Sugar and spice and everything nice...

Holy crap, we're having a girl! I am in Korea with my love and we finally opened our envelope revealing the gender of our little one. Still processing that. The one thing Jared and I are sure of is that we aren't big fans of bright pink. Our baby girl will not have a pink room or a pink stroller or a pink much of anything else! So, with that said, we have some digging to do to find the perfect bedroom attire that isn't frilly and flowery. Can we still do an airplane theme room with a girl? Oh, and I don't think Jared stands a chance against the power that our little girl will have on him, we are going to have ourselves a daddy's girl and dad wrapped tightly around his little girls finger.

Sorry these are so dark but this is what we pulled out of the envelope.



You can barely see where the technician wrote "legs" and pointed to her legs on this picture.


Can you see the small arrow pointing to her business?


Well, besides that, the first few days of my trip here have been great. Weather not so wonderful but overall it has been amazing seeing my love again. When I got to Seoul I left baggage claim with just my carry on bag...I decided i didn't want to wait for them to arrive on the carousel so I ran out to see Jared. Ok, maybe not. I was standing next to a stopped carousel, wondering if my bags were coming when a little Korean gentleman walked up to me and said, "Shackelford? Brandi Shackelford?" My first thought was, "it is not good that this guy knows my name!" Turns out someone in LAX informed my friend there that my bags decided to take an extended stay in LA and so were still there...nifty! Anyway, I ended up getting my bags that night around 2330. All in tact, expensive crisis #1 diverted.

Saturday morning Jared and I signed up for the Panmunjeom tour (the tour where we would get to go to the Joint Security Area in Camp Bonifas on the DMZ where the cease fire was signed ending (but not technically) the Korean war '50 years ago or so and we were to see the Bridge of No Return (Paul Bunyon incident) and the conference room with the line down the middle of the table...except that was not to be. We boarded our bus, we drove through the countryside, saw some tank traps on the highway but as we were waiting in the parking lot of the JSA the guard cancelled our tour and all remaining tours, at least for the rest of the day due, we think, to the tension and funny business that had just been released from S.Korea regarding the warship that was sunk at the beginning of the month. So, our tour guide took us to see a couple of places that were on the other tour (the one we did in December). Not so exciting but at least she "upgraded her information since then!" 0 for 2 on DMZ tours. Silver lining...we had a nice Korean lunch, got a nap on the bus and were able to see what those tank traps we have heard so much about look like. (Will post pictures later)

Saturday night Jared treated me to dinner in the Seoul tower. That was awesome. The restaurant rotates so we had a view of the massive sprawl that is Seoul. Can you believe that 12 million people live IN Seoul while another 10 million live in the outlying areas...22 million people! That still baffles me. Anyway we had a 6 course meal. The main course for Jared consisted of steak while mine was Mero. Look at me...I'm going out on a limb getting something besides chicken (only because they didn't have it on the menu!) Mero is actually white tuna and can I say it was the most amazing tuna I have ever had in my life...wow!

Ok, so Sunday rolls around, we rand into some of our friends the Cardens at the Dragon Hill Lodge, our hotel on Yongsan Army base. She is also pregnant, due Sept. 30 and is also having a girl. It was great to see them. We made our way back to Kunsan via train and cab...did you know that the Korean transportation agency provides car washes on the highway as you drive? Yeah, we didn't either until our cab had to come almost to a complete stop to go over some speed bumps and what looked like an under-carriage wash as we drove. Korea...the land of not quite right.

One thing I do love about Korea is how nice the people are. After our cabby dropped us off at the back gate to base we were walking back to Jareds dorm and we realized that we had left our camera bag in the cab! yes, the big camera with all the bells and whistles. We called around, used a translator did everything we could via phone to get ahold of the cab but to no avail. So Jared an I drove back to the train station thinking maybe, by some stroke of luck he might be there in the exact same spot he picked us up in! Ok, our karma isn't that good. We decided to head back to base. This was all about 4:00 in the afternoon. We had already let go of our camera...accepted the fact that it was not coming back. But wait...at around 9pm Jared got a call on his cell phone saying that the cabby had come back! He was waiting at the gate to give Jared back the camera! Halleljueia (or however you spell that word). We got our camera back...gave the cabby a nice tip, however one that cost less than it would have if we had to buy a new camera! Expensive crisis # 2 diverted. Prayers do get answered and even though this is the land of not quite right, the people sure are accommodating!

So that brings us to Monday morning. We leave for JeJu this afternoon and hope to not encounter anymore expensive crisis' . Jared and I are catching up on our sleep already. Either way, whatever is thrown at Jared and I, we can dodge with our awesome ninja skills and make it through another day...together!