Its Now Official!

Matt has been granted permission to come home April 27-May 25! He'll be here exactly 4 weeks and he'll be here before the baby is born (as long as I don't go into labor early... I'm buying a cork!)

We are both very excited and glad that he gets to be home for this occasion. He missed 95% of the pregnancy and I felt it would just be really difficult to see him miss the birth too. Besides, having help around the house that first month is going to be amazing! Plus all the back rubs, foot rubs, extra naps...its going to be nice having him home!

60 days!

Field Trip

Matt got to go on a field trip last weekend to some Korean attractions. He got to go to a beach, a waterfall and to a local Korean temple. He got some fun pictures to look at:
The walk near the beach. He said that this was actually the ocean, not just a lake or something. So thats cool, Matt's been to the Indian ocean!

This is a view of low tide at the beach. Thats a lot of beach! The building in the back ground is a resort.

This was a lunch Matt chose to get. It cost him 10,000 won (equal to about $8.50). He said it was sort of like a pancake with onions, carrots and squid tenticles on top.

This is a picture of the local temple he visited. He said that most of the old buildings have this asian feel but most of the modern buildings are the same as you would see in the US.

This is another view of the temple, and, of course, Matt!

These are guardians of the temple. I don't know much about Korean religions but I picture Mulan (I know...its China but its almost the same!) and how all the guardians of the temples are the family's ancestors. So maybe these are ancestors too...

Matt thought the fountain was cute and was puzzled why people would be drinking from it. But I saw the picture and that was the first thing that I thought- that it was there for people to drink from. I'm again assuming but I think its there for the superstition that you can get healing or good luck or something similar from the fountain.

This is a view of the waterfall from the top of it. Matt said that he balanced himself and then reached as far over the edge as he could manage before snapping the picture. I prefer not to think about it... I'm not nearly that daring and I probably would have covered my eyes while Matt was doing it had I been there!

This is a beautiful picture. Matt said this is the water that plunged over the waterfall. Seems like a tiny stream to become a waterfall. Maybe during the spring its bigger- when the snow is all melted or something.

Matt standing right in front of the waterfall. He said it was beautiful there... and you can tell it would be amazing. It seems like it would be even more amazing when everything is green. I wonder if Matt can go back and get more pictures?

This is the path up to the waterfall. Again, wouldn't it be amazing if it were green?

This is a frozen lake that they passed on the way to the waterfall. Matt pointed out that if you look closely on top of the rock you can see a fence- so they pretty much walked around the lake.

Matt said there are excursions just about every week. He's going to try to go on one every month so he can see a lot of what Korea has to offer. I hope he'll get pictures of the cities one day. I think it would be interesting to see what they are really like.

Rumor is...

that Matt will be able to come home for nearly a full month for his mid-tour! The Air Force lets its members take up to 10 days of paternity leave. Of course thats up to the supervisor, if he thinks that his group can handle being a member short and the other needs of the base etc. But these 10 days of leave are not taken against the airman's bank of leave days. They are extra. Wahoo!

So when we found this out we were wondering if there was any way that Matt could take his 10 days paternity leave in connection with his 14 days of mid-tour leave...and rumor is that its possible!

We have yet to actually set dates but Matt's mentioned that he wants to come home a week before my duedate and stay for a total of 28 days. I'm not sure if that was to include travel but I'll assume so. Either way, he'll be home for nearly a month!

We are in the process of discussing specific dates and then Matt will have to talk to his supervisor. So we'll actually know soon! I get all jittery and excited to think of seeing him again! It will have been a full 4 months of not seeing eachother...the longest stretch yet. But then we have 8 months after that...but we won't think about that, will we?

Pics from Korea

Of course, Matt arrived in Korea nearly 3 weeks ago already but I've procrastinated posting much. I appologize. He has been doing a lot of training and I'd say its intensive but it really isn't. Moreover, there aren't enough computers for the number of new guys so they all rotate in getting done with stuff that needs to get done. Then there is the obvious slowness of having to go from building to building to get small things done. He is still in a hotel, although its on base so he isn't spending money to drive into town every day. Thats nice. Hopefully he'll get into a dorm really soon.

He sent some fun pictures that I felt like sharing: I found it funny that the Mountain Dew and the other sodas were in Korean but Fanta wasn't. I wonder what Fanta sounds like to a Korean?

Wow. These are amazing pictures of the mountains. Matt took these from the plane window (more a testament to how cool the camera is than anything else) but its so cool to see such a beautiful sight. Breathtaking.

This is a picture of the Korean hotel that Matt stayed in the first two nights. I laughed because although it does look Korean I've seen theme hotels that smack more of Oriental than this place did and its legit! Quite fun to see though.

I made Matt promise to start taking pictures of places on base today so hopefully he remembers to. Not that pictures of buildings are necessarily fun but its nice to have a mental picture of what Matt is talking about all the time. I'll try and post some of those if he ever gets around to taking them!

Graduation

Matt graduated several weeks ago but I was hoping that the missionaries from his Tech School ward would send me pictures they took. Hopefully I get them eventually but I figured I'd post right now.

Matt graduated as the Distinguished Graduate for his class. This requires that he recieve over a certain percentage through the entire class (I think its something like 98%) and that he have no discipline issues or anything else that would cause his teachers to disqualify him.

Its pretty cool that he recieved this award. It does not come with a ribbon or a certificate but it does come with a congratulatory letter. This letter is given both to him and to his new supervisor in Kunsan. Basically, by graduating with Distinction his next supervisor is told how great and wonderful Matt is which can lead to better jobs, leadership and possibly ranking up early. All good things!

I'm sorry I didn't end up having pictures to post. Matt has now been in Korea for a week and a half, 50.5 weeks to go!

Matt's travel

Matt is officially in Korea. He left Saturday morning on a flight from Wichita Falls to Dallas at 630. There was some miscommunication that caused him to arrive at the airport only 40 minutes before the flight but luckily there wasn't a problem with that. It was a pretty small airport.

The layover between the first two flights was so small (45 minutes to begin with, a late flight and early boarding) that he didn't get to get food or call. He had to go outside of security once he landed in SeaTac because he had to have the second leg of his ticket printed. Getting the second bording pass and going through security again meant that he didn't get food until nearly 2-more and he'd been up already for 12 hours. But he got lunch, boarded the flight and then turned off his phone :(

His last flight was 12 hours long. He had trouble sleeping but luckily they fed him two full meals and two pretty substantial snacks. He complained that most of the drinks were alcoholic so he drank water and orange juice- the only other two options.

Once he landed he said there were people specifically hired to help military members navigate through the airport and get where they needed to be. So he got his luggage, bought his bus tickets and was off on the first bus ride to Osan. Once in Osan he got to email and say he was safe but didn't have much time, his second bus was arriving soon. The first bus ride was only about an hour but the second was about 4 hours. Once he arrived in Kunsan he was informed that all the billiting (hotels) on base was full and he had to take a taxi to Gunsan (20 minutes away). Poor guy. At this point he'd been traveling for almost 36 hours and was exhausted from not sleeping hardly at all (he doesn't generally sleep on airplanes and the 12 hour flight was no exception).

He emailed again this evening (tomorrow morning for him) to let me know how the trip went. He said the computer he was on had letters both in English and in Korean and he hopes the internet will work with his computer there.

His job will start soon and I'll tell you all about what he gets to do when I get more information!

Flying to Korea

Matt has recieved his plane ticket- or at least the information about his plane trip. He has to be at the Wichita Falls airport by 4:30am on January 16 (Saturday). He flies from there to Dallas at 6:30. His next flight is from Dallas to Seattle from about 8:30-10:50. He then takes his longest flight from Seattle straight to Seoul Korea and arrives there at 6pm on Sunday. Don't forget that Korea is 15ish hours ahead of here so he technically arrives around midnight Saturday our time.

As soon as he arrives he has to board a bus for a long ride to Kunsan Air Base. Its about 150 miles and because I have no idea the condition of roads or busses I would assume its anywhere from 4-6 hours to drive there. Matt seems to remember someone telling him it was 8 hours but I'm skeptical about that...

So at this point we are looking at 12.5 months until we are all together as a family again. Hopefully his mid-tour break will be enough to get us through that long and trying year!

(Denelle, I have no idea how you handle this!)