Joseph's Birthday 2014

Happy 34 to Joseph!

Joseph had a great birthday.  His students and co-teachers helped make his day special by giving him some much needed coffee and birthday wishes. 

Several of his past students sent a video to him singing happy birthday. 

Our nieces sent a few videos singing happy birthday as well. Completely made his day!

We had a nice lunch at our favorite Chinese restaurant and a lovely steak dinner at home with nice dessert from a cafe we know. 

On Friday we got together with Brian and Tiffany for mexican food (kind of) at a restaurant called Takorea (taco-re-uh). 

Saturday brought us to our explorations. Joseph and I hopped a train to a new city: Osong,South Korea. 

We had planned on going to Andong or Daegu but considering I am 32 weeks pregnant and already having some contractions we decided to stick closer to home.  Osong is about 30 minutes by slow train and 15 by KTX. We took the slow train. Our total ticket price for 2 people one way was 5,400w. Pretty darn cheap. To start off with the train station there is HUGE. It is really big and there is nothing in it save 2 coffee shops and a donut shop (stale donuts) and the slowest ticket counter we have yet to encounter in Korea. We walked outside and couldn't see anything except the train station. Just space and lots of taxis. Flat land all around for farming. We walked a different direction and came upon the "city" part of Osong. It is pretty but very, very, very small.  There were mainly villas (4 or 5 story tall apartment buildings) or very large tall apartment buildings (30 stories).  We walked around and through the streets. There was not a lot of traffic at all. The streets were mostly deserted with a few exceptions here and there.  We came across a lot of restaurants that were closed and finally found one that was open. Called Asian Kitchen they had pretty good food.  After lunch we walked around to the top of a hill and then walked along the lake that was there and then wandered back to the train station to come home. 

We were pretty hungry when we returned home and tried a new chicken place by our house. Steamed chicken cut up with glass noodles, vegetables (carrots, cabbage and potatoes) mixed together with a mildly spicy sauce. It was delicious.  

Home again to finish off our leftover birthday dessert and then we were so exhausted we went to sleep early. 

Super fun and adventurous day!

Sunday brought us to Starbucks where we did classwork for our two university classes to update our teaching certificates.  Stayed there about 4 hours or so and got a lot done then came home and raided the fridge for leftovers.

Sourdough Bread

Joseph and I tried our hand at making sourdough bread for New Year's.  We were really craving Disney's Tonga Toast from the Kona Cafe in the Polynesian Hotel.  If you haven't tried it, you are really missing out.  Their breakfast is quite normal but delicious.  Their coffee is 100% Hawaiian Kona and it is a nice atmosphere.


If we are able next time we are in America, it would be lovely to go there just for breakfast.

Anyway, we decided to try and make sourdough bread.  No biggie, right?  Just follow the directions. Yeah.....no.

Making sourdough requires making a starter first.  You have to love this starter and it has to have a reason to love you as well, apparently.  This takes anywhere from 18 hours to a week or more depending on temperature and other variables that we don't know all about yet.  We got this started and thought we did a good job.  It looked right, smelled right and all that good stuff.

We were making the actual bread and guess what.  No rise.  None.  Just a flat lump of dough.  After 12 hours of rising, nothing.  We cooked it anyway just to see.  Super pretty but flat.  Flat, flat, flat.  Not to mention hard as a rock.  You could protect yourself from an intruder with these loaves.

We cut it open and tasted it.  Lovely taste.  Alas, not awesome or thick enough to even consider making Tonga Toast.  Meh....it's okay.

We looked up problems with making sourdough bread and this is where we learned how hard it can be to do.  One person made 6 loaves until she got one that resembled something usable.  Too bad I'm not that patient lately.  Nor do we have the fridge space or that much counter space I'm willing to donate for this.

Katie sent us a really nice recipe that cheats a bit. No traditional starter.  Nice.  We will definitely give this next one a try: Easy Sourdough Bread.

New Year's Eve 2014

Happy New Years!

Hope everyone had a joyous end to 2014 and a fabulous beginning to 2015.

I was speaking with my grandmother about how lucky our family is that even though we are all spaced out throughout the world we always know we are loved and thought about during the year. Every family has their own drama but I think ours is pretty lucky that we missed out on more serious dramas so far.

The holidays bring memories of days past and of people we love.  It is a wonderful part of the year and we are glad we are able to keep in touch with our family and extended family throughout the year.

This holiday season Joseph and I kept things low key with delicious food.

This Thanksgiving saw us eating the first turkey we have eaten since arriving in Korea and it was every bit as tender and juicy as it should have been.

We celebrated Turkey Day with our good friends Tiffany, Brian, Lee Ann, and Steven. We set up in our apartment and had as much of a traditional American Thanksgiving as possible. Turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, roast veggies, home made rolls with butter, and Costco pumpkin pie with home made whip cream.

Kate was unable to come because of various commitments she had going on.

Christmas brought us some nice gifts from Santa, family, and friends: baby clothes, coffee, undergarments, and many well wishes. Not much was under our tree this year but it isn't about gifts anyway. Our biggest and best gift is still currently on its way and we could not be more excited.

We did splurge a bit on some foreign food for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day and enjoyed it a lot.

Last night, New Years Eve, was very nice. I found some things that looked interesting on Pinterest so we decided to try it. We blew up a few balloons and put an activity inside each one written on a piece of paper. On the outside of the balloon we wrote a time to be 'opened.' At the appropriate time the balloon was popped and the activity completed.  From balloon tennis to eating a doughnut off a string without using your hands to making coconut shrimp were just a few of the things we did. It was a lot of fun and something else we wanted to try out for when the baby is a little older. 

It. Was. Soooo. Cold!

New Years Day is now and we tried our hand at making sourdough bread for the first time. It didn't turn out, it is hard as a rock but has excellent flavor; however, that makes no difference to us.
We had a fun time doing it together. Note to self: making sourdough bread is HARD and takes a lot of patience.

Add a little more splurging on some yummy foreign food we don't eat much of often and we are having another food day at home staying warm in our apartment away from the 20 degree weather outside.  Listening to music, eating, cleaning up most of our Christmas decorations and getting out the carry on suitcase to begin packing the hospital bag for when it is time, and more eating.

Happy New Year to everyone we love both near and far.