Just eating butter

This is how I found Maya the other day. Just eating a little butter ,with her fingers ,out of the tub, on the kitchen floor. Yummy!

100 things

1. My husband is practically perfect in every way.
2. My son Ender is the greatest person I know in so many ways.
3. My daughter Maya has the sweetest voice I will ever hear.
4. I was my Aunts 24 hr care provider while she was passing on from breast cancer.
5. I have a bracelet that she gave me that I will bring to the base of Mt. Everest someday.
6. I choose dinner over dessert.
7. I think people with a disability are so much more advanced than me.
8. Elderly people make me laugh and cry.
9. Nature motivates me in all parts of my life.
10. I got married in the Barlow's barn.
11. I am a total holiday person give me any holiday and I will turn it into the grandest party you have ever been to.
12. I am a super good cook but not fond of being in the kitchen for too long.
13. Les mis, Phantom, Miss Saigon, Rent, Lion King, and Cats. Love a Broadway musical.
14. Dave Mathew, Christina Agulera, Justin Timberlake, Janet Jackson, David Bowie, Kelly Clarkson. Love a concert.
15. I have been to disneyland, disneyworld, Bahamas, Hawaii, Branson Missouri, Las Vegas and San Fransisco so many times that I lost count.
16. I have been to the 4 main islands of Hawaii (One of my life goals).
17. I love house plants and a garden.
18. A lot of my childhood was spent bare foot on 100 acres that my Grandparents owned.
19. I cleaned houses for money with my Great cousin wene I was eight.
20. I actually needed the money to get clothes for school.
21. I grew up in a single wide aluminum siding trailer with 10 brothers and sisters. 3 bedrooms, 4 people to bedroom. Huge hole in the kitchen floor with a piece of plywood over it.
    
22. I wouldn't have it any other way.
23. I am proud of who I am.
24. I love to be in a large crowd of people. It makes me happy.
25. I didn't realize how hard it would be to exercise as an adult.
26. I truly believe that where much is given much is expected.
27. I would buy my kids 1 million presents for every hoilday if my husband didn't stop me.
28. I just read Harry Potter #7 in 3 days.
    
29. I stayed up till 3am every night.
30. I love to work. The harder the work the better.
31. I can accomplish anything I set my mind to.
32. I love this planet earth so much.
33. I love to serve people that truly need to be served.
34. I have a hard time maintaining friendships and everyone knows why but me.
35. Jared tries very nicely to help me with this.
36. I respect and understand my mother and father more with every passing day.
37. Being a parent is very challenging for me.
38. My sister Camilla is the my favorite cook.
39. I love to camp in Oregon.
40. I love a pumpkin patch.
41. Ruthie Marshall is my favorite person.
42. I don't like getting flowers from people.
43. Target, TJMaxx,anthropologie and Nordstrom are my "happy places".
44. I live in a country that has none of them
45. Thank heavens for Costco in Korea.
46. Right now I want to go to Thailand, India and Italy.
47. I am half Italian and have never been to Italy.
48. I'm am afraid of going to the Middle East and Africa.
49. My favorite animal is the leafy sea dragon.
50. Favorite colors are brown, green, blue. The colors of Oregon.
51. I love Santa Monica.
52. I love things in life that have color.
53. Color motivates me.
54. I loved the Transformers movie.
55. Ian Wright on the travel channel is my favorite show.
56. I haven't seen it for years.
57. My hair gets really curly in humidity.
58. Love a smoothies.
59. I have met so many cool people in life.
60. I am super grateful for all of them.
61. Oprah inspires me.
62. I think "imagination is more important than knowledge" Albert Einstein.
    
63. I am a Dave Mathews, John Mayer ,and Jack Johnson kind of gal.
64. I love fall leaves.
65. Favorite food is sushi of lobster.
66. I love a dirty foreign country market.
67. Jared doesn't enjoy it.
68. am passionate about decorating things.
69. love islands.
70. love to swim in the ocean.
71. love to watch Jared surf.
72. hiked the Na Pali coast with Emily.
73. love to take long showers.
74. like animals to be in the wild never in my house.
75. have almost been bit on my big toe by a rattle snake.
76. A scorpion almost got me once too.
77. skinned and ate the rattle snake that almost bit me.
78. made a Davy Crocket hat out of a squirrel.
79. Love watermelon.
80. My favorite place is any place that Jared and the kids are.
81. I have to spend alot of time with Jared.
82. Jared is the greatest.
83. He makes me laugh.
84. Ender is an amazing artist.
85. So is Jared.
86. Maya is super good with music.
87. We are a super artsie fartsie family.
    
88. I love it.
89. I have to hang our laundy to dry. No driers in Korea.
90. We have to put our toilet paper in a garbage. No flushing in Korea.
91. I loved strawberry shortcake when I was a kid.
92. I wanted a pair of L.A. lights and guess jeans but I couldn't have them because my sister had them.
93. Do I sound bitter?
94. I don't think I am.
95. My sister Laura is an even more blunt person than me.
96. I love a good book.
97. Once I start reading something I can't stop.
98. Cowboys are super hot to me.
99. Dave Mathews voice is super hot to me.
100. "My kids are a few of my favorite things". Sound of Music
     

Ha Long Bay

We have a restaurant that we like that you can dip and wrap your own spring rolls so I thought I would try to make it at home. It turned out really good. Just any kind of veggie, meat(ham,crab, thin sliced beef or shrimp), Pineapple, kiwi, thin rice noodles(foreign foods section at least at Cub foods in Corvallis) and sauces all wrapped up in the rice paper wraps (You dip the rice paper wraps in boiled water to soften them). The restaurant is Vietnamese. Peanut sauce (trader Joes) is really good or sweet and hot Thai sauce.

What a view!!!

This is the view from our 10th floor apartment looking out into the city. Can you believe this is what we see after living in the little resort town of Corvallis, OR?
We are in a city of 3 million so these buildings go on forever. The trees in the bottom left hand corner is one of the parks we always play at.
The large building in the center of this picture is the building that Jared and I work in. It has the green netting on the top (golfing range) and the Hawaiin airlines looking symbol on it. I work on the 6th floor and Jared works on the 7th.

worked hard or hardly working

We have a really busy summer schedule. Jared is teaching 11 hours a day for a month because all of our Korean students have started summer and are coming to our school instead of regular public school. We have a few breaks during this time and weekends. I hope Jared survives.
This past week we had a few birthday parties. Ender's buddy Moo-oak had his 6th birthday last night and our pal Ezra had his birthday this last weekend. Ezra's one year old birthday was done in the traditional Korean style. Lots of food, special caved fruit and deserts, korean style decorations and the whole deal. Pictues above are Ezra's party.
Humidity levels are high so we are staying indoors. If you so much as step out the door you are instantly soaked and all your clothes are sticking to you. The humidity has brought some crazy bugs with it. We saw a bee that was the size of half of an adult finger and that was only it's body not it's wings included. HUGE! The humidity has also brought this crazy bug to the trees that make the loudest noise that is like a crazy screeching that just goes on and on. We are in our own exotic steam bath with crazy big bugs. Don't you wish you could visit!!!

a little asian flare

I made this dinner the other night. I think it could represent a few asian countries and also a little Oregon in the mix. The meat in the center bowl is thinly sliced beef marinated in soy sauce and garlic with thin slices of onion and bell pepper. You just sautee it up stove top. The meat is wrapped in the lettuce leaves and you can put the sauteed zuchini and onion and also the fresh red bell pepper also Koreans put tofu pastes or any other veggies you like. Wrap it all up and dip it in your favorite sauce.
The wrap things on the blue tray are possible called Mondu. They are a fresh version of a pot sticker only they are just closed up like a calazone. They have some green veggies and some noodles in them.
I think the back right dish is Japanese. These are a tofu pocket that has been marinating and filled with rice freshly cooked warm rice that has been seasoned with spices and vinegar. Nothing fancy but all fresh and tastes great.

Jikjisa

Today was a holiday here in Korea so we decided to be spontaneous. I picked a temple at random out of our lonely planet book early this morning and we got ourselves off to the train station to go to the city of our spontaneous temple adventure. It was Ender and Maya's first time on a train.
First time train riders. They just sat back and enjoyed the ride. A little coloring and some snacks and we arrived 50 minutes later to the city of Gimcheon. From Gimcheon we took the city bus for 20 min. to get to the base of the hill and start exploring.
This temple was set up in the mountains as many of them are. Really beautiful.

Rub that belly!!! Ender said "Why is he laughing"?
These trees just twist and turn all over themselves.
Every building has quit a few of these gold statues.
You have got to love an old door way with plants growing around old paint and old stone steps.
I really like how the banana plants are framing this one.
This was a crazy sight. This was a really large building and it had hundreds of these white buddhas to worship.

In all this temple complex has 20 large buildings. You could be here forever taking pictures and enjoying nature at its finest. In these temple complexes bugs and birds are all around so you not only get the amazing sights but also the sounds. The sound is something that would be hard to explain you really just have got to go and experience it for yourself. All the birds and bugs making noise at one time is incredible.
Korea has so many of these great earthen walls.
I can't get in between the next pictures to write so I will finish explain the pictures here. The big brown pots two pictures down are kim chi (fermented cabbage) pots.
The city of Gimcheon is really beautiful and is famous for its grapes hence the last two pictures of the kids with the grapes. Grapes are really great in Korea and I am assuming are a big deal. We have had grape bread, candy, juice and fresh grapes off the vine that are just fabulous.
So a great day exploring. More pictures of the oldest temple in the complex in the next post down.

Daeungjeon of Jikjisa

The picture above is the inside of this building. The pictures below are the walls as you are walking around to the backside of the building.




This building is among the oldest at the Jikjisa temple complex. It is really an amazing experience to be in the wilderness at these temples and know that people lived here so long ago. What a beautiful place with really amazing buildings.

dip your toes in

Playing around at a stream

Buddha licious

We went out to the Donghwasa Buddhist Temple. It's a ways up into the mountains outside of our city of Daegu. It is about a 50 min. bus ride out of the city. It was very refreshing to get out and be around so much green. It was very beautiful and we saw some amazing things. The Buddha above is actually the tallest Buddha of its type in the world. Pretty impressive.

More Donghwasa