New Photos on Flickr

Hey, happy holidays y’all. I uploaded a few new pictures from a fall trip to New Mexico, and a few others of the projects we (and by we I mean Jake) has been working on.

Mom Translator

The other night I was, of course, looking on the internet for images of Shaquille O’Neal in a baby outfit, and instead of finding that I found this, and just in the nick of time.  A few days later, as I was failing at making cookies at high altitude, and the pile of crumbles was mounding on the plate with each disastrous batch, my own mother asked me about …”that Draymus, with the devil’s thumb, what was it?  I know, The 3 Endeavors of Some Kind.”  Apparently the cookies reminded her of that thing he was making in Wyoming.  Aaaaahh, oh.  Uh-huh.

Guess What?

We suck at this lately.  We have been all over the map (literally and figuratively) in the 2+ months we have been back.  We traveled to Wyoming, northern Colorado, New Mexico, Southern Colorado, and are now thinking about Guam for X-mas.  We hoped for a job in Medford, Oregon.  We hoped for a job in Bismark, North Dakota.  We hoped for a job in Topeka, Kansas.  Then we were like, “what would it take to move to Mexico?  Austin?  Florida?”  Seriously. We started to apply to 2 different colleges, offering programs we don’t really want.  Should we learn Korean?  Spanish?  Magic?  What?  It got so bad we were then just hoping for holiday jobs with Fed Ex, in the Accounts Receivable Department or Warehouse.  And still trying to cohabitate with family, peacefully.  Ugh.  So guess what?  We’re moving back to Korea for a while.  The job market sucks, y’all! And it turns out Korea ain’t so bad after all.  But look at what we’re now comparing it to.  So.

Be sure to look at the new layout and latest random photos we uploaded on flickr.

 

Repatriated

Today seems like a good day to get started with blogging again. Here’s the short story. Since we got back, we’ve been shuffling back and forth between our parents’ houses, collecting the scattered remnants from our life before Korea, and trying to figure out what’s next for us.

Today we are at Kristin’s parents’ house near Conifer. This morning the clouds rolled in and swallowed up the mountains across the valley, leaving only one spectral mountain spur in sight. You can still make out a few puffs of golden aspen trees breaking up the triangles of pine trees, highlighted by a layer of snow. It looks like this:

Mountain in the clouds.

In the last few weeks we’ve gotten to enjoy a lot of good old fashioned American activities. We’ve done some gardening, learned how to make jelly, can pickles, and assemble corral gates.

Homemade Concord grape jelly. Not so sickly sweet as the stuff from the store.

One of our old home brews with jars full of beets waiting for their pickling brine.

This is a picture from branding at my dad's a few years ago. We helped replace the gate behind and to the left of the new mom. Just for fun, guess what she's eating?

We brewed some beer.

Me watching some industrious yeast making beer fun.

We took a little road trip and visited some tourist attractions.

Back row (left to right): Devils Tower. Front row: Kristin.

The moment we found the bathroom at Mount Rushmore.

We went to a football game.

Me and my dad at the game.

Saw some Americana.

You mess with the US, you don't just get the horns, you get an eagle with a cow skull for a body that will seriously peck you really hard if you get close enough for it to reach you. Like, it will really hurt. I'm not messing around here. It'll maybe even leave a mark. Or a bruise. So you really shouldn't try to steal it. Even without the camera. Canada.

This was not a common sight in Korea. Nice work, 'Merica!

Saw some wildlife.

A mule deer in the driveway at Kristin's parents' house.

A mountain goat in the parking lot at Mount Rushmore.

A mounted jackalope at the gift shop near Devils Tower.

We’ve done a lot of other things since leaving Korea, too, we just don’t have pictures.

It’s been good to be home, but we’re still a little homesick for at least some aspects of our life in Korea. Here are just a few of the reasons:

Kristin's last day with some truly remarkable kids.

Feeling fussy.

Six years old and pretty much fluent in two languages. They're that cool. And funny, too.

Fun with tissues and spit.

back home

too tired to even capitalize or punctuate must sleep for several days now nite

Tokyo Shu-ba-kz[u]

We made it to Tokyo safely and successfully navigated to our hotel. Here is the view from our room:

A scenic view of Tokyo.

The room itself is too small to be seen by the naked eye. Our hotel is in the very cute neighborhood near Hatagaya Station, part of the Tokyo subway system on the Koei New Line. There are lots of little shops, restaurants, secret alleys, and at least one tree-lined path.

On Our Way

We’re at Incheon International Airport, waiting for our flight to Japan to start boarding. We’ll be back home in another week.

Waiting for boarding at Incheon International Airport

Orvis Dog Photo Contest

O, Hai.  Please go to this web site and vote for our picture.  Type “Hookie” in the search bar, then click on the picture and follow instructions from there.  Proceeds go to research on Canine Cancer.  But only do this if you like dogs and cute things and good causes and you’re not a selfish mean jerk.

On the water, patroling for Pelicans and Ne'r Do Wells.

Dance Master’s Delight

So we were just on vacation for eleven days wherein we did nothing much, hung around, drank coffee, chilled, read books, and intended every day to catch up on posting, uploading pictures, and generally keeping our fan up to date on the goings-on of our final days here in Korea.  Alas, we never did.  Because we were too busy not doing anything productive whatsoever.

On another note, Hillstate, the giant construction project located directly across the street from our apartment, is officially almost complete. This is due largely to the efforts of the diligent construction workers that like to start every day of the week (and weekends!) at 7 am by dropping 1 or 2 scaffolding pipes on the ground ever 10 to 20 seconds for 2 hours before taking a well earned break.

The signal that construction is nearly complete? The first delivery of kimchi refrigerators.

Keeping your kimchi fresh.

From LG in a variety of colors to suit your lifestyle--the new Dios Built-In.

A view of a section of Hillstate including scaffolding pipes.

Health Food!

Most days, one kid or another’s mom drops off some sort of food for the teachers. Most of the time it’s a sugary sweet treat, but this week somebody cared enough to bring us health food. With vitamins even!

*Non-nutrative food varnish and flavor enhancer may increase risk of heart disease, rectal leakage, and space madness.