last day

Today is our last full day in Korea! I have so much stuff to do! I'm kind of asking myself 'Kayla, why are you blogging when you have 10 billion things to get done?' but I haven't found a good enough answer yet except that I don't want to do 10 billion things and have a toddler chase me around the house unpacking what I pack and unfolding everything I fold and tearing apart everything I organize... 

Nobody ever tells you how hard it can be to pack with a toddler chasing you around. It's actually really difficult. You place one thing in one pile and soon it's not there anymore and you have to search for it and put it back and so on. See it also doesn't help that I have to pack up almost all of his toys so he has nothing to play with except non-toy things and all the non-toy things happen to be everything that needs to be packed. He can also climb to any place where I have boxes full of things and that are organized and get his chubby little hands on them and demolish all of Mama's hard work. Also, every time you place something in a suitcase you cannot just leave it open, oh no. You must close the suitcase and zipper it up every single time you place an item in it because if you leave it open ALL of you stuff will be "neatly" unpacked all over your floor because a little monkey got into your suitcase. LOL! It's been a challenging morning and/or last couple of days but it's still fun. 

Gabriel is not doing so well today though. Even though he is having loads of fun unpacking everything Mama packs, he is very sick. He was sick all day yesterday with a stomach issue and the worst diaper rash I have ever seen. My poor baby. He cried all day yesterday and every time he needed a diaper change (which was all the time) he would scream and scream because we needed to clean the rash:( I even cried with the poor little guy a few times because I felt so bad for him. You could just tell every time he pooped or peed or sat the wrong way he was in so much pain. Then last night we didn't get very much sleep because if he went to the bathroom in the middle of the night it resulted in screaming and having to have a diaper change which led to more screaming. Today he is feeling a lot better, not so much of the stomach issue anymore, just a little bit, but he still has a monster of a diaper rash. The hard thing is that I ran out of diaper rash cream and have had to result to making my own which usually isn't a problem but I've ran out of all the ingredients to make my usual one. So I experimented today and made a new one that has been working pretty well. I just hope that it goes away by tomorrow so we don't have to deal with it on the plane, Gabriel would have a hard time being in a plane without much sleep and a killer diaper rash.

I still need to finish packing, go weigh all the luggage, print out our e-tickets, go to the post office to mail a package, go to the pharmacy, figure out who is driving us to the airport tomorrow so we can talk to them about what time to meet us and change 500 more diapers! and make dinner... and make sure this whole family has baths tonight... and move our fridge to another apartment... and..... oh dear, I need to get moving... I'M COMING HOME TOMORROW!!!

meat...

Did you know that meat isn't always that great for you? I learned something while in Korea, and it's all about meat!

Did you know that in many countries, like the US, the companies that raise lots of cows, chickens, pigs, really any kind of animal, put growth hormones into the animals feed to help them grow faster so they can produce more meat and therefore make more money? Did you know that when we eat that meat we are eating the same hormones? Gross huh. 

Did you know that those hormones they feed the animals are extremely bad for you and that cancer can thrive off of those hormones? Did you know that they can make you gain a lot of weight? Think about it. Hormones make things grow. Like when a woman takes extra estrogen she can gain a lot more weight, it's the same thing. 

I have a friend here whose family has a lot of cancer and whenever they find it out the doctors immediately tell them they need to stop eating meat because of all the hormones. These doctors are from New Zealand by the way, so it's not like some third world, witch doctor kind of thing. Just giving you an example. 

Kind of makes you want to stop eating meat doesn't it? It does for me at least! More reason to buy organic!

Oh, by the way, there is also A TON of added hormones in milk too, in case you were wondering. Ewww!!!! 

CHRISTMAS!!!

It's time for CHRISTMAS!!! At least in my book it is!!! I love Christmas, it's the best holiday of the year! Christmas time also means time for a Christmasy background for my blog to light that holiday fire in our souls and get us rockin' around the Christmas tree... or something like that. Ahem. Anyway. So, I looked high and I looked low and all around for a cute Christmas background with little snowmen and cute snowflakes that sparkled just right and made your nose tickle with excitement for the upcoming cookies and hot cocoa... or something like that, but there was no such background to be found. So I found this one, which does have snow flakes on it, if you look really close, but no cute snowmen or jingle bells or angles or stars... I might have to keep looking for the prefect one. But in the mean time I hope that this one gets your nose tickling and toes tapping and hearts bubbling with the thought of beautiful snow, glorious Christmas music, yummy cookies, green, lushes Christmas trees and big fat turkeys dripping with gravy (or something like that *wink)!

Have a holly, jolly Christmas,  
It's the best time of the year,  
I don't know, if there'll be snow,  
But have a cup of cheer. 

Have a holly, jolly Christmas,  
And when you walk down the street,  
Say hello to friends you know,  
And everyone you meet.

Oh, ho the mistletoe,  
Hung where you can see,  
Somebody waits for you,  
Kiss her once for me. 

Have a holly, jolly Christmas,  
And in case you didn't hear,  
Oh by golly  
Have a holly, jolly, 
Christmas this year

one week...

I can't believe that we have one week left in Korea. Just one week. It's rather weird for me to think about it. When I think 'oh, we're leaving on the 30th' it seems like I have all the time in the world to get things done. But when I think 'we're leaving in a week... YIKES!' then I don't feel like I have any time at all. 

Lately my mind set has been like the first one I described, I feel like I have all the time in the world. I haven't decided if this is a good thing or a bad thing yet. Maybe it's neither. I know of all the things that need to get done, and that I want to do, in the next week but so far it's not stressing me out. Possibly it could be the fact that I already have two suitcases packed and have shipped a few boxes back to my parents long before we even decided we were coming home. Maybe. Maybe that could be it. Or, maybe it could be that God is giving us this huge peace about coming home and that's why I'm not stressing out about it. Either way, it doesn't seem completely real that we're coming home soon.

One thing I do get a little stressed if I let my mind just wander is our plane ride home. I am not looking forward to it. Plain and simple I am dreading it. Gabriel is not the easiest sleeper and we're going to be traveling, sitting in airports, taking car rides and lugging our luggage half way across the world for about 24 hours and if Gabriel decides not to sleep on the plane... well, we'll all just be soooo, ummm, 'happy,' when we get to the airport in Minnesota. I try not to think about it too much, mostly I'm trying to think of creative ways to keep Gabriel busy on the plane and hoping and praying that we get good seats in all three planes, or, at least the long one. But that's really the only thing that has stressed me out much. 

One week... One week until we can see our friends and family back in the US. One week until we arrive in the bitterly cold weather of Minnesota. One week until we have good food! One week until my husband and I can actually sleep in a soft bed and share a blanket that is actually big enough for both of us. One week until Gabriel gets to see the families that he has probably forgotten in his small memory and they get to see him all chub and walking... a big boy now! One until we can actually drive again and go shopping all by our little selves. One week... it just doesn't seem real yet! 

need some advice

Now that we are moving back to the US in 10 DAYS (woot woot) a lot of things are going to change. I'm excited about most of the changes and am looking forward to them. With one change though I need some opinions please!

The name of my blog is called Life Abroad. The problem with the name of my blog is that I am no longer going to be living abroad so the name doesn't really work anymore. So I need a new name for my blog, one that I can have for a long time and probably never have to change again. It can be anything really, something cute, something fun, something creative, quirky, anything really. 

So ladies and gentlemen, what do you think?

big huge bummer

So our sale did not go anything like we had hoped. We have been to a couple of people's sales here that they have when they leave and tons of people always show up. We only had 4 customers:( 

The good thing was that we sold a lot of big stuff, like our fridge, couch and our pack-n-play. 

We are going to have one more sale before we leave and we hope and pray that a lot of people will come to it and we can get rid of all of our stuff. I think we're going to have to 'market' our sale a little bit better this next time and put up signs or something. 

So yes, our sale was a big. huge. bummer. Oh well! I'm glad that we got rid of the big stuff at least! That was the stuff I was most worried about. 

Darn it

Gosh darn it all! The cleaning part of my brain won:( The napping part gave a very valiant effort! Napping almost won over by baiting me into bed for 20 minutes, but the cleaning part wouldn't shut up about everything I needed to do:( Boo on you cleaning part of my brain! 

apartment sale

Tonight Josh and I are having a sale in our apartment to sell all of the things that we have accumulated over the past 6-7 months and some things we brought with us but don't need anymore. We're going to have to have 2 sales. One will be tonight like I mentioned and then we will have another one a couple of days before we leave and then we will sell food and things that we don't want to bring back with us but we will need the next two weeks. 

I'm kind of excited to get rid of a lot of our stuff. It's one of the first steps in heading home! I'm a little apprehensive about tonight though because we need to set up all of the stuff for people to see... but that also means that it will all be within Gabriel's reach and that usually means disaster. So while I have to keep up with people asking me questions and shopping I also have to keep up with Gabriel not tearing everything apart. Oh dear! I'm thinking of putting him in his high chair with some finger food, maybe that will occupy him for awhile.

The problem with having a sale tonight... well, I'm tired. LOL! I just can't get myself moving today. Today is cold, one of those days that I want to lay on the couch and watch a movie with a blanket and have a nice cup of hot chocolate to keep my company. Maybe even take a nap and eat popcorn too! I'm also losing my voice because it's so dry in our apartment with the heaters on that I never feel like I can quench my thirst which resulted in an extremely sore throat and the loss of my voice. So lay around is what I would most like to do today. But no, I must clean, clean and organize and clean and organize and set up and clean and organize and make dinner at some point and clean some more. Too bad I haven't done any of that yet:) Hmmm... the nap part of my brain might win the argument it's having with the clean part of my brain... at least, that is who I want to win:)

News!!!

Well, we have some news! And no, I'm not pregnant:) lol! You thought you guessed it didn't you? But nope, that wasn't it! What is our news... Gabriel got a new car seat!!!! Oh, that's not exciting? Darn. 

Well, maybe it'll be exciting if I actually told you that he needs a new car seat because they are required back in America and we don't have one big enough for him. What's that? I didn't tell you we were coming back to America?!?! Oops. My bad. I guess I will tell you now then.

So, yes, that's right, we are coming home!!! YES!!!! When may this happen I hear you asking, well the 30th of October is when! We just bought our plane tickets today! We land around 6PM and change planes twice and have like a 17 hour trip not including the car rides and bus rides and ... you don't want all the details? Sorry again:)

Why are we coming home? Well, if you have been following my blog for awhile you probably already know that things at the school Josh works at are not exactly pleasant. Rather miserable actually. They were threatening not to pay us, telling us this place might close, lying to us about numerous things, telling us to go find jobs elsewhere ect. It has been rather crazy. That is not the whole reason we are leaving though. Josh and I could live here for another 6 (5 by the time we leave) months and deal with it, but we really don't feel like we are supposed to. We feel like God keeps telling us to go home.

Gods directions don't always make sense to be completely honest. Like when he told us to come here, that didn't make sense. When he told us to give almost half of our money away one time, that didn't make sense. When he told us to go to Japan, that didn't make sense. Now, God is telling us to go back home and though it doesn't make complete sense, we are following his direction because he has always blessed us and taken care of us before when we follow him.

Josh doesn't have a job back in Minnesota yet, but there is a job that sounds very promising. It's a job down by the Iowa border (but still in MN) and it's working in a plant. Josh had a phone interview with them and they loved him! They want him to come in for a one on one interview shortly after we get back and take a tour of the plant. We are very excited and we are praying that if this is the job that God has lined up for Josh that all the doors will be opened and he will get it without any problem. 

For the first couple of weeks or until Josh gets a job and we can get an apartment, we will be living at my parents home up by Duluth. We are very thankful to my parents for letting us into their home while we sort things out. 

I know that we will be very tired the first few days, or weeks! lol! But we would love to see everybody when we get back! Things with Gabriel and jet lag may make things a little difficult, so I'm sure there will be times when only Josh will go meet people and I will stay home with Gabriel or we might ask people to come to us instead of going to them and so on and so forth. But either way, we are still looking forward to seeing absolutely everybody and we are so excited about this new direction that God is giving us!

This is also why I haven't been blogging that much lately, because it's hard not to blog about the big things that are happening in your life! We have known we were going to do this for a little over a week now. We felt like God has been wanting us to do this for about a month or more now so one day I sat down and crunched all the numbers and gave the list to Josh so he had all the facts and told him that I completely trusted whatever decision he made. I told him how I felt about everything and he decided to go in the direction we have felt God wanted us to go and there you go. We just didn't want to tell everybody (well, almost everybody) until it was final and we had the plane tickets. 

So yes, we are very very excited! Even Gabriel is excited even though he can't say it:) If you would like to pray for us that would totally awesome. There are a few things you could pray for...

*The school has been rather miserable to us ever since we told them that we are leaving. They took away Josh's remaining vacation and won't let him have it, lying to us about more things, and kind of being a royal pain in the ... anyway! So Josh has a hard time going to work most mornings because of it, he just can't stand all the lies. 

*Also, we are trying to get Josh into the dentist before we leave so that he can get his wisdom teeth pulled. It would only cost us about $50 to get them pulled here and in the States it would cost much, much MUCH more, as in thousands of $$$$. He needs to get it done very badly so we're praying that something opens up where he can get in before we leave. 

*Also, because the school took his vacation away we're not sure how we're going to get the days off in order to go to the dentist... maybe call in sick if it comes to that but Josh doesn't like to do that. 

*If you could pray that Josh would be able to either get the job that he has an interview for or another job lines up that would be great. 

*And lastly, pray that everything would just go smoothly from now until we leave this place and everything will just fall into place. 

Wild Horses

Ooooh

I feel these four walls closing in
Face up against the glass
I'm looking out, hmmm
Is this my life I'm wondering
It happened so fast
How do I turn this thing around
Is this the bed I chose to make
It's greener pastures I'm thinking about
Hmm, wide open spaces far away

All I want is the wind in my hair
To face the fear but not feel scared

Ooh, wild horses I wanna be like you
Throwing caution to the wind, I'll run free too
Wish I could recklessly love like I'm longing to
I wanna run with the wild horses
Run with the wild horses, oh

Yeah, oh oh, ye-yeah

I see the girl I wanna be
Riding bare-back, care-free
Along the shore
If only that someone was me
Jumping head-first, head-long
Without a thought
To act and damn the consequence
How I wish it could be that easy
But fear surrounds me like a fence
I wanna break free

All I want is the wind in my hair
To face the fear, but not feel scared

Oooh, wild horses I wanna be like you
Throwing caution to the wind, I'll run free too
Wish I could recklessly love like I'm longing to
I wanna run with the wild horses
Run with the wild horses, oh

I wanna run too
Oooh oh oh oh
Recklessly emboundening myself before you
I wanna open up my heart
Tell him how I feel, ooh ooh

Oooh, wild horses I wanna be like you
Throwing caution to the wind, I'll run free too
Wish I could recklessly love like I'm longing to
I wanna run with the wild horses
Run with the wild horses
Run with the wild horses

Ooh ooooh ooh ooh ye-yeah yeah oohh
I wanna run with the wild horses, ooooh

-by Natasha Bedingfield

workin' hard

We put Gabriel to work early ;) Got to get him working on those chores you know =D

little monkey

My babe is such a determined little monkey some days. See, we always put Gabriel's toys in a box and the other day I cleaned the apartment so I put the box in a little cubby hole in the side table. Well Gabriel loves to sit in the box with all his toys surrounding him so what does he do? He pulls the box out just enough to somehow manage to climb in it without falling over and sits there trying not to fall out because the box is slanted downward. He couldn't even reach half his toys in the box because half of it was still in the hole. I had to laugh when I saw him trying to keep his balance while holding his toys:) Sorry the pictures aren't that great, he wouldn't stop moving:)

Yummmmm!!!!

We had chocolate chips for the first time in 6 months the other day. I was able to track down all of the ingredients thanks to some friends and my mom and I made lots and lots of cookies! This was Gabriel's first taste of the goodness and he loved it! Now, I may or may not have given him this cookie about an hour before bed time because he was very crabby and I wanted to keep him quiet to preserve my sanity... you know, maybe, I might have... but you will never know!

peace

For your steadfast love is before my eyes, 

and I walk in your faithfulness.

Psalm 26:3

Josh and I are in the middle of making some very big decisions and this verse has been very helpful to me lately. Even though there is so many things that can cause stress in life, God is always there, right before our eyes just loving us and when we put our faith in him we have peace, we have faith, we know that he is taking care of us. 

Gabriel, say 'Cheese!'

... or not...

Have you ever noticed that if you plan on getting a cute picture of your child, it usually doesn't happen? Then, you get cute picture when you're not planning it at all? Happens to me all the time! I wanted a cute picture with Gabriel, so I got both of us looking descent and outside we went... but we ended up with these instead =D Oh well!

Jammin'

My baby Boo knows how to rock it!