First off-base Korean outing

Today was the day we went off-base and experienced my first taste of Korean shopping and eating and I have to say that I was in a little bit of heaven.

I LOVED everything about it - the unique signage and clothing, the streets and alleys lined and stacked with hidden treasures, the liberal use of the word 'happy', the Korean adoration of Cooper, and of course the yum food.

Main Street - a typical view down the shopping district's streets and alleys

Neat Korean phone booths along Main street.

A Korean eaterie. It smelled wonderful outside.

Along the streets are great little vendors selling food. I felt like I was at the fair so of course I had to get something fried - we chose a bowl of gyoza. Um, gyoza (or anything Asian for that matter) on the street for only 5,000 won (about $5) - yes, please!

Street vendor fried gyoza. Yum. 

The American Base has been here for over 60 years and in that time the area directly outside of the gate has grown into a huge shopping district catering to Americans and Koreans alike. The main road splits off into alleys upon alleys - all lined with shops and usually stacked three high.

Shopping district street view.

Some of my favorite shops? That's a tough one but in general the baby and clothing shops have some really unique finds and are always filled with lovely Koreans oohing and awwing over Cooper.

Adorable clothing shop - authentic Korean. 

The Korean beauty product/makeup shops are complete with beautifully packaged, unique finds with exotic ingredients. To die for. My haul today included choco milk shower cream, royal black honey mask, toner, and emulsion cream, honey salt, a pearl extract mask, and an egg white pore foam. A perfect trip to revive the eyekande.blogspot.com blog!

Skin Food beauty products. 

Skin Food store front. 

And the window displays of Coach, Jimmy Choo, and Prada bags. Come to momma' Mr. Choo...

Jimmy Choo bag. Love!

For dinner we chose traditional Korean food at The Bulgogi House. When I say Koreans love babies I'm not kidding - during this outing one of the waitresses held and entertained another couple's baby for 20 minutes while they ate. And they rushed over when we arrived to unbuckle Cooper from his stroller and then got him settled into his chair after removing his hat and jacket. I could get use to this!

Cooper eating from chopsticks for the first time. 

The menu was traditional Korean but there were American subtitles that made it easy to know exactly what we were ordering.

I chose Bipimbap - translated to rice, vegetables, some meat and a cooking egg served in an Earthenware bowl - little did I know this was the exact meal that I had been pinning about and it lived up to the hype. So, so good! Owen got traditional bulgogi and enjoyed all of the wonderful little side dishes, like kimchi, bean sprouts, and pickled kale, that accompany a meal. This is going to be one of our favorites.

Bipimbap - a traditional vegetable and rice dish. And the side dishes.

The short walk back home was beautiful - nice weather, a sleeping baby and reflection of a wonderful day with visions of many more to come and shopping to be done!

Osan Air Base, South Korea

The base here is a small, compact community with everything you need (you wouldn’t ever have to travel off base for anything if you didn’t want to).  Most everything is within walking distance from our home. The hospital is across the street followed by the community center, the BX (Base Exchange – like a Walmart), fitness center, library, Commissary (groceries), eateries (like Chili’s), the Officer’s Club and more.

Here are some of my initial observations:

Baby Love: The Koreans we saw on base love, love babies. Cooper was oohed and awed at by almost every Korean we saw – no matter their age or gender. Something so foreign (and heartwarming) for a 45 year old man in uniform to turn stop, smile and ooh and awe at Cooper followed by a ‘confirmation of cuteness’ nod to me. 

BX: The BX has the basics (and more) but I’m seriously going to miss Target.

Commissary: I always love to go to the culture-specific sections in markets so living in another country is so fun for me. The market on base is of course primarily American but the end caps of food items in all Korea are so exotic – hmm, I wonder if there is an app for reading for quickly reading what they actually say.

Military Families: Everyone here is doing the same thing we are so there is already a sense of camaraderie – a nod on the street speaks a million words. We all get it.

Accidental Housewife: The word housewife makes me panicky – because I’ve always  been a working girl with a Master’s degree and a strong sense of independence, because I excel in marketing and branding but not so much in cooking and ironing, because I know it’s hard and new. But just like being a military wife – I will make the best of it. And it’s not all scary – the prospect of spending time with my baby, making my own schedule, fitting workouts in, and focusing on doing all of the fun stuff I can’t do with an 8-5 is very exciting. 

Our New Home

Owen had to report to work at 7:15am after we arrived. We all got up roughly around the same time in an attempt to get on our new schedule as quickly as possible. It worked for Owen and Cooper but I had a tough day one. I took two long naps (and I don’t do naps) equaling about five hours of extra sleep. We had TLF reservations until the end of March so while awake I unpacked and organized what we’d call home for the next month or so.

One of Owen’s first priorities was to get to housing to so we could get on the list for the next available home. We anticipated something to be available by the end of March but surprisingly he came home with keys! The next morning after Owen accepted the home and completed the inspection I packed and we took a base cab to our new home.

Our home is located in the 10 story Hallasan Towers with approximately 9 homes on each floor. It is a roomy, 3 bedroom, 2 bath with a cute balcony and great bones. A clean slate – finally, all of that pinning will come to good use!

So, what to put in our home… Remember our moves where we thought our unaccompanied baggage would be here when we arrived? Not our reality. It looks like it actually won’t arrive until around the end of March and the rest of our household goods won’t arrive until the end of April. This was disappointing since we’ve been living out of one suitcase each for the last month but what’s one month more?

The great thing here in Osan is that everyone has been through the same thing – the assignment, the family goodbyes, the air travel and the living out of a suitcase. So, without hesitation (or even a request) the wife of the squadron Commander – Beth and of the DO – Aimee came to our rescue with loaner sheets, pillows, blankets, trash cans and more. We also were able to get loaner furniture and kitchen utensils from the base and we stocked up on grocery and other necessary household items - so for the time being we’re set.

Next on the agenda is getting back in touch with Internet and phone service – this couldn’t come soon enough but today is the day so hopefully we’ll be back on the grid soon.

Traveling to Korea (with a baby)

After a quick visit in Dallas with a slue of my side of the family and Owen’s brother and wife we shipped our car off and hopped on our first plane of the trip.

We left Dallas at 2pm and arrived in Seattle around 4pm (6pm Central). USO allowed us to store our seven very large bags with them, which saved a lot of trouble getting to and from the hotel. We finally settled into our hotel room around 6pm, ordered in and got a few hours of sleep. The alarm went off at 1:30am and we left the hotel around 2:15am to pick up our baggage from USO and to check-in. We then un-shamefully curled up and napped on the airport floor for a couple of hours.

The Patriot Express flight started boarding at 6:30am and took off around 7am.

The first leg of the trip to Japan was 12 hours. They played 5 movies and asked that everyone keep their windows down so it was really dark – which allowed Cooper to sleep for about half of the flight. The other half he played on, around and in front of his seat, visited other kids on the plane, watched Baby Einstein movies and walked up an down the aisle with mommy. He was an angel.

When we landed in Japan they said it would be cold - so we bundled Cooper up in his jacket and a light blanket and Owen and I wore our light hoodies. We didn't anticipate what came next – we walked out into sideways blowing snow, several feet of snow on the ground, and absolutely frigid temperatures. I held Cooper as close to me as possible and dashed down the rolling stairs, across the parking lot and into the waiting area. Um... brrr!

We landed on the military base so the terminal was just a large room with a couple of vending machines and chairs. Thankfully they also had a small kid’s play area with a few trucks where Cooper and some other kids spent the hour and a half layover.

The next leg was only a few hours but it seemed to be the most difficult – exhaustion had set-in for all of us. After boarding we put Cooper in the carseat and started giving him a bottle in preparation for takeoff and the altitude change. Problem was we didn’t actually take off for another 45 minutes on account of the plane getting de-iced but we still had to keep him buckled in his carseat. He finished his bottle but without the jostling of the plane to rock him to sleep while siting upright he was wide awake and frankly a little ticked off. This was Cooper’s 6^th flight (11^th if you count to and from) and he’s never fussed on one – until now. It wasn’t terrible but it was necessary to hold, rock, walk, and sing to him to hold back the wailing.

Finally, I found a set of empty seats and laid him down across two. After about 3 seconds of being able to get comfortable on his tummy he was asleep and slept the rest of the flight. For Cooper to stay comfortable I had to sit on about two inches of the front of the second seat he was laying across for the duration of the flight and gave myself a pain in the neck and back in the process – any parent can understand doing whatever is necessary to keep a crying baby asleep!

We finally landed in Osan! We sat through a quick briefing on completing the customs forms, went through customs, and claimed our baggage. Owen’s new squadron commander and Sponsor met us and helped us load and then unload our bags at the TLFs (Temporary Living Facility – or hotel room).

When we got into our room there were six pressing priorities: food, drink, Ibuprofen, shower, status update to the family, and sleep. We barely could get through the first five before falling asleep at about 7p.

We made it! We now call Osan, South Korea our home!

Cooper's First Birthday Vintage Carnival Party!

The time has come. Our baby boy has turned 1!

I love planning events - but planning this special party for my baby was especially fun! There are so many great invitations and ideas that me and Stacia pinned to the "1st birthday inspiration" board but I finally landed on a Vintage Carnival theme.


When I started putting the party together there wasn't a lot of resources with the party planning details and ideas all in one place but there was a lot of interest for the theme. So, I wanted to write this post with a little different take: the anatomy of the party. Enjoy!

First I had these adorable invites and labels customized from Frosting & Ink that I found on Etsy.

Front of the invite

Back of the invite

I also had Frosting & Ink create these customized stickers that I used as the cake and smash cupcake topper. Our local grocery store (United Market Street) accepted the file via email and created this perfect sugar coat topping for the cake - at a fraction of the cost of having a custom carnival cake made.

Party cake created by a local grocery store using
a jpg file, 1 day notice and about $20.

Smash cake (really it's just a large cupcake)
created by United Market Street. Note I found out later
that red icing is a bad idea all around - messy, stains, bitter. 

We also repurposed the stickers to decorate pennant flags draped from the ceiling in four directions like a big top. I created the flags simply using fabric scraps, pinking scissors (for the edging detail), bunting tape and a stapler all from Cooper's Great GrandBoddy's collection.

Easy DIY pennant flags - took a total of 3 hours to create. 

We customized carnival-size lollipops with the stickers.

Customized carnival lollipops - found at Family Dollar for... $1. 

The outside of the house was decorated with this great carnival sign, balloons and a welcome sign.

Large, canvas carnival sign. Found at Hobby Lobby for $12.

We decorated the table with all things vintage carnival including loads of popcorn in these cool paper containers that doubled as party favors. 

Paper popcorn containers. Found at Target, snacks section, 8 pack, $3.

We also decorated the table with peanuts in the shell, cokes in glass bottles, striped straws, boxes of animal crackers, Twizzlers, and cotton candy.

View of the party table. Cotton candy and striped straws found at Hobby Lobby.
Animal crackers, peanuts found at Target. 

I gave the punch a carnival feel by adding these floating ducks.

Floating duckies found at Family Dollar for... $1. 

We had a Face Painting station marked with this canvas banner hung above the bar.

Face Painting canvas banner found at Hobby Lobby, $5. 

And here's the birthday boy caught in mid-run with a custom iron-on also created by Frosting & Ink.

I also wanted to capture some fun images of the day with a photo booth so we created one in a separate room using a large piece of fabric found at Hobby Lobby, a section of the pennant flag, balloons and of course photo props. We set the camera on a tripod (with directions attached) and set it to take the picture after 10 seconds so that the party-goers could come and go and have a little fun!

Here's a few of our favorite shots from the shoot.

Kay, GrandBoddy and Nana

Cody and Papi

Owen and Cooper's Nana

Jeannie and Stacia

Owen, Kande and Cooper

Trenton, Stacia and a curious Cooper

Jim and Haydn with the
dumbbell prop Haydn made.

Monica, Jared, Morgan and Meagan
with $1 props from Target. 

Cooper also got a ton of presents from all of his wonderful family and friends. Many of the toys are being shipped but here are just a few of the great gifts Cooper received. 

• ABC book customized just for Cooper from his Uncle Trenton and Aunt Stacia. {watch a video of Cooper and mommy reading the book here}

• A board book created just for Cooper with lots of pics of family - from his Nana and Pops. 

• B. You cars from Nani and Papi 

• B. You bathtime boat with fishing rod and fish from Cooper's Aunt Monica and crew. 

• A giftcard to Toys R Us and spending money from his Aunt Sandy and crew that we used to purchase several of Cooper's favorite Baby Einstein videos, books and more. And even more spending money from his Great Grandma Big Spring that we used to buy one of those push popcorn toys. 

• Our sweet friend Jeannie that is expecting! got Cooper a present including this handsome little button down shirt.

• He also got an Oklahoma tee and a collage picture card from Cooper's daycare buddy Milo and his mommy and daddy. A riding ATV from his friend Abby and her parents, a sock monkey jack-in-the-box from Cooper's day care teacher, Penny.
• And SO much more. 

It was so wonderful to see all of our friends and family for Cooper's special day and what also turned out to also be a surprise going away party (thanks for planning Nani!).

Pre-Move Family & Friends Visits

Before the move to Osan AFB in South Korea we wanted to visit as many of our friends and family as possible. Here's a few pictures from our two week tour around New Mexico and Texas.

Stop 1: Albuquerque, NM
After the 10 hour drive by Owen and a flight be Cooper and I we arrived and visited a slue of Aunts and Uncles over a 3 day period.






Stop 2: Roswell, NM
We visited David and Nancy (Owen's parents) in Roswell over a few days.




Stop 3: Hobbs, NM
We stopped into Hobbs to visit Granddad and GranBoddy as well as Uncle Bobby and Aunt Kay (on Owen's side).

{pics coming!}

Stop 4: Lubbock, TX
During our trip in Lubbock we also had Cooper's 1st Birthday Party - and what turned out to be a surprise going away. We also were able to visit Nani and Papi, Jim, Haydn, Cody and Stacia and Trenton. We also were able to see many of Owen's side of the family visited earlier in the trip as well as many Whitharral friends and family that drove in from Big Spring.



Stop 5: Dallas, TX
This was our final stop before jumping on a plane to Seattle where the plane to take us to ROK will await. During this trip we will ship our car to ROK and be able to see a final slue of Aunt, Uncles and cousins.

{pics coming!}

Next stop... Korea!

Planning an International Military Move

The move to South Korea isn’t a typical move. It actually felt like 6 moves in one and honestly the task was a bit daunting. After much research including a very helpful document put together by the Osan Officer's Spouses Club. We finally settled on a colored dot coding system and methodically went through each room marking which move each item belonged in. This part felt good - like an intense spring cleaning session for the entire house. Here's how the moves broke down:


1. Unaccompanied baggage: This 1,000 load should be available when we arrive. We shipped things like clothing, our primary kitchen appliances, bath necessities like a shower curtain, shampoo, soap, and towels and everything in Cooper's room - because when you have a baby everything is a necessity. And a few luxury items like the Margarita Machine (if you've had a marg at our house you understand) and family photos. Basically this load was anything we needed to live on for a couple of months - but not that we would need during our next month of travels.


2. Korea move: This 8,000 pound allotment should arrive in Korea between 2 and 4 months. For this load we primarily loaded anything that we'd want to have over the next 2 years keeping in mind that the things we leave behind could potentially be in storage much longer. We also had to keep in mind the pounds allotment and the smaller living space. 


3. Local storage: This move was our things that will stay in storage here in Oklahoma. It included things like our guest bedroom set (we probably won't host a large number of visitors in Korea), extra clothes, and much of the outdoor and garage paraphernalia. We also decided to donate much of this load to Goodwill. 


4. One month of travel: These are the things that we need for the month of travel while we are moving, visiting family and then flying to Korea. We also went through this allotment a final time and mailed many items to ourselves.


5. Airline travel: This is the limited baggage that we are allowed on the flight. One bag for each of us along with the playyard, the carseat and stroller.


6. Car Shipment: We also had to determine not only which vehicle to take but how we would get it to Dallas to ship it. We decided that we'd be taking our Acadia and we'd ship it right before we left the country. Options we had to weigh here was either being without a car for a month in the states or once we go to Osan - we decided it would be easiest to be without in ROK. 


Next we had to sell our cars, rent our home and find family to take care of our dogs.