Okay for some reason it doesn't want me to post all my pictures in the same post. So continuing from before here are some more photo highlights. I have lots of pictures of the boys at snack time and playing games because I was outside helping out most of the days so it was easiest for me to see them there.
Evan's group sitting nicely and chatting.
I got to protect this balloon one day so it didn't get popped like the rest of them.
Evan and I. He was kind of clingy the one day. I think he was just as tired as I was.
Snack time. They had crushed oreos, cherries and whipped cream. So yummy!
After a fun filled week of vacation bible school the boys and I are done. They loved being around other kids their age for the week and I think they are ready for school. It was a nice diversion from the just sitting around the house that we have been doing.
Here are some highlights of the week in pictures!
First day, it was very sunny. The only way I could get a picture in front of the backdrop was to let them borrow my hat and glasses!!
I think snack time was a big hit for both boys, here Evan is eating his "nacho sandwich".
Pulling the anchor game! Evan loved being the leader!
Ian was harder to get pictures of during opening and closing since his group was too cool to sit up front and they tended to hang out in the back!
Evan's group was always up front. He loved his crew leader!
There was lots of singing and dancing. Evan took to it with gusto!
Terribly out of focus but you can tell he is giving it his all!
I am learning more about my camera now that I am getting settled in. I took a Photography 101 course over on post a couple of weekends ago and I really enjoyed myself. The guy teaching the class was very helpful in helping me learn what some of the buttons on my camera are for. The biggest one being the "reset" button!!
I also won a spot in Katrina Kennedy's Your Kids: Captured Through the Lens class over at Get It Scrapped. We are in week two right now but week one was learning the different between Aperture Priority and Shutter Priority on the camera and how to get your kids without the cheesy smile.
These are the ones I turned in for my assignments first.
Taken on AV mode (f/5.6, 1/1250, ISO400)
Taken on TV mode (f/3.5, 1/4000, ISO400).
I thought they both looked dark even though we were in the shade, I was using a pretty good ISO so it was suggested that I look at my EV and I found that it was all the way down at -2. So after bumping it back up to 0. I tried taking a couple more and I got this one.
This one is SOOC on AV mode (f/5.6, 1/500 sec, 200ISO). Much better!!
Here are a few others that I took of Evan playing out at the track while Ian was at running club. Can't wait to play some more!! I am loving learning how to get better photos of them!!
I just can't seem to keep up with it lately! I have tons of pictures to post but just haven't had the time or energy to sit at the computer and post anything. Need to put it on my things to do list!
Okay I can promise Darren's Aunt Kathy we do not live in a shack like this.
Our apartment is 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms and it also has a bonus room/office. We live in a complex called Rex Village. It is about 100% military families, I haven't seen anyone yet that I don't think is military or attached to the military some way.
We live right smack in the middle of the complex. On the second floor of the building. It is kind of cool because we have the whole floor. Just neighbors upstairs and downstairs.
Ok, now I am not the engineer of the family but here is a VERY NOT TO SCALE drawing of the layout of our house. Just so as I am showing you pictures you can kind of get an idea of what is where and stuff like that. The side of the house with the big X is the side you see from our street in the pictures above.
First you go up the stairs and you see our door. We have this cool doorbell that has a camera so you can see who is at the door without even going to the door cause the house phone has the video screen.
As for our door, it is big and solid and heavy. And it has this cool cipher lock on the front! The kids fight over who gets to put the code in everyday if you can imagine.
OK, so going in the front door you step into the entryway, this is where you take off your shoes cause Koreans always take off their shoes before entering someone's home. You can kind of see here and in the picture with the open front door the built in cabinets in there.
That picture above is the entryway as seen from the living room. That one door slides shut so you don't have to heat or cool it. It is basically like a front porch.
Now the living room is huge and it has these really big windows all the way across it. Our living room came furnished with the big plasma TV (and they do really get hot by the way!!) and right now is graced with the blow up bed that we all kind of lounge together on to watch TV. It also came furnished with the "entertainment center". I am not sure if it is really an entertainment center but that is what it is here. All those little things are drawers and you can take the whole thing apart and stack them anyway you want. This picture is taken standing in the entryway.
And this one is from in front of the kitchen.
And this one from standing next to the big black thing in the corner (I'll get to that in a second). Oh and you can see some other furniture in the house too. That is stuff that we got from the army to use.
We have a gas fireplace in the living room. I guess it might be nice in the winter but not so much right now. And since I haven't figured out which switch is which yet we all have a tendency to turn it on during the day. Above the fireplace is some sort of rock, it is really pretty and kind of reminds me of quartz.
Now for that black thing in the corner. That is the air conditioner. Isn't it pretty? It's all blinged out and has glittery butterflies on it. It is so my style. *insert the eyeroll here* Everyone tells us how expensive it is to run it but no one has explained in dollars how much that is just that it is VERY EXPENSIVE. So we are trying to make it this first bill without turning it on just to see what our family baseline is for electricity. The Koreans make great stuff but they aren't great about installing efficient stuff in their buildings. So for right now I have the greatest looking skin in the world because I am sweating it out all day. Luckily with the big windows on both sides of the house we do get a pretty good breeze in the house so it isn't really hot in the house just humid.
And if you go out on the patio this is what it looks like. The patio runs all the way to our master bedroom.
The living room is center of the house, off of it is a hallway, the master suite and the kitchen. Well start with the kitchen. Here we are looking into the kitchen/dining area. That table and chairs came with the house too.
The table is very heavy, it has a granite top on it and I will probably end up with a broken toe one of these days because I seem to hit it at least once a day.
You can kind of see the wallpaper/wall coverings in the picture above. All the rooms and ceilings are covered in like a textured wallpaper. And pink too!! And there is our water cooler too, we aren't supposed to drink the tap water here. We get 2 bottles a month included in our rent. We are probably going to need more than that per month!!
And here is the laundry room. Washer and dryer were supplied by the landlord, we bought the shelves to put stuff on. The washer is all in Hangul and it plays this really nice little song when it is all done.
Master bedroom suite is composed of a dressing area, bedroom and bathroom. You walk into the dressing area first and it has closets and shelves and this little desk all built in.
In the second picture you can see the door to the bathroom.
The toilet plugs in and has a built in bidet!
The bedroom with our furniture from the army. The wall and ceiling coverings in here are my favorite. And they have nice heavy drapes in all the rooms since the sun comes up at like 5AM here!! And that little black bar thing near the ceiling is the small air conditioner in the master suite.
And then the rest of the house. You go down the hallway to your left when you leave the entryway and you will find the boy's bedroom first, the office on the other side, a guest bathroom and bedroom.
Here is the kids bedroom. Again more built in shelves and closets and army furniture. We are waiting for the bunk beds to arrive in our household goods.
The office. The apartment had this big section in the living room and we moved it back here along with the desk. When we get our big TV it will go back here with the video games. We call this room the office because it is the only one of the rooms back here that doesn't have built in shelves or closets.
And let me show you the big windows, they are actually three layers. There is a screen, and then a clear glass window and then a frosted glass window in all of them. It is pretty neat.
The guest bedroom. It is kind of funny shaped because of the guest bathroom taking up some of the space. But it has built in shelves and closets along one wall and windows along the opposite.
And then the guest bathroom. I don't know what we will do with this shower. Cause the longest shower rod we can find is 72 inches long. This bathtub is 74 inches.
And this is the hallway standing in the guest bathroom looking down towards the master suite.
I hope you made it through this whole long post. But that is what our place looks like right now!
