update

things are going well here.... surfing a lot and enjoying ourselves. the weather has mostly been really great. a little chilly today, but pretty sunny and nice for the most part. a different swell is coming in right now, so the waves are changing and being kinda weird. this morning, the waves started out really good, then the tide went really far in and they died to nearly nothing, and then they turned all crazy and mushy and choppy all at the same time. so we left and went to lunch. :) but we both had caught waves, so it was all good. luke went surfing again this afternoon at del monte beach, but i was sleepy so i stayed in and relaxed. we try to surf in the morning and afternoon, but sometimes i'm too worn out. luke never is. haha.

we'll try to fit in as much surfing as we can before we leave for nevada. we'll get to reno tuesday evening, have fun with family and friends for a few days, then we leave for virginia on saturday (can't wait to see the fam and go surfing with liane and carl!) and then back to reno for a couple of days before we come back to the coast and more surfing! yay!
so there you have it... all is good in the world of the phlegmings. :)

dolphins

so today, while luke and i were out surfing, this big pod of dolphins swam by. this happens a lot, so you might be thinking no big deal, right? well, these dolphins were RIGHT next to us! seriously, one came up and blew the blow hole in my face and i could have reached my foot out off the side of my board and touched it. it was a little scary, but mostly pretty cool. they kept playing around us for a while and then moved on. one even caught a wave with luke. it was cool.
the waves were pretty fun. i've been practicing on the new shortboard a lot so that i can ride it in virginia. but today was kinda little, so it was a longboard day. very fun.
:)

i'm a published author!!

okay, not exactly, but it is still really cool.
a while back, i entered a contest for Surfing magazine about a great love story, and the guy said I really would have won, but the submission was too late because we get our mail late in Korea. but, this month, in the august issue, they printed the story!!!! so now everyone knows our great engagement story!!! yay!
i wish i had a link to show it to you all, but instead, go to a bookstore and check out the august issue of Surfing. It is in the letters section and titled "I love you, but..."
awwww, we are so cute! and it came out right for our anniversary! :)

happy july 3rd!

hey! it's our anniversary, yay!
we are back at grandma betty's house after camping for a week. branden came down to camp too, it was very fun. but boy did i ever need a shower after 6 days of camping! my hair was so greasy and NAAAAAASTY! the ocean water only does so much......
today we are going surfing and then coming back, cleaning up, and going out do dinner, with some cheesecake, of course!
and then tomorrow we will head back to camping again for only 3 nights this time. it's really cool to be at the campground for the 4th of july and see all the fireworks in the sky. the campground is right on the beach, so it is way awesome. and branden bought some silly little fireworks that we may light off also. :)
surfing has been great, yesterday we went to carmel beach and nearly froze our buns off. much colder water than santa cruz! luke was off tearing up the waves and branden and i stuck together and surfed the fun stuff. we had the longboards and luke was shortboarding. speaking of shortboarding.... my new board is so cool! i have surfed it a few times and caught some waves and everything! i trade off between the shortboard and longboard. but when we go to virginia, i'm just taking the shortboard, so hopefully i can handle liane and carl's home turf!! heehee.
okay, gotta run and go get ready for the surf!
peace out.

buddha's birthday

here are some pics of our outing last weekend to the festivities here in korea for buddha's birthday, it was super fun!

this is the cutest little statue that is in the center of one of the squares, where you could donate money and offer wishes and prayers. it was in front of this beautiful temple that is newly constructed, full of wood carvings, paintings, etc. it was so pretty.


they had these lanterns up everywhere around Insadon, the town where the main festivities were in Seoul. this was also in the courtyard in front of that same temple. i loved how the lantern interweaved with the huge tree.


these ribbons attached to this giant weather balloon were actually prayers and wishes that the people wrote. at the end of the week of ceremonies and festivals, they released the balloon into the air. it reminded me of the nepalese prayer flags.


at night, there was a HUGE parade. many people participated and walked with lanterns they made or lotus flowers they created during the day, schools walked, groups walked, and they also had a ton of floats. this was one of my faves. the legs moved too. it was cool!

the whole day was fun, we went with our friends boe and tracie. i also got a very pretty necklace that is a lotus seed that is painted on, so nice!!! and i gave a donation to these nuns and they gave me a handmade lotus flower, it was so great! the weather was beautiful and the day was fantastic!
:) 

spring break pictures

look at these beautiful cherry blossoms! we found them while out on the east coast looking for some surf for luke. they are starting to bloom all over the place... finally! i thought they were never coming because it had gotten cold again. but its finally warming up and here they are! it makes it so beautiful around here!

these are all the small little blooms, but there are also trees that bloom these huge white and purple flowers also. i need to take some pictures of those to show you all. and on base there is this street that has trees on both sides and they form a sort of cherry blossom canopy over the street. it is so pretty!!!

we found this little character at one of the beaches on the east coast. silly. its a mosaic statue and very cute, but part of her face is chipping off.

this octopus was at one of the other beaches on the east coast. they all have some sort of theme character or whatever. this particular beach also had a bathroom with a big clam shaped roof on it. it was quite funny.

i just liked this rock. it looked really pretty out in the water and the waves were crashing up on it.

anyways, things are good here... getting ready to start our last 9 weeks of school, and only about 65 more days until we get to the states!! yay!!! we are SO excited! so, that's that. talk to you all later, dudes! ;)

yo mama'a mama...... abu??

hahahaha
so yeah, its been a while. things here are the same as always. luke and i are doing well. i've been busy with my school bands and my online classes. i've decided to take a week off after this one i'm in now to relax a bit. one right after the other is pretty strenuous and i'm getting overwhelmed. my school kids are getting ready for our honor and type thing here. a lot of them tried out, and i wish i could take them all. they all are so great. luke has been subbing a lot, and on his days off he's been finding surf. we went with the school snow club 2 weekends ago and then last weekend with one of the boy scout troops to help the snowboarders. the weather was beautiful both days adn warm adn so nice. we took some pictures and luke posted them on his blog. all he does is post pics and do comments, but you should check them out. the site is: surfkorea.blogspot.com.
the weather has been warming up finally... the sky was blue today, with no wind and it was pretty warm. i can't wait for spring. the rees get so green adn the flowers are so pretty.
no news on the transfer stuff yet, but keep your fingers crossed! it would be so cool to get somewhere in europe! mmmmmmm
we have started the countdown to getting back to the states, yay! only 104 days! :) we're so looking forward to seeing everyone, going surfing, visiting liane's college (finally!!), and just being in the good ol' U.S. of A.
that's about it here. sorry i couldnt be more interesting. :)
love you all lots and hope to talk to you soon!

a little bit o' tag

So, I got tagged by Jess, Liane, and Horne. Seriously, people! But, Horne's won't show up on my computer now, so I'll just do this one. :)


Four jobs you’ve had in your life:
Teaching music (middle and high school)
Dean of Children's Center at Idyllwild ( so fun!!!)
Teaching swim lessons at Bubble Swim School (gentle ways are best!)
Party hostess at Club Funtime Pizza 'n' Play (ugh!)


Four movies you would watch over and over:
The Princess Bride
Empire Records
Better Off Dead
Pleasantville

Four places you have lived:
Beautiful Seoul, South Korea (mmm, smog!)
Reeeeeno, NV
Las Vegasss, NV
Puerto Rico


Four TV shows you love to watch:
Jeopardy!
Degrassi-The Next Generation (I SOOOO miss that show!)
Mythbusters
The Jeff Corwin Experience
(I'm in Korea, people... there's not much to go on here, except old shows)

Four places you have been on vacation:
Puerto Rico
All over California
Hawaii
Europe


Four websites you visit daily:
Bloggage of family & friends
University of Phoenix Online
aol.com or gmail
surfline


Four of your favorite foods:
sushi
crablegs
spaghetti
halibut and rice pilaf

Four places you would rather be right now:
anywhere in europe
anywhere near a beach
puerto rico
closer to family


Four bloggers I'm tagging:
mom
dad
horne
jackie

hello!!!!

okay, i know its been like, forever, but here i am. :)
so, here's a major update.... we had a FABULOUS time in hawaii. the weather was beautiful the whole time and the waves totally rocked. it was like 85 degrees everyday, and the water was so perfect. not too warm, not too cold. and i totally ruled on the waves. they were so nice. and i tried shortboarding a couple of days and it was really fun, i actually caught some waves on it! it was scarier than the longboard, and when i was on the top of the wave to drop in it was like a mile down it seemed, but i did it. :) then, when we came back to korea, it was so freezing here! we brought warm clothes to put on when we got off the plane, and its a darn good thing! seriously frigid!
we went snowboarding a couple of weeks ago and we're going again this weekend. we go with the school to teach the kids snowboarding. its free... yeah!!!!! heehee the snow is kinda crappy and icy and fake, but hey, again, its FREE!!! no better way... except for free and good snow, that is. whatever.
school is good, we have the end of the semester coming up soon, so i have the kids doing their semester projects. they can play music, do a report on a musician, write a piece of music, etc. it's really cool seeing the ideas they come up with. they are presenting them next week, i can't wait.
luke and i have recently begun watching the tv show family guy and it is friggin hilarious!!! one of my kids loaned them to me. i think the funniest part is that its just a big farce on old tv shows and movies. seriously funny! i don't think my kids get all the jokes in them, but whatever. ;)
my masters classes have started back in again. HARD! the class i'm in now is psychology. i took the class in college, but it must have been the super easy version because this class is crazy hard. and i just finished the first week! oh well, its okay, i only have to take one class at a time, so i have enough time to study and stuff and read the thousands of pages of homework! :)
so there you have it, the update on the happenings. i know i need to post some hawaii pics and blog some more, but i have more homework crap to go do. talk to you all soon!

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!! :)