Translation Tuesday

Here we are again, Tuesday.  We just won't mention that I completely forgot last Tuesday, until it was Tuesday night in the States.... or will we?  :P

So, I thought I would list how to count to ten in Korean- seeing as how this is going to become part of our homeschooling curriculum this next school year.  I plan to print these out and laminate them, and post them around the house in various places, to help us learn.  (Ok, to help ME learn, not so much for Jacob)! 

one- hana (hah nah)
two- tule (tule)
three- set (sehtt)
four- net (nehtt)
five- tasot (tahsot)
six- yosot (yoe-sot)
seven- ilgop (eel-gope)
eight- yodol (yah-dahl)
nine- ahop (ah-hope)
ten- yol (yahl or ya'll)

Say that ten times fast!  :) 

Its actually easier to count to ten in Korean than it is to remember the months of the year.  Several of the months only have a one letter difference!  I'll post those next week.

And a did you know?

Did you know that it is customary for a newborn baby to stay home for the first 100 days of life?  The Koreans then pass out 100 rice cakes for people to eat for good luck.  Who would have thought?  No wonder people with small babies get lots of attention!

hey, Jackson, look at this!

Kasey, you might wanna look away!  :P  We found another super creepy bug, this time on the playground.  Jon says they are poisonous, not enough to kill you, but enough to make a kid really sick.  So of course, since I pulled out the camera, I was mobbed by 5 kids all wanting to know, 'what is it?'

Ok, moving on.  Blegh!

There was a little disturbance on the playground tonight.  It bothered me. 

All of a sudden, there was a little Korean girl, about 5 or 6, and she was sobbing her heart out.  Obviously, I don't speak Korean, but after a couple of minutes of watching everyone else look around and away, I went and asked her what was wrong.  She could speak a little English, but not enough for me to understand.  So, since no one showed up for her, I took her a few yards down to the little market next to our apartment.  We were able to figure out pretty quickly that the school bus had dropped her off, and her mother was not home. 

Gah.  That just hurt my heart.  I couldn't even reassure her, and it made me feel really bad.

The shopkeeper asked if she wanted to stay with me, and she shook her head no really fast! :P

So she stayed at the store, and about half an hour later, I saw her mom come walking around the corner at the opposite end of the building.  It didn't seem like a big deal to her.  I think that bothered me more. 

Maybe she told her daughter she wouldn't be there, maybe the little girl just forgot she was supposed to stay outside and play for a little while.  But still, eek.  To be 6 again, and be that scared.  I don't ever want my kids to have to go through that. 

And that leads me to another reason why my kids will not attend school here.  In the event of NEO (noncombatant evacuation), there might not be time for children to be picked up by their parents.  Which means that the military will just keep them, and evac them as fast as possible. 

Uh uh.  No way.  Not over my cold ashes.  I'm not leaving a hostile country without each of my children.  There's no way I would do that to my kid.  Good thing that it doesn't seem like it will come to that. 

Anyhow, Jackson, I hope you liked the bug.  I'll keep watching for some more to post for you.  :)

wahh...

Ok, now I'm just a bit sad that we aren't in the States.  Aside from not seeing friends and family, and missing our TV shows, we can't really build the furniture that I was wanting to try my hand at. 

http://www.knockoffwood.com/ Ana White designs the plans and publishes them for free on her website, and the furniture rivals Pottery Barn, Land of Nod, etc, and in most cases, is even better!  She has built most of what she publishes, and her readers have built the things she has not built.  The price is about 1/4 of the cost of buying the furniture brand new, and its gorgeous!  I want to make the Farmhouse bed, the simple bench, the nightstands, media center, simple bookcases, the list goes on of all the things I want to make. 

Anyhow, that's all.  I wish we had a house to be able to make this stuff at (I could find most of the wood, and probably haggle a good price, too)!  But, in the long run, it will be better to come back stateside first, and see what house we will be in next, before making all this awesome stuff! :P

Translation Tuesday

Sooo.... I thought, since we live in a different country now, I would post once a week about new words we have learned.  (Good thing I didn't do it last week, cause I was told I had been teaching my kids the wrong word for hello)!  :D

Hello-  yo-bu-say-oh
Goodbye-  annyonghi kaseyo (ahn yong ee kay say oh)
Thank you- gamseh hamnida  (gom sahm needa- they say it really fast, so it sounds different than it looks).
I'm sorry- mean hamnida (mee ahn am needa)
How are you- onaseyo (oh nah say oh) (this is what I thought hello was, but was informed by a taxi driver that it was wrong- which is cool, since my kids were speaking Korean to him-and he understood them)!  :) 

Funny story to go with the I'm sorry part-  We walked from the iPark Mall to Yongsan Garrison two weekends ago, and coming through the gate on foot, we stopped to show our IDs.  Well, Tabatha's husband was talking to us, and we started walking forwards.  He followed, and the next thing I know, I hear him laugh and say, Mean hamnida, mean hamnida!  The guard had come running out of the guard shack and chased after him a few feet, because he had forgotten to show ID!  :O   The guard seemed to think it was cool that he was trying to speak Korean, and said it was alright, though, so no harm, no foul. 

Anyhow, I'm off to go make a grocery list- its hot as blazes outside and humid, to boot, but Jon said he'd watch the kids!  SCORE!  :P  No hauling a carseat into the commissary, woohoo!

Will be back in a day or so with an update on what we've been doing, and hopefully, pictures.

Buying a car

Well, deciding whether to buy a car or have the Army ship one of our cars over here.  Either way, it will be a few more weeks.  We are still waiting for our DLA to arrive, since that's the money we are supposed to use towards buying a junker over here.  A/C is really the only thing I want in our car.  The summers here supposedly get to around 105, and completely humid.  Yuck.  I just want the ability to take my kids upstairs first, and then come back down and deal with the groceries, instead of being dropped off with everything on the sidewalk below, and wondering how the heck to get everything upstairs.  (You should have seen the day that I had 5 large priority mail boxes that Mom sent over- luckily, I sent J up in the elevator, and our friends met him there so he could bring our little blue grocery cart down). 

I'm supposed to be uploading pics right now, but I keep forgetting to gather the cameras.  :P  So, please excuse me while I go do that. 

Doo, dee, doo, dee, dee, doo, dee, doo....

Ok.  Now that I have at least one of the cameras uploading (sheesh, 154 pictures!), I shall continue. 

There will be pictures of Second Market, and our recent train ride to iPark Mall.  I think I'll spare the general public the blurred photos my children have taken. 

We are finally getting back onto a normalized schedule, now that my house does not weigh me down with all its boxes and packing paper.  I felt like I was drowning in paper lately, and it just got worse from there. 

Anyhow, for anyone that is feeling disorganized, whether it be life in general, your faith, your house, your parenting, or your body, I highly recommend the book Life Management for Busy Women, by Elizabeth George.  I have pored over this book so many times in the last few weeks, I think I have some of it memorized.  It has really helped me re-prioritize my life, and get going again. 

I'm excited, too, because I know what my birthday present is!!  :D  I even got to pick it out (too bad I have to wait to actually order it)!
http://www.amazon.com/Brother-CS6000I-60-Stitch-Computerized-Functions/dp/B000JQM1DE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=home-garden&qid=1275543762&sr=8-1

I stink at linking to Amazon, so that's just a copied link.  But that's gonna be my new baby!  It comes with the walking foot I would need to finish my quilts that Sandy helped me start back in Cove.  I've been getting all my fabric out and organized, and daydreaming over the things I want to make.  Sigh..  :)

Alrighty, its time to get ready to go.  We have a meet n greet in about half an hour, and since both my younger ones are still sleeping, I will get the rest of us ready, and plop them in the stroller at the last minute.  :P