Wine Train

Marshall made reservations for us to go on a trip offered through the ITT office here at Osan for our Anniversary.  The beauty of the ITT trips is that the transportation and all the plans are provided for you.  They normally include a tour guide, which is great to have when you are farther away from base where there might not be many people who speak English.  Marshall even arranged for an all day babysitter and different evening babysitter for the kids!  Our kids (at least Mdx, but probably Mav too) LOVE having babysitters.  Mdx loves the new attention she gets, and thinks babysitters are much more fun than boring old Mama and Daddy.

This was our train car, attached to a few other "Wine Train" cars that were also attached to a normal passenger train.

We got settled on the train and were ready to drink!

These were the four wines they offered during the train ride to the vineyard: 1)White dry wine, 2) Red dry wine, 3) Nouveau wine (this was my favorite) and 4) Sweet wine.  They were okay, but there wasn't one that I really loved.

We got to wear this sweet name badge all day.  Those little people are made out of ginseng.

These little rubber mats are made out of the same stuff we lined our kitchen cabinets with, with a little crocheted edge on it.

This is Julie our tour guide, she was great!  Once the train arrived at the town where the Wine Korea Vineyard is, we got off the train and onto a tour bus for the 15 minutes drive to the vineyard.  The wine industry in Korea is very new, I believe she said it is less than twenty years old.  So the wines are still developing, but they are very good and win awards.

We knew we were getting close to the vineyard when we saw grape vines and orchards!  It was a dreary overcast day, but not too cold and not too hot.

The warehouses.

Our tour busses at the front of Chateau Mani.  (That name always made me think of manicure)

Once we got off the bus it was time for lunch! They served a large buffet of mostly Korean food, and two different wines were served at lunch.

There were little glasses, bigger than shot glasses and smaller than wine glasses.  The two types of wine they gave us at lunch were gender specific.  Some kind of potency-energy wine for men (viagra wine?), and some kind of sweet berry wine for women.  They did not taste very good, so we got more of the wine we had on the train.

We sat with a really funny couple that came on the tour from Kunsan, and the guy was telling a story when this picture was taken.  Obviously it was a funny story!

Giant blow up bottle of wine.  I think Mike McIntyre needs one of these!!

These were large tubs filled with hot Hot HOT grape juice.

This is what we did with the hot grape juice!  We had to add a lot of cold water before it was tolerable.  Two people in our group dropped their cellphones into the water while we were sitting there.  Ugh!!

Coming next.......Wine train part 2!

Royal Wedding Guest

We have a friend from the Hospitality House named Rachel, who is British.  She lives and teaches in a town South of here and comes into town for the weekends for fellowship at the HH, and church.  Rachel is rambunctious, energetic, hilarious, and calls herself "The Queen"!  She planned a Royal Wedding party at a local coffee shop, since the Royal Wedding was starting around 7pm our time.  She stayed in our guest room that weekend so that she could watch the kids while Marshall and I took a little trip to celebrate our anniversary.  (post about that coming up!).  I decided to get a few things together for her stay here with us.

I got some cute fabric at Happy Quilt that had little crowns and tiaras on it. I made a new pillowcase for Rachel's bed.  It was so easy, and turned out so well!

At the commissary I searched and searched and tried to find things that were British.  I ended up with a few cliche items, but it was funny!  Roses, English muffins, English tea, English crackers, Ghirardelli (just because Rachel likes them) and a cookie shaped like a wedding cake.  I used a different crown fabric as a little cover for the bedside table.

It was fun trying to make things special for our guest!  :)

Graduation

Marshall finished his Associates Degree in Intel Studies months ago, but the graduation wasn't held until April.  I didn't realize what a big event it was, there were over 100 graduates!  We were one of only a handful of families there, and I was worried that Mav was going to disrupt the ceremony somehow, but he was great!  I know Marshall was excited to have us there, since most of the graduates didn't have anyone there except coworkers.  The guest speaker was a Chief who gave the requisite "This is not the end, this is only the beginning, keep striving to educate yourself" graduation speech.  He was not the best public speaker- but maybe he was nervous.  I just had high expectations for a Chief I guess.  Marshall's Commander came over and spoke to me for a while.  She is PCSing to Washington, D.C. and we talked for a while about our plans for our time in Germany.

The Banquest room of the Officer Club.  There were three times as many people behind me!

Mav stayed busy trying to get the label off of a water bottle.

The procession of graduates.  Nice Service Dress!

This is a bad photo, but I wanted to show it to you anyway.  First, there is a finger in the upper left hand corner!  Second, it is blurry, and there is a shadow above my head that makes it look like I poofed my hair.  And last- they just had to include sleeping Mav in his car seat that he doesn't fit in anymore!  Ah, good times!  LOL!

Marshall received the Pitsenbarger Award, which was given to Airmen who demonstrated leadership, citizenship, teamwork, community service, personal development, and dedication.  We are so proud!

Trying to get in shape

Hmmm.....now how does Mama do this?

I think she does this!   Weeeeeeeeeeee!

Easter party at school

The comments!  Woot!  Of course I need to get my butt in gear and comment more often too....no more throwing stones in plexiglass Korean apartments.  :)  You know what I should do?  I should have a giveaway.........hmmmmm....what in the world would I giveaway?

The Easter party at Maddox's Korean preschool was....interesting.  Since we had been gone we got a note the day before that said we could send in donations of candy or cake.  I made some brownies and bought a bag of candy and took it in.  The invitation said families were welcome, and to bring friends.  Once we arrived I discovered that their idea of an Easter party is like a cross between a birthday party and Halloween.  Certainly not all Koreans treat Easter this way, but this is how it was at Mdx's school.

All the children had made Easter "baskets" out of cardboard boxes that were decorated with Halloween stickers.  Also, at least half of the children were dressed up in some kind of costume.  They brought all the kids into one of the classrooms to sit on mats on the floor and wait for the Easter bunny.  Mav wanted to sit with all the other children!

He wanted to be with the kids, but he didn't.

Cakes, cupcakes, chips, and candy.  The little boy in the picture is wearing the school uniform- a pink Burberry-Plaid-lined jumpsuit.

Each child got a turn at the egg race.  See the teacher with the witches hat in the background?  Right after the egg race they played "Pin the tail on the donkey!".  

The Easter Bunny made an appearance.  Mdx was not a fan.  You can see her name in Hangul on her box, and the child in the witches dress.

After they each got their picture taken with the Easter bunny they were all lined up and taken around the school, going room to room in a type of trick-or-treating for Easter candy.  

It was certainly a party we will remember forever!  :)  One wonderful thing about this school is how hard the teachers work to plan fun things for the kids to do.  They are always taking them on picnics, or outside to garden, or doing craft projects.  They are also extremely friendly and love to pinch Mav's cheeks and coo at him when I come to pick up Mdx.  It is a great place for her!

A month is good

I think that was a lovely vacation from blogging.  I had to rest my fingers, which were worn down to the bone from the every day posting during Lent.  Which, I have to say- will never happen again.  Especially with the lack of comments I was getting.  It's like putting on a huge show and at the end nobody claps.   (LOL!)  Now, I know Blogger can sometimes act stupid- heck sometimes it won't even let me post or upload pictures when I want to- but there are SO many different ways to comment.......yet people don't.  Not even anonymously.  I don't write for the comments, but it's nice to know people are out there reading, appreciating, having thoughts they want to share- etc.  Okay, off soapbox.  :)  Lord knows if there's a soapbox I can find it.

Moving on.....

We are going to go back and play catch up for a little while.  This is the story of my life (playing catch up....not what is coming up next on the blog).  We went home to the States, and on our flight back to Korea I requested a children's meal for Maddox (which I knew you could do) and a BABY MEAL for Mav!  Did any of you know they have baby meals now?  No one said anything to me about it on my flights back to the States, but I saw them serve different food to some kids down the aisle.  So, a few days before we left the US I called Delta and spoke to their customer service (who were very helpful and friendly BTW), and the lady said "Oh yeah, we have just about any kind of meal you would want, you just have to know to ask for it!".  So there.  Now I know.

Behold, a Baby meal!  This is Japanese Baby food. (we flew from Atlanta to Tokyo)

When we got back to Korea Spring had sprung!  Purple flowers had bloomed everywhere!

Someone had also planted flowers along the side of the road from our apartment into town.