its been a while since my last blog, but i just wanted to give a quick update....
surfing is rad! i had my best surf day and my best wave ever yesterday. i caught it almost perfectly, rode along side it...ahhh, exhilirating!!!!
elan is coming to hang out with me & luke on thursday!! yay!! i can't wait! we can all do some toes on the nose!! :) heehee
luke and i have had a great time so far. camping all alst week was really fun. our little camp place is really great. but it also was SO nice to get to his grandparents and finally shower. my hair was not only nasty, but NAAASTY as carl would say it! :)
all in all, its been really fun so far, and i can't wait for the camping trip with mom and dad, visiting reno, and visiting lv. its going by quick though, which means back to korea soon..... okay, i'm not thinking about that. :)
talk to you all soon!
:)

orange roses

today, luke and i were walking around base at the PX and we saw so many beautiful flowers and roses that are in bloom around here. and then, right along the wall, were the most beautiful orange roses i've ever seen! they were so bright and full of color, look!!!

it just made my day to see such beautiful roses around here! we saw so many others too, HUGE red roses, small white ones, and they were all so pretty! yay!

the spring concert was awesome, by the way! all of the kids did such a fantastic job, and the seating in the auditorium was again packed! the support around here is amazing! Mr. Kim, the other music teacher, has connections with the 8th army band, and he had the sound guys make a cd of the performance for us, and luke video taped it. it was really amazing to hear such great music come from middle school students. even the parts i was a little scared for, the students pulled through and did wonderful. they are so great!

the weather is warming up here, some rain storms here and there, but overall its really nice right now. even the humidity i can live with. its not as bad as in august when we first got here.... not looking forward to that humidity again! ;) it's perfect b-b-q weather, and luke is up on the roof cooking steaks right now!

star wars opened here.... the lines are crazy long all the time, so we're going to try to get in tomorrow at the early show (1:00 pm) and hopefully enough people have already seen it that we can get in. people have been getting to the theaters 4 1/2 hours early here, since the seating is free first come first served, and just lining up outside until they open the theaters! crazy! we plan on getting there at about noon, i hope we get in. :)

only 4 more weeks until we get to vegas!! yeah! we got our camping dates too in santa cruz, so we are totally stoked to get home and see everyone!!! yay!!!!
love you all lots!
byebye

yo, i be speakin'

so, jess did this on her blog site and i thought i'd try it out. luke kept asking what i was doing though because when it asked how to pronounce things i was saying them all out loud to myself.... he thinks i'm crazy!!! heehee

Your Linguistic Profile:

60% General American English

20% Upper Midwestern

15% Yankee

5% Midwestern

0% Dixie

What Kind of American English Do You Speak?

that's pretty funny.... but darn, no dixie! hahahaha

so anyways, things here are good.... only 5 more weeks till we are in the states!! yay! and i know i really need to do a better job at updating the blog.... so, here's the quick version:
~spring concert thursday, very exited! the kids are doing great and i think it will be awesome!
~we saw the move "be cool" tonight, very funny! and it was pouring rain when we came out of the theater, but we had no umbrelly! silly us!
~"star wars" is coming here thursday night also, and i have a few band kids who are really sad that they have the concert and can't go on opening night. hello, it's here for 6 days, on all 3 screens. they have plenty of time.
~did i already mention that we only have 5 weeks until we go home! we are so excited! and luke is already starting packing. :) we can't wait to see all the fam and friends!
~we have to give gracie away, so sad! but i think i found a really good student to take care of her, and he's so excited about it. so it will be okay.
so, after thursday, i'll blog more, and i'll take some pics of the concert for you all.
love you all lots! byeeeeeee

crazy days

i have been running around like a chicken with my head cut off the past few days. so crazy. my band had this big performance coming up monday and tuesday, which i was totally freaking out about and worring about all weekend. first of all, the lady who set it up wanted a small ensemble (they had a string quartet at last year's conference) and not too big of a sound. but whatever, my band is great how they are and they know how to play as background music, and they ALL wanted to go, so fine, i decided to take them all and the lady would just have to deal. also, we were going to play for an hour. that is a long time for middle schoolers to sit and behave, let alone play music. and then i was worried if we even had enough music to fill the time. so many stupid worries.
well, it all turned out fine, as usual. when we got there monday, there were 6 chairs set up. hahaha. but i found the hotel guy and got more chairs. the lady saw us setting up more people and was a little freaked out, but i assured her that it would be great. and the kids complained some, but they survived just fine, and we had exactly the right amount of music. we only had to repeat one song over again. and then today for the lunchtime thing, they moved where we were playing, and again only had 6 chairs set up. i really think the lady had wishful thinking that i wouldn't bring all of them again. uh, no. so we got it all set up again, and it was great. but the lady had at first told me that the kids would get food for playing, but now since there were so many, she couldn't do that, so the kids were bummed about that, but i promised them a party later on, and that always solves everything. :)
but seriously, my legs are in some PAIN! standing for an hour straight , with little walking or movement, is very hard on your legs. i usually stand during classes, but i'm always walking around to the kids and moving. but at this thing i was conducting them and not really moving around, and i am pooped!
last weekend was crazy too, definitely not enough time in the days! but, on sunday night, a christian rock band called FFH (Far From Home) was here and played on our base, and i went to that. it was very cool. some of my kids played in the worship band before the show, and it was really good. and FFH was awesome, i really liked them. i'd never heard of them before, but they are great.
luke and i are so excited to be coming home to visit. we've started the countdown, it's like 53 days or something. yay!!
there are so many things we want to do over the summer, i hope we can fit it all in. :)

hi again!

yeah, yeah... i know it's been a while. its finally our spring break here!!! woooohoooooo!!! luke and i are going to hang around korea and check out some of the palaces and korean folk villages and stuff litke that. and, luke found some surf last week that we are going to check out on sunday and during the week also. and we really need to clean the house.... not so much the front room and kitchen, they are clean. but the bedroom..... clothes everywhere. i've just been too lazy lately, but now that i have a week off, i can finally get to it.
last week i finally got the piano moved out of my room. yay! you might be thinking... why??? its a band room! well, the piano was a grand piano (not small) and took up so much room in a space that isn't large enough in the first place to hold all the kids i have. so now its gone, and i spent yesterday trying to reorganize and rearrange the things in there. its hard! good thing i have this week off, because it is not finished yet.
so i have some funny pics.... the first one is some of the boys in my band class. we had a band performance during nutrition break, so 3 opf them have theiur band shirts on, but this is after we played our music. they were acting silly that day and rolled up their pants and were being realy nerdy like steve urkel. it was actually april 1st. and i told them that if they stayed like that for the rest of the day then i would give them 50 extra credit points. so then i took this picture and told them "april fools" and they were going crazy. so i gave them 10 points anyways. :)

L-R: Ricky, Anthony, Joe, Ivan, and Solomon
Anthony was actually trying to look more like Napoleon Dynamite and he fluffed up his hair and had that dorky look on his face. We were all laughing so hard! :)
and then last saturday the base did a "walk for fallen heros" and everyone who walked wore the name of a soldier that has died in the war in iraq. and we also took donations and raised money for a scholarship fund for the children of the people who died, so it was all for a very good cause. and they had the 8th army band play, and lots of booths set up, and it was a very fun day, so the walk was 7K all over the base, and i walked with some of my students. here they are:

L-R: Priscilla, Tracy, Agnes, Ehjin, and me!
It was very fun and we took this picture after we were done walking. I had other students participate too, but they walked in other groups, so they aren't in this picture. It was a huge event and there were something like 1500-2000 people there or something. it was awesome!
So there's the update.... hopefully after this nice spring break i have some more fun stuff to write about.
okay, i love you, byebye

fuuuuuuunnnnnnnnyyy

i just have to share....
so, last night luke made us a meatloaf type dinner. he thinks its funny that i don't really remember eating meatloaf when i was growing up. so anyways, he makes us this great meal. yummy!!!
then, later on, we're sitting on the couch and he realizes that he doesn't have his wedding ring on. he took it off while digging his hands in the meat (a little gross, but i guess it's necessary). so, he goes in the kitchen to get it and ...... its gone. so, we start searching, because it must've just slipped off the counter, right. we pretty much tore up the entire kitchen and living room area looking for it, but it is nowhere. i took the couch apart 3 times, we sifted thru the garbage bags twice (yuck) but still no ring. well, then i have him back track what he was doing. and he remembers this... he took it off to make the meatloaf, then put it back on, but then he added another ingredient to the meal, and he doesn't remember taking it off when he added it and transferred the meat. WHAT!?!?!?! so, we take out the leftovers and cut it up and look for the ring, but it isn't there.....so now, i'm freaking out. i'm reliving the moker moment when we thought he ate the tissue with the necklace in it. oh crap, literally!!!
by this time, its 11 pm and i really need to go to bed, and it wasn't turning up anywhere, so we went to sleep. in the morning, i'm again freaking out. where did it go, it must be here somewhere, we couldn't have really eaten it, could we???????
and we're just preparing for the worst. i even put my ring in my mouth and pretended to be eating to see if i would notice it. i really think i would have. and i was SOOOOO hoping that luke had someone like grandma jane who taught him to chew his food 27 times before swallowing! :)
finally, i have to go to school, and luke is left at home to do more searching. he tore up the living room again, but no. he sifted the trash again, but no. he moved the dishes and silverware, but no. by 12:30 when i called him at lunch, we are both just thinking the worst, and not looking forward to what we would have to do to get the ring back.
but....................................
alas, we have a happy, bowel free ending............. :)
i called again at 2:00 to see if anything new had happened and luke remembered that while he was making the dinner the trash bag was full and he needed to put a new one in. so, he looked under the sink where we keep the bags, and ta-da! there it was, under the trash bags!!! yay! happy day!!!!
so, no sifting, because, ewwwwwww, we were NOT looking forward to that.
and there's the funny for the day. hope you enjoyed.
and the moral is..... grandma jane was right! chewing that many times is a necessity!!!! hahaha

snow days

okay, so on wednesday last week, it snowed a buttload here. absolutely crazy......

you'd think that maybe, just maybe, they might have cancelled school, or at delay started it.... but nooooooooooooooooooooooooooo......... that would be too easy.
here's the story: i wake up at about 5:40 and see some snow. RAD! how cool, so i get in the shower, thinking it might not last and i need to start getting ready for school. when i get out of the shower at about 6:15 (i'm slow in the morning) there is a bunch more snow and it is STILL snowing outside. so i'm waiting for a phone call or some announcement on the tv about school....... but nothing. so, i call my principal and vice principal who tell me that there are no delays or closures and school is still on. hellooooooooo....... i'm looking outside my window at home and clearly these roads are not driveable. and i KNOW there aren't good plowing facilities like in good ol' northern nevada...but whatever.
so now its 7:00 and i'm all ready for school, and huffing about the fact that i have to go drive in this crap and why can't they see that it is unsafe, etc. and luke gets up and is so excited about hte snow and gets ready too, since he is subbing. so off luke and i go at about 7:25 for our noramlly only 10 minute drive to base.
well, we live at the top of a pretty steep hill, and as i'm about to turn down it, luke says "no, don't go down there, there are cars where they shouldn't be." and sure enough, cars are ran into the wall by the buildings on the side from sliding and crashing into them. so we take an adventure. we pretty much have no idea where we're going, but we know the general direction to go for the base, so we head there. :) finally, we are close enough that we recognize some scenery and we know where to turn and the radie says "hey, school is cancelled, go back to sleep!" nice, we are almost there. but then we get caught at a light and wait a few minutes and the radio comes back and says "we made a mistake, there is still school" what?!?! grrrrrrrr......
so we get to school, finally, at 8:03, only to find them sending kids home who walked to school and who got rides from parents. this is because our courtyard looked like this:

the only glitch... school WAS still on for the kids who rode the buses, because NOW the road conditions were so bad that it was unsafe to send them home. if our commander has cancelled when he had the chance, when it was really snowy at 6:30 in the morning, when the buses hadn't picked up any kids yet, we wouldn't have been in this predicament. but instead, we have to basically babysit these kids who have nowhere to go and are stuck at school. nice.
yeah, it was crazy, but fun in a way. and the kids who were there had a giant snowball fight. and even hit me a few times. heehee. so in the end, it was alright.
however, luke really wanted to build a snow ramp and snowboard across one of the handrails, and had started building it and everything, but the workers around the school are very efficient, and had already started shoveling and de-icing, even while it was still snowing, and ruined his little plan.

so sad! :) hahaha
but it was fun to see some real snow, so i guess it wasn't all bad. and i got to take some pretty pictures like this:

but, most of the snow is gone and melted now... bummer. :)

just stuff

hi there!
i know its been a while..... sorry. this last week has been chaotic.
i've been super busy with my band doing various performances all week. on wednesday, we performed for the Area II Black History Month celebration, and it was so great. my kids played jazz music, and everyone loved them and they did do well. And we wore our new band shirts that are blue polos with the bulldog logo and music notes in the corner and it says SAMS advanced band.... they looked sharp!
and then today i had the Korean American Interscholastic Activities Conference Honor band. We had rehearsals all day long at one of the International schools here in seoul, and then they had their concert in the afternoon. It was amazing. these kids worked so hard all day, with little to no complaints about their mouths being tired, and then did an awesome job for the cocnert. it was great.
and now i'm pooped! it was such a draining week. ahhh, relaxation.
tomorrow luke and i are going snowboarding, which will be very fun. and i'm going to take lots of pics with my new camera!!! yay! i can't wait to test out all the cool features it has. i took a video clip of todays performance and it records the visual and the audio. it is a COOL camera! :) i'll hopefully be able to send some good action shots!
so there's the update for now.... love you love you too.
alrighty then, catch ya later dudes!!!
love, mimby

a typical scene

here in korea, we have a really great subway system that takes you almost anywhere in seoul. some trains are really crowded, but others are not too bad and you can generally find a seat. however, no matter what train you are on, you will see a typical scene such as this:

these people fall asleep on the subway ALL THE TIME!!!!! mouths open, snoring type of falling asleep.
and i wonder.... how do they know which stop to get off on, or do they just run the loop for hours until they wake up and figure out where they are?? so bizarre!
just wanted to share..... heehee

more pictures

okay, so that last blog with the picture of gracie was easy enough to do..... so, here are some more pictures for your viewing enjoyment! :)
some are a little old, but well worth the wait, like our christmas vacation pics! yay!

first, some surfing wounds and injuries!

these are luke's arm right after his collision, and then a few days after when the bruising has set in. nice! it was way gnarly looking!


here i am the day of the mishap, and then the next day after the real bruising and swelling has taken effect. i look like a mutant alien!


this is our christmas eve picture in our hotel room in hawaii. we got sorta matching p.j.s from old navy, mine have whales and his have bumblebees. and we have matching slippers with skull & crossbones. mine are pink and his are black. and see our cute christmas tree and snowflakes in the background?!?!

these are taken the night luke and i met with bill lowman. after we exited the hotel/mall type area where we visited with him, there was this ice castle sculpture and slide, and all these other beautiful designs. when we took the picture in front of the penguins, we were sitting on the ice with my camera on a timer...... brrrrrr, very cold! :)


this is one of my students, bryan lee, who rides those little mini trick skis. he's really good, most of the time. :)
on our last ski trip, he saw luke riding on the rails and decided he wanted to try..... yeah, he fell pretty hard on his ribs, which is the action seen in this picture. it was SO funny, and he was a good sport about it. and he kept trying until he got it later in the day. yay, bryan!
now, if you look hard enough in the background, you can see the dirt along the side of the trail, underneath the lift. i know its not the best picture to see it, but i'll take more next time to prove to you how crazy these mountains are! :)


and here we are after a long day of teaching the kids, eating our apples. one of the snowboarding girls took this picture for us. although the snow isn't all that great, we are happy to at least be able to go up and ride something! :)

hope you all enjoyed the pictures! now that i know how to post them, i'll keep taking more for you and blogging! :)
later, dudes!

gracie

how cute is this lizard!!! she is so funny, too. she has become aware of when we are going to feed her because we take her little plate out of her cage. so when we come back with the food, she has jumped down off the branch she normally hangs out on, and is waiting for us to give her the food. as soon as we set it in the cage, she goes at it ferociously. she really is a cutie. :)

phlegmings.........

updates in the world of the phlegmings......

~we have a pet iguana now! her name is gracie and she is really cute! some other teacher had her, but he kept her in his room at school and it wasn't warm enough there, so he had to give her up, and we took her! now she is warm in our house and we get to talk to her everyday and she really is cute. and she doesn't stink wither, which is extra bonus! :)

~luke has started his school. he has classes 4 nights a week, which makes us miss each other even more with our busy day schedules, but its okay. he only has it for 8 weeks. so far he's liking it well enough...although one of his professors is a native korean and he says he is very hard to understand at times when he's taking notes. silly!

~he's been subbing a lot too, which is great, so then we can kinda see eachother during the day. sometimes we have the same lunch period, depending on who he subs for, and we have lunch dates. its cute. :)

~we went snowboarding today! it was very fun! we went with the school club again and taught kids, but different ones from the ones we taught last time. i had a beginner group who did so awesome! they started at the beginning of the day not even knowing how to stand on the board or balance or anything. byt the end of the day, they were all going down the hill consistently without falling, and 3 of them learned how to do turns and everything! so rad! luke had a great group too, and they had learned how to carve too. it was a great day! and beautiful weather, which is added bonus! :)

~i finally beat luke at tony hawk pro skater video game! its the first time EVER, and really quite an accomplishment! it was only once, but i'm optimistic to beat him more! hahaha

~i've started playing my flute again more, which i really love to do. i practiced for an hour the other day here at home. it was great. so i'm going to start playing more. and i've been going to the high school and helping out their flutists with some audition music and i'm going to start giving lessons to one of the girls up there. i really love playing, so this makes me very happy. :)

~i need to send some more email pics.... i have great ones of the surfing injuries, the pros at pipeline, little gracie, etc. if i knew how to put them here, i would. jess has to teach me.

okay, that's our life right now.... except for the homemade pot-pie i made for dinner that is ready now! yessssssss!!! sweeeeet!!!! ( a little napoleon dynamite for ya, jess) talk at ya later!

nothing like it.......

a warm bed is the greatest.
let me just tell you how great my husband is.... the night before last, our bed was freezing cold when we got in it. seriously! and i was whining about it (of course).... soooooooo, last night luke snuck in the room while i was about 20 minutes from going to bed, laid the electric blanket down, and warmed up our bed for us! so then, when i was ready to lie down, he said "there's a surprise in the bed for you" and i looked under the covers, and the bed was soooooo warm and comfy! i get too hot with the electric blanket on me all night, so taking off the electric blanket and still having warm sheets was so fabulous! luke is so great! :)

so we went to this crazy mountain snowboarding saturday. luke and i help out with the ski and snowboard club at my school and teach the kids. its a free ticket for us, so we love it! well, being from the reno-tahoe area and all, we are used to going to ski resorts with LOTS of snow everywhere......
well, luke went by himself on friday and just kept telling me how much i was going to laugh on saturday. so there we were, in the bus with a bunch of kids, and the whole while, i'm looking for snow somewhere. i mean, we can't go boarding without snow, right?!?!?! well, apparently in korea, you can!
this place has all manmade snow, and it is only on the runs. no joke. nowhere else. under the lift, dry dirt and trees and bushes. next to the runs, a chain fence to keep people from going into the non-snow areas. and on the runs, it was like 5 inches of snow on top of a sheet of hard ice. the size of the mountain was crazy too. our smallest hill around in tahoe, boreal, is about 3 times as big as this place. very small. it was the craziest thing i've ever seen in my life!
and the people! they ski and board like they drive. fast, and totally out of control! at one point, i saw a korean lady on skis going straight down, obviously out of control, and she ran smack into a group of about 20 people and plowed them all over! there is no ski patrol here to yank your pass if you are being reckless, and there are no "SLOW" signs at the bottoms of the hill near the lift lines. therefore, they go as fast as they can, without control, and really don't care who they knock over in the process. good thing i know how to turn fast, or i would have been in some wrecks! :)
and, the snowboarders don't ride the lifts strapped into their boards.... they take them off, hold them up the chairlift, and then have to run off at the top, on the icy ground, slipping and falling 90% of the time. what?!?! luke and i made our kids learn how to do it the right way. we explained to them that if they tried to carry their boards on the lift with them anywhere else in the world, they would be laughed at and kicked off the mountain. they learned. hehehe :)
all in all, it was a really fun day though. the kids had a great time and so did we. the mountain was the perfect size for them and luke and i had fun "racing" some of the kids. their idea. (we beat them everytime!)
okay, gotta go to bed.... i saw luke in there plugging in the blanket for us! yay!