Would You Like To Buy Some Girl Scout Cookies, PUH-LEEEAZZZEEE?

Since Holly is a Daisy scout, that means we have Girl Scout cookies to sell this year. Of course, I volunteered to be the Cookie Mom for our troop. Pretty sure all my years of selling cookies should someway help the troop this year.

But the girls are doing so well. We've had two booths so far, and the girls have some individual boxes to sell on their own to give them a taste of selling. Holly was a little reserved at first, verging on the shy side. But she warmed right up to selling once a few folks said yes.

But seriously, how could you tell these precious faces no???

Under 100cm Not Allowed

Hope everyone had a great MLK holiday. We decided to take the girls to our favorite Korean theme park for sledding and whatever else we could get into.

Going to theme parks is a lot of fun, but also really frustrating. The girls are different heights, so there are some rides that Sarah can't go on, but Holly can. Leaving us with a 3 year old who insists that she's a big girl, not a baby. You can see where I'm headed with this situation if you've ever had that child.

But not anymore - we have now entered the realm of we don't have to ride with them! By some miracle, Sarah has magically grown 5 cm in 3 months. We didn't realize this until we went back to the sledding hill where Sarah was measured last time and they let her through to the "big" hill. I read the sign this time and we figured out that she was hitting that 100cm mark finally. Really, we think it's a combination of her shoes and her hat, but we'll take what we can get.

We tested our theory with the Merlin's Magic Carpet ride. The girl working the ride took out the stick and even had Sarah take her hat off and - TADAA!!!! she was "tall enough." Sarah was so excited; unfortunately I didn't get my camera out in time to video the cheer she gave out. But she jumped in the air, waved her arms and said, "Hurray, I'm big enough. I can ride with Holly now!" It was a good ride for her too - kind of like a pirate ship back and forth, but it spins too, goes fast enough that you know you're moving, but not too fast that it's scary.

Then, we let the girls loose on the Flash Pang Pang and the Pirate Ride to ride by themselves. I'll tell ya', this watching from the side thing is great!

Watts a Volt? And Watts the matter with that joke?

It's math and science time with your friend, Chris, the ditsy American living in Korea:

Well, I think I've officially overdrawn on one of my transformers. I was ironing today and after about 20 minutes the transformer started smoking. Luckily, the curtains where mostly done being ironed, but my room stinks. The transformer is out on the porch and hopefully will recover to see another day.

Yet again, something I know but have filed deep in my brain would have come in handy. My transformer is a 220V to 110V transformer at 5 Amps. My iron is 110V, 1700 Watts. TOO MUCH DRAW!

For you non-physics geeks, a quick lesson that I learned long ago from Lance Hoffman, Physics teacher extraordinaire at Stanton. It's all about electric potential, current and work. By the definitions of electric potential (which is voltage) and current (Amperes), work is done at a rate of one watt when one ampere flows through a potential difference of one volt. Which is expressed as such: 1 W = 1 V * 1 A

Meaning that my little transformer should have the potential output of 550W. Yet, I was drawing 1700W. Jeez o'Pete!

Thank goodness I smelled it before I did any damage to the house and hopefully the little transformer that could can make a full recovery.

I'm a Loser Baby....

Well, it's been a roller coaster for my routine since moving to Korea. I was hitting the gym at least 3 times a week, but haven't had that sort of consistency since September. Luckily, I have a loving husband who allows me to hire a teenager to watch the girls twice a week so I can hit the gym.

Unfortunately, it's a new year and it's time to hit the gym for most folks. Meaning I have to fight for a treadmill and work out in an unusually packed gym of mostly fit 20-somethings. Didn't I just do this last year? But I digress....

To help the active duty members get in shape for the strenuous new PT standards, the base gym is holding a Biggest Loser challenge. 12 weeks of running, strength training and push ups, coupled with 3 team challenges. This should be fun.

I don't think I'm going to be the Biggest loser of all, but if I lose something that would be an added bonus.

It's a RECORD!

Leave it to us to have yet another 100 year record under our belts. Before I explain, let me backtrack.

The first year we were in Texas, there was 100 days of 100+ heat, beating a record set 25 years prior. The next year, the 100 year flood record was washed away (insert groan) by 20 ft! Now we're in South Korea, which has seen it's one day record snowfall total blown away in one day. WOW!

I'll tell ya, we had fun with it though. School was cancelled for the day and Ronnie got home early. So we ventured out to play in the snow. We had a BLAST! We made snow angels, threw some snow balls, made a towering snowman and found a great sledding hill by the house.

Worth the Price of Admission!

Even though the high was in the low-20s yesterday, it was a sunny day so we decided to head to Everland. We got everyone bundled up and packed warm blankets for the girls to cuddle under in the jogging stroller.

We were lucky that the park wasn't too crowded, we even got a great parking spot (ie easy to find when you leave the park) and we were able to walk on to most rides. They also had heaters and warming tents set up around the park which made it nice to enjoy our popcorn and hot chocolate.

They've put most of the Christmas decorations away, and are now in the Winter Wonderland theme, complete with a HUGE snow hill! The 5 minute wait was so worth it! So, for your viewing enjoyment, I give you Holly and Ronnie versus the hill:

New Year in Korea

Happy New Year from South Korea. It was really odd to think this morning it was not just a new day, but a new month and new year entirely for us versus the folks in the states. Strange huh?

We have been having a blast with the winter weather. Yes, it's freezing cold and the wind makes it even colder. But we have had some snow to boot, which has made it a lot of fun for the girls. Luckily, it's not too much and normally it's gone before the next dusting. I bought the girls sleds at E-Mart and they were still in the car when we happened upon a good hill. The girls had a blast playing in the snow, having daddy pull them in the sled, heading down the hill, throwing snowballs, and tasting some of the snow. They also took turns warming up in the car. All this while I got the grocery shopping done.

New Years Eve was a quiet night of food, games and movies with our good friends, the Stockmans. If you ever play Scene It TV edition, just go ahead and guess that the answer is Maude. The celebrations in South Korea were pretty much the same. They showed the Seoul celebration on TV and it was nothing like the scene in Times Square - they ring the ancient ceremonial bell and everyone was pretty stoic. Interesting.... Next year, I think we are going to try to make one of the sunset/sunrise celebrations on the coast.

Today, I made the traditional southern New Year's Day meal of black-eyed peas and cornbread, sans greens. The house smelled so good, but it made me wonder what the neighbors thought. I know I can tell when they are stir frying, but what do they think when I'm cooking. Just something I'll have to ask our neighbors one day....

As I sit here at the end of the first day of the new year, I started reflecting on last year and everything it brought us, the good, the bad, and the downright ugly. Here's to 2010 and hoping we've been made stronger by our mistakes, humbled by our triumphs, and wiser by our challenges.