To the One I Love

Happy 2nd Anniversary to the one who makes me smile. You are my best friend and I love you!! I can't believe last year went by so quickly. Year 3, here we come!

Tim and I are about to leave for China. Have a Happy Thanksgiving and we'll see you when we get back.

Getting Crafty: Home Decor

I've been totally inspired by Thrifty Decor Chick. Who is she, you ask? She is a blogger who posts about upcycling furniture and household decor items and general decorating on a dime. Jamie introduced me to her, and boy am I glad she did.

Now those of you in America have the option to get stuff to upcycle anywhere: thrift stores, cool little antique shops, and Goodwill stores all over the place. But I live in Korea and pickings are very slim. I don't know if Koreans do thrift stores or not. [Mental note: ask Korean friends about thrift stores.] Anyway, there is a thrift store on the base. It's only open on Mondays and the first Saturday of the month, and even then, only from 10-2pm. I've been a couple times and I've actually found some things that have potential. I'm going to feature a couple projects here.

Wow. Talk about ugly. Tim thought I was nuts when I bought this, but it was $1 so he couldn't complain too much.  It is really, really ugly though.

I added a little flat black spray paint (and learned to never spray paint inside, even if it's snowing outside) and here's how it looks now. Quite an improvement, don't you think?

Here it is with a trifle bowl filled with silk roses. I bought these flowers at Koo Mart (the warehouse where Korean "dollar stores" buy their goods) for 1,000 won (.86 cents USD) per huge bunch. I filled the base with artificial cranberries to continue the theme.

I also upcycled these brass candlesticks. I love the spindley-ness of them (is that a word?), but I hated the brass. I still need to buy two little red votive candles, but these mismatched ones will do for now. I filled an antique apothecary jar that I got at an antique market in Germany with more cranberries. I ordered the cranberries from Crate and Barrel a couple years ago, and they've been migrating around my house since then.

It's all set up on one of my antique buffets (circa 1700) that I picked up in Tongeren, Belgium. I looooove this buffet. The lion heads are my favorites.

Here it is all set up together. I can't remember where I picked up this print, but it was either at The Louvre in Paris or The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. I'm pretty sure it was the latter. Does anyone recognize it? Anyway, I LOVE it. My uncle had it framed for me back when I lived in Dover and I think it's perfect. 

So what got me so excited to do all this decorating? Tim and I bought a new kitchen table today! I'm super excited and I'll take a lot of pictures tomorrow once it's delivered. Yay! :)

Hamburgers for Three

I got such a kick out of seeing these three hamburgers on a plate tonight that I had to share it with all of you. Can you guess which one is Meg's? 

Here she is waiting with anticipation for to take the stinkin' photo and get down to the serious business of eating those burgers!

And on the subject of laughs, take a good look at this photo of Meg at the "beauty salon". She looks like she's ready for an 80s party! Check out those bangs!!

An Afternoon with President Obama

Wow. Tim and I got to meet the one and only President Barack Obama today! He finished up his Far East tour with a trip to Osan Air Base, where Tim and I are stationed. We were very lucky to be able to get two coveted spots to see him speak. Tim's squadron was allotted only 6 spots and no wives were chosen to be able to attend (so not fair). Thankfully for me, I have a job and was able to beg (literally, beg) my boss to choose me as one of the 6 from "my" squadron. I have been trying to figure out how to get in on this since I found out two weeks ago that Obama was going to speak to the troops at Osan, and I would have been devastated if I hadn't been able to attend. To make a long story short, my boss gave me one of the spots!

I made this pop art out of a photo Tim took. I kind of like it!

Tim was originally scheduled to fly today, but he was able to switch his schedule around at the last minute. But --- earning him "husband of the year" status, he offered to let me take his spot before he found out that I had gotten a spot with my work squadron. Isn't that sweet? Anyway, I'm so glad we were both able to go.

We got there early in hopes of getting right up front. We arrived at the building to find that several hundred people were already waiting to go in (but the doors were still locked). We did a little bit of sneaking around and worked our way to the front of the crowd. Everything was incredibly disorganized and that worked to our advantage. We were one of the first groups to enter the building and we were RIGHT up front for the speech! (Note the arrow.)

We had to wait for almost 3.5 hrs before the President came on stage. My feet were killing in my 4-inch "see-over-the-crowd" shoes, but it was totally worth it! We were directly in front of the podium and there was only one person in front of me. I still had to stand on a sand bag to get a better view though. The President definitely made eye contact with me during the speech, so that was cool. (Note the arrows!)

We all went nuts when the President entered.

I was soooo excited! Seriously, even if you don't agree with the President on health care, foreign policy, etc, he is still the President of the United States and leader of the free world. You have to respect that.

Tim got a great photo, too!

We were SO close to the stage!

President Obama thanked the troops, family members, and civilians for their service. It was a good speech, but I was bummed that it didn't contain anything about N. Korea, sending an envoy to Pyongyang, or foreseeing the future of the two Koreas. Still, it was great to see him and I can't complain!

Shaking the hands of those lucky enough to be in the front of the crowd. He has Secret Servicemen on each side of him and man - they had their eyes peeled.

This is where things got extra fantastic for me. I got to shake the President's hand! I was so excited and nervous and couldn't think of what to say, so I blurted out, "I LOVE YOU!" Go ahead, laugh. The President did! (You can see him laughing in this photo, and yes, that's the back of my head.)

Woah, check that last photo out again. That Secret Serviceman is scoping me out bigtime!

But that wasn't all! I have been thinking for weeks (okay, over a year) about what I would say to the President if I ever met him. Of course you can only get a few quick words in, and it's hard to choose what those few words should be. I had a couple different lines rehearsed in my head, and I ended up going with one related to military families. So - still shaking the President's hand - I asked him if he would please pass a message onto the First Lady. He seemed intrigued, so I continued, "Please tell her thank you for doing so much to support military spouses and families." It's not like you can say, "We need more than 10 job opportunities for spouses! More daycare! More indoor playgrounds for the dead of winter! For the Commissary to actually carry canned pumpkin and staple groceries year-round! For the BX to actually stock the products that people need! More parking lots! More housing!" so I'd like to think that my "thank you for supporting us" will encompass all, or at least a few, of those things. I totally believed the President when he looked me in the eyes and told me, "I will most certainly pass that message along to her. Thank you very much, Nicole."

THAT'S RIGHT --- He knew my name! I know that someone must have whispered "Nicole!" into a mic/his earpiece, but still... the President knew my name! I am so impressed! After this our hands parted and I almost passed out. I suddenly got really sweaty and all watery-eyed and was probably close to hyperventilating. It was the highlight of my year.

I wonder who it was who told him my name? I'm sure they had photos of everyone in the crowd called up, but it was very action-movie-like. You know... laptop behind the scenes, digital recognition software, who knows what else.

This photo was taken when I was at the "going to faint" stage. You can tell by the look on my face! (Note the arrows.)

These are some photos we took of Air Force One last night. We got to see it all from a friend's 11th floor balcony. She has a perfect view of the flightline and I'm so glad she let us crash her apartment for a couple hours. We had to use binoculars to see any movement on the ground, but we didn't mind. It was all very exciting.

 That's one giant plane! And a second Presidential plane was parked right behind it. A United 747 flew in all the press and media staff.

I think this photo is really cool. It was taken up in Seoul.

 

And that is our big news! See? There are some perks to being stationed in Korea!

Tune in tomorrow!

Tim and I have something really exciting planned for tomorrow! Well, at least we think it's exciting. First let me say that no, we are not pregnant (since that's probably where a few of your minds just went). Then what is the excitement all about? We are totally going to tease you and not tell you what we are SO freaking excited about until tomorrow, but HOLY COW.... SOOOOO EXCITED! I have been looking forward to this for weeks and scheming about how I could make it happen, and ... all the scheming worked! There was a little bit of panic yesterday when things almost fell through, but I was resourceful and good at my job (secretary), and I made sure the right people did the right things to make the excitement possible! I AM SO EXCITED FOR TOMORROW!

Okay, one hint: look on TV (CNN, MSNBC, any major news station) for a girl (me) wearing a bright peachy-pink scarf and standing next to a guy in a flight suit (Tim).

P.S. Tim and I got cool photos of the "beginning of the excitement" but I've forbidden him from posting them until tomorrow as it would give it all away. :-)

Any guesses as to what Tim and I are doing tomorrow? If you are clever, you might be able to figure it out. If you think you know, post a comment below. Also, check out the new "reactions" feature below. 

Happy Veteran's Day!

Meg and Nicole say THANK YOU to Tim and all the other brave veterans who serve or have served our country. 
God Bless America!!!

Meg is very patriotic!

Nicole's Japan: Kabuki Theater

I was looking through the photos Tim and I took in Japan back in September, and there are quite a few that I'd like to share with you. Tim blogged about Japan here, but we have a thousand more pictures. I promise to just show you the highlights though. :)

Kabuki theater was nothing like I expected it to be. Granted, this was my exposure to Kabuki up until I visited Japan:


(Suz, Danny, and Derek --- do you remember watching this as kids? I think Suz and I must have watched it 500 times.)

Thankfully, last minute tickets can be purchased for 1-2 of the 4 acts in a Kabuki play, so Tim and I were able to experience a couple hours of Kabuki for $8/each. I'm so, so, so glad we didn't buy tickets for the entire play. I think we might have actually enjoyed it if we understood Japanese and/or if we could figure out the storyline based on the acting/movement on stage. But --- it was all in Japanese and there was little to no movement on stage. The Kabuki actors basically just sat on the stage and sang lyrical poetry. Again, if we could understand it we might have been able to appreciate it, but they sounded like drowning cats. It was horrific and Tim and I couldn't wait to get out of there.

The play was about a lord who demands a young woman become his mistress. She refuses and begs a priest to help her. The priest plots to trick the lord into giving up his rights to the would-be mistress and ends up extorting a large sum of money out of the lord in the process. And they all live happily ever after. (I know this from reading an English summary of the play; I had NO idea what was happening on stage while I watched.)

Here are a couple photos of the actors. All in all, Kabuki theater was a little crazy but one of those cool experiences that I'll never forget.