This One's For You Pam, Well, The First Part Anyway

So this game on the street is called...well, I don't know what it's called, but it's basically like the game of Buck-Buck. If you don't know what Buck-Buck is, you should ask your youth pastor and he'll tell you.

I was talking to my Aunt's Dad over Christmas and showed him the pictures of the game and he was like, "Oh yeah, we used to play that. My friend would jump on my back and try to knock me over, and I would try keep him up. If he didn't fall off then we'd play 'Paper, Rock, Scissors' to determine the winner!" I looked at him with the widest eyes I could muster and dropped my jaw in disbelief. I thought this was a Korean invention, but nope, it was an American thing too. Who knew?!

Anyway, we just finished our second week of winter camp and I have two more weeks while Jen has only one. She's been working harder than me for the last two weeks so she deserves to finish earlier than me. Speaking of Jen, she made this baked chicken with honey mustard the other day (which was a really good recipe) and then she turned around and used the leftovers to make a honey mustard chicken wrap to take to school for lunch the next day! What an amazing woman! Thankfully we don't have to eat school food during winter camp because they don't cook during winter camp. However, we have to find ways to provide lunch for ourselves without using a microwave. Jen's doing a great job of it, as you can see by my expanding waistline.

Well, that's all for now, we're off tomorrow to see the DMZ (demilitarized zone) for those of you who aren't familiar with the military lingo. :) If they let us take pictures, we'll post them next week! Take care everybody, have a great weekend and watch some football for me. Go Chargers!!

You Can Stop Waiting Now

I know I said I would explain what the picture was from my last post when I got back to Korea, but I ran into some problems. Namely, I am still very unfamiliar with my kickbutt video software, and we ran into a hiccup with the blogging website we use. As you will see, I'm still very unfamiliar with the program and we decided to bypass the website and put the video directly into YouTube. So you'll see it via them. Anyway, enjoy. And if you did actually guess what the machine was before you saw the video, go ahead and give yourself a cookie and a pat on the back. You deserve it. :)



Take care everybody. I hope you had great holidays. It was good to see those of you that we saw. I wish we could have visited longer. Happy New Year!!

A FEW Christmas Pics

Praise the Lord, we again made a safe trip halfway around the world and back! We had a wonderful time in America - and what a whirlwind! We flew into Pittsburgh, drove down to Jen's parents in WV, drove up to Cleveland to watch the Lakers with Jonas, and had a great time at Jonas and Rachel's wedding - all in the first 3 1/2 days!

We spent the next few days with the Larkin family and the day after Christmas headed to Kansas to spend time with the Dyck's. We've got lots to share, but for now, just a few pics from our trip!

Observations

First of all, I want to get your opinion on what you think this is. So take a look at the picture to the right and then leave a comment using the link below this post.

Now, let's get onto some other stuff. We have lots of pics of lots of things for you. And if you're good, next time I'll even put up a video clip for you! Anyhow, let's go. A couple weeks ago I looked down the sidewalk and saw Santa hanging from a noose in the shopping district. As I walked down to mourn for him, I saw another Santa flying straight sideways a little further down the street. I'm not kidding, here's the pics!

Talk amongst yourselves. I'm all verclempt.

Ok, I'm over it. Next we have an ice skating story. Ok, it's not really a story, but we did go ice-skating. An ice-skating rink opened in front of Seoul City Hall on the 6th so Jen and I went down there to check it out. We rented skates and fell repeatedly for an hour all for JUST OVER A DOLLAR!! That's right, we RENTED SKATES! Neither one of us fell. We are surprisingly good skaters. Who knew? Oh, and while we were there a famous Korean lady showed up and everybody took her picture....so....I did too! I'll give you a million Won if you can tell me who she is.


In other news, the Chiefs lost their 7th straight game and are in peril of finishing the season with the lowest winning percentage in my lifetime. If the Chiefs don't win one of their next two games they'll lose 12 games in a season for the first time since 1978. I know, that was only two years before I was born, but almost thirty years ago.

Let's see, Christmas is past here in this Dyck household, but we're gonna go to America and help our families celebrate this week and next. We won't be able to see your comments until the day after Christmas, but don't let that stop you from making them!

Merry Christmas EVERYBODY! Please remember that it's a season for celebration, not a season for stress. Enjoy your families and if you get a bit overwhelmed with what you're doing, just stop doing it! It's more important for you to find pleasure in your relationships during this season. Have an extra conversation instead of making an extra batch of cookies. You'll enjoy yourself much more. Take care everybody. Feliz Navidad Prospero Ano Y Felicidad!

I Knew I Should Laugh, But Wanted to Cry!

So, as the holidays approach we all know that life gets busy! It's been so fun to shop for Christmas gifts, decorate the house, and most of all . . . PACK for home!

Christmas baking has proven to be a little more difficult this year - for several reasons. One - the ingredients. I start by looking for it in the grocery store. The problem I have there is most everything is in Korean - so I look at the packaging, sound out the Korean word if I can, and guess! There are a few baking shops with American products - the problem there is usually the price.

Problem #2 - Baking tools. I brought a few things with me (some of my favorite Pampered Chef.) But what I didn't think about was that Korea isn't into big desserts, so everything is TINY. I have a regular size muffin pan, and a regular baking sheet. 13 x 9's = don't exist. Bread pans = I have the mini ones. I have a pie plate, a 9 x 9 square pan, and can get round ones. Bundt and springform pans = out of the question! (unless you want the individual size.)

So, in the midst of finishing a semester and preparing for the holidays the schedule has been a bit hectic - typical this time of year. In my lack of planning I realized at 10 o clock the other night I hadn't made the promised sugar cookies Cory was going to take to his class. So I acted quickly and began to mix up a batch that I had successfully tried the week before.

Grabbing my mini-cookie cutters I was prepared to come through with sugar cookies after all. After fighting a bit w/the dough (that is supposed to chill overnight) I put in the first batch. The dough didn't taste quite right, but I thought maybe I had bought the wrong flour in my latest guessing game at the grocery store.

When the first pan was done I asked Cory's opinion. They were sweet - but had some unrecognizable "flair". Yes, it seems that my cookies contained GARLIC POWDER!

So, here's my excuse. The vanilla here is a powder, not a liquid. And so in the spice rack there are 4+ powders that are white. The bottoms are labeled, but apparently I didn't check it when I pulled it off the shelf. And so, rather than send the kids garlic sugar cookies (which they very well might have loved) I trashed the dough and Cory had to go buy something at the store. (And they don't sell sugar cookies, or any Christmas cookies here, for that matter.)

The next day, I laughed.

We Did IT!!!

WORLD'S GREATEST COFFEE!! Ok, not really, but it's a funny line anyway. We are pretty pumped tonight, because we took a huge step into becoming Koreans! Check it out!

That's right boys, we ordered pizza!! OVER THE PHONE!!! It wasn't as scary as I thought it would be. They just asked for my address and I tried to tell them with my thickest Korean accent. (it's pretty easy, just add an "uh" sound after every consonant and finish every sentence with "yo" or "mida" and you're good to go.)

I am so glad that you could celebrate this moment with us! If you'd like to send congratulatory cards or gifts, you can mail them Dominos-uh, Big-uh Brick-uh Building-uh, Ilsandong-Gu, South-uh Korea-mida. They'll know where to find me-yo.

I Miss My Dryer!

How many of you line-dry your clothes? I have never done this in my life, with the exception of camping trips, but that's way different.

Anyhow, I've discovered over the last few months that a dryer does way more than dry your clothes. If you don't believe me, go for a month without drying your clothes and see where you find lint on your body!

It's not just the softer fabric that comes out of the dryer, or that the clothes are SOOOO warm when they come out (making you feel nice and toasty), or the fewer wrinkles that can keep the iron in the closet for weeks on end, or even the fact that the dryer can return your clothes to their original size. I think the biggest thing that gets into my crawl about line-drying clothes is the thing that gets into my crawl! LINT! It's just uncomfortable! I'm not sure about my wife, but I've never had so much in my life! :)

Now, before you start thinking this is a negative post, let me tell you it's not. I'm not complaining about not having a dryer, I'm simply looking forward to the time when we can dry our clothes with a sweet drying machine! It will be awesome. I will definitely never take a dryer for granted again.