Snow Fun at Jisan Ski Resort

One of my bucket list items in Korea was to go on an ITT snowboarding trip.  I looked at prices for ITT and it was crazy expensive for my entire family to go, so we decided to hit the slopes with the Rusts.  Our amazing Korean neighbor Jin called ahead of time and got us an appointment for lessons. It had either been a long while since we have gone, or for some, they had never been, so lessons were a must.

We got to Jisan Ski Resort and after a few wrong turns, miming, and asking everyone we saw, we made it to the lessons building.  Those that didn't have equipment were fitted and off we went.  Four of the kids were taking skiing lessons, and five of us were taking snowboarding lessons.  Holly and Tyler just went straight to the slopes.

Little A and Big Sis opted for skiing while M&M, me and Kevin went for the boards.  Little A and Big Sis had a great instructor.  They were both learning and catching on so very fast.  It was so fun seeing then go down the bunny hill all on their own.  They were both having so much fun and were all smiles. 

We snowboarders on the other hand spent a lot of our time on the ground freezing our bums and hands off.  Our instructor did not speak any English other than "not right".  She would show us something, of which we had no idea what we were supposed to be watching, then would have each of us go down about 5 feet one by one.  It was a slow and cold process.  None of us knew what she was wanting us to do.  She spent a lot of time on her phone on google translate trying to figure out what to say and how to say it.  

Our lessons were up after 2 hours, and in that two hour frame we made it down the super tiny bunny hill only twice.  We were never given the chance to attempt it on our own. It was frustrating not being able to have the chance to try to snowboard, and even more frustrating that the language barrier made the lessons a complete failure.  Luckily, we were all in good company, so we still ended the two hours with smiles and good spirits.  Sadly, Holly and Tyler did not end the two hours with good spirits.  This winter in Korea has been a very dry winter, so all the snow was man made and hard ice.  Poor Holly took a fall while snowboarding and broke her tail bone.  She was in a lot of pain.  I felt so bad for her.

Merry Last Christmas in Korea

We had a wonderful Christmas this year.  Since we just got back from Thailand and Cambodia and will be going on a cruise in a few months, the kids knew we were going to be having a pretty small Christmas.  They were totally OK with it, especially since they have loved traveling and were all beyond excited about a cruise.  Even though it was a small Christmas, Kevin and I had a HUGE surprise for the kids. 

We had our traditional Christmas Eve program reading Luke 2 and opening Christmas Jammies and our yearly ornaments.  I made Santa bags this year, and used the bags for their Christmas Jammies and ornaments.  The kids went to Happy Quilt with me and picked out their material for their bags, and we took Christmas Break to make the bags.  Every year we will put out the Santa Bags and on Christmas Eve, Kevin and I will put their Christmas Eve PJ's and ornaments in it, then the kids will hang up the bags so Santa can fill the bags with their Christas gift from him.  We got matching Christmas Jammies, this year and for the ornaments we got them little bears that had traditional Korean handbooks on.  Since this is our last Christmas in South Korea, we wanted to get them all a Korean ornament.

Kevin made me a super amazing and incredible ornament.  He took a rubix cube and covered all the squares with the trips that I have taken this year.  In 2018, I traveled to 9 different locations.  It was fun seeing the different locations and pictures.  He put a lot of time and love into the ornament and I absolutely love it! Even Kevin and I got matching Christmas Jammies.

The kids all went to bed, and Kevin immediately got in the car and took a 49 minute drive to Cheonan to pick up our Christmas surprise.  Our kids love love love dogs.  They were devastated when we had to leave our Dani in Utah when we came here to Korea.  Dani does not do well with people and other dogs, so we were not allowed to bring her.  My amazing Sister, Lori and her fabulous daughter Lauren agreed to take Dani for us, so I called them and asked if it was OK if we got the kids a puppy for Christmas.  Our friends, the Liddells, just bought a small toy poodle from a pet store in Cheonan, and said there were two more.  We checked the place out a week before Christmas and fell in love with a blonde little toy poodle.  We bought the poodle and they agreed to keep her until Christmas Eve and since they closed at 11PM, it was perfect.  We kept the little puppy in our bathroom and she didn't make a peep.  Christmas morning arrived and we all came out and opened our stocking.  The kids all got candy, legos, a game and small little trinkets in their stockings.

My gift to the kids this year was doll clothes.  I measured and made clothes for their dolls that Aunt Cindy made.  Since the doll is so skinny, there aren't any clothes factory-made that fit them, so I spent all month every night staying up and sewing them each two outfits and matching PJ's.  The dolls all had Christmas Jammies to match the family.  The girls really got a kick out of that.  The other fun gift was Big Sis's gift.  We bought a new camera this past year, so we wrapped up our old SLR and gave it to Big Sis.  She was so surprised and excited to get a camera of her very own.  

Another fun gift was the Monster towel I made for Little Monster.  All the kids have a hooded towel that Aunt Patti made for them when they turned one.  Aunt Patti made Little Monster a super adorable blue and red towel, but unfortunately the material of the towel made our Little Monster break out in hives, so I was never able to use that towel.  Since he didn't have a useable hooded towel, I made him one this year for Christmas.  One of the coolest things that happened this year was the blessing of pay it forward.  This year, the kids all decided to give one of their presents to someone they felt could use the gift more than them.  We picked a family together and bought all the kids in that family a pair of jeans.  After we bought the jeans, we noticed that two of the kids didn't have warm winter coats.  The very next morning, our neighbor brings by a bag of clothes that her girls never wore or grew out of, and inside the bag were two perfect coats and super warm sweaters.  It was fun sharing this blessing with the girls when they opened their beautiful coats. We blessed the life of a family and then in return, we were blessed.  It was so special.

After the kids opened all their gifts, I gave them a wrapped up box.  They very excitedly opened it together, just to look confused because it was empty.  Kevin and I looked at each other and just as rehearsed, we said something to the affect that the other person was supposed to put that gift in the box, and we must have left it in the closet.  I took the box to my bathroom and added the tiny little puppy into it.  We brought the box out and told the kids to open in on three.  We counted down, 3-2-1 and they opened the box with squeals and gasps and oohs and awes.  They were in love instantly and each carefully lifted up the puppy and took their turn kissing and holding her.

It took a few minutes, but the kids decided on the name of Bailey.  So, I am excited to announce the addition to our family: Bailey Rasmussen the cute tiny toy poodle, whose blonde hair matches all of the girls in the family.  It was a small, but absolutely wonderfully blessed Christmas.

Lotte World and Lotte World Aquarium

So during the winter time in Korea, the weather is biting cold. With wind and bad air always abounding during this time during the year, we specifically reserved these two locations for mid week, off season, cold weather since two things are always a guarantee in Korea: 1) during school time off every public place is packed to insane numbers, and 2) Korean people don't like the cold so any place indoors will be packed. So we went in the middle of the week on a off day of school that didn't coincide with Korean schools, and it worked!

Lotte is the biggest name in Korea. They must be a billion dollar company and seem to own every large apartment buildings, food chains, and even a mall. They made a Disneyland knock-off if you will, Lotte World, which was a indoor/outdoor theme park, which during this time was festive with Christmas. We love living in an asian country that celebrates Christ! We took this trip with the Walkers. 

Here you can see the indoor train, the hot air balloons you can ride around the top of the park, and all the little inlets of fun little things to see. They also had tucked away within it Panda Express, which was an awesome find!

The outdoor theme park has a beautiful Disneyland castle, and the surrounding rides. Here you can see M&M with Claire, her bestie. The merry-go round is always a hit with the kids, as well as driving the cars which Little A just loved with her friend Brynlee. 

As it was the Christmas holidays, it was great to enjoy some time with festive decorations, to include a huge show at the end that celebrated Santa. It's really funny to see all the Korean chants that they make up to get a crowd going, and regardless of age it seems like everyone knows it. They even did a mainstreet electrical parade performance, but the difference was using all the cool LED lights here.

So I know you have seen a lot of our pictures, like this one between Heather and Brianne Walker, where their hands are doing that. In Korea its super common when you take pictures to make your thumb and index fingers into "hearts", which if you slide them across each other they make a heart. Super fun Korean way of pictures!

Within Lotte World is Lotte Aquarium, which was perhaps one of the best ones we have been too. We have written before about how Heather and I aren't normally excited about aquarium, but this one was awesome!

There were sea lions, whales and it was amazing to see that this aquarium all the animals were super interactive. The actually moved and responded to the kids when they would, but it was super fun to watch them mimicking the kids mouth movements. Monster loved it, and made us re-live the great time we had in Okinawa at the aquarium. It was a great day and a perfect way to spend a freezing day during Christmas time in Korea.

-Kevin

Creating a Gingerbread Candy Temple

This is M&M here and I am going to tell you about our adventure at home with making a gingerbread house. We decided to wing it this year and made gingerbread from scratch. Mom, Dad, Big Sis, and I helped make the gingerbread while Dad made a sketch of what our gingerbread house would look like. We then cut out paper as stencils and cut the gingerbread to make walls, doors, the ceiling, the ground, and many other things. We then pieced the puzzle together to make the outside of the gingerbread house.

We had decided to make a candy temple this year. We made the frosting and "glued" the gingerbread together. Then the fun began... Mom and Dad busted open the candy and we started decorating the candy temple.

Mom made little missionaries that looked like her and Dad. Big Sis and I made the sign with a little help from Dad. Addy made some benches for the back of the temple. Everyone pitched in with decorating the rest of the temple. We used crushed candy to make the top look like stained glass.

After we were done I noticed something was missing. I graded 3 yellow gumdrops and fashioned them to look like the Statue Moroni that is at the top of the temple.

The temple looked amazing and it was surely our most amazing gingerbread creation yet.

Thankful for Thanksgiving and Friends

For Thanksgiving this year, we had an open invitation Thanksgiving for anyone and everyone that didn't have a place to go or family to celebrate with. Kevin and I kept going back and forth on what to do for Thanksgiving.  He invited a few people from work that are unaccompanied and I wanted to invite a few close friends.  We compromised by deciding to open it up to everyone, accompanied and unaccompanied.  Everyone we came across, we asked if they had Thanksgiving plans, and if they said no, then we invited them to our dinner.   

A small miracle happened with the location, it was actually really neat.  Kevin went to the Mustang Center a week before Thanksgiving to see if we can reserve the Mustang Center Multipurpose room.  He walked in and asked if the room was available, he was told that he was about the 30th person to ask, but it was actually available because the Mustang Center personal thought the center was closed for the day, and just a few minutes before Kevin came in, they were informed by their boss that the building will be open and the room is available to reserve.  

We ended up having about 70 people for the Thanksgiving dinner.  We had over 20 unaccompanied, over 20 kids, and about 10 couples. There were about 5 main families that came and each brought a full Thanksgiving dinner with them.  We were originally so worried about not having enough food, but there was such an outpouring of love and service from the families that there was plenty of food, and actually enough food to send plates of leftovers with all the unaccompanied.  The food was absolutely delicious!  There were 6 fully cooked turkeys, mashed potatoes, corn, gravy, rolls, jello, salads, sweet potatoes and so much more. 

The kids had such an amazing time.  My really good friend and co-organizer, Corianne Schwartz set up some super cute crafts for the kids.  They took time at the beginning to make some centerpieces for the tables, it was a super cute pumpkin made out of toilet paper.  Corianne also provided a craft table with paper and crayons.  The kids also ran and played around the perimeter of the room while all the adults talked and ate. I think they all just loved spending time with their close friends.

After everyone had eaten firsts, seconds, and thirds, we brought out card games and board games and everyone played games, talked, visited and laughed.  There were so many groups of people playing games all around the room.  It seemed as if everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving.  We ended up staying so long, that the Mustang Center worker came in and said we had to start cleaning up.  Everyone helped to clean, and it was all taken down and clean in less then ten minutes. I am so grateful for amazing friends that made this a wonderful Thanksgiving as we were able to be together and serve those airmen and women who sacrifice so much to be here without their families.  It was a day that was filled with much love and service.

I know our kids are grateful for such good friends too.  We seriously have the best of friends here and our kids are best friends too.  I love being part of the military and moving and meeting the salt of the earth.  I am humbled to be among such amazing people. I am so thankful for being in South Korea this Thanksgiving.