For Cecilia and Pido, as requested (and b/c Phy/Bob loves that foul white stuff!):

More travel blogging here!

At my other place.

Greetings from The Land of the Morning Calm!  안녕하세요!

While I am uploading almost 500 pictures from our trip, and trying to get all my dashboards and social network things back into English (all my adverts are in Korean also, but I find that amusing!), please enjoy this blast from the past, and my personal favorite En Vogue song EVAH!!1!!

We returned from Michigan’s beautiful UP today.  I didn’t have any internet access while we were there, so we are just getting online tonight.

I have a ton of pictures to upload that I don’t believe I will get to until we are in Korea, which will be soon.

As for tonight?

Well, we had a nice evening in Detroit.  All I can say is, that w/ 38 seconds left, a tied score, and a Detroit power play, it would be the perfect time for The Kid to decide that she needs to go to the bathroom NOW (we made her wait).

I have wanted to see a Wings game my whole life, having been a Detroit fan from the days on my dad’s knee and beyond, and The Guy treated us to one tonight.  I heard from the guys behind us that someone texted them to tell them they were on TV, which I guess means that we were on TV too.  A guy came by and took our picture, which will be up on the team’s fan website tomorrow, and I can hardly wait to upload my own pictures (I have taken almost 400 pictures this trip!).   We are anxiously waiting until we can find footage to see if we can see ourselves!  Some people dream big, but I just always wanted to go to the Joe Louis Arena for a home game.

I have a lot of beautiful pictures from Da UP, and some great new ones of Teh Cutest Nephews Evah!  It was so great to see my family after so long, and to have them meet and adore The Guy as much as I do.  This is their first time meeting him, and I swear that he and my Papa are cut from the same cloth.  The Guy also had his first pasty (paaah-steee, not pay-stee), and his first whitefish dinner.  Once we crack that Mackinac Island Fudge, he will be all broken in.

My other Grandma, on my dad’s side, just celebrated her 87th birthday this week, and was still cussing at the Wings for that bit of a losing streak they had.  I haven’t seen her in longer, and it is good to see that she is still doing well, even if she doesn’t get out and around much.

Can’t wait to give you all a better update!  Tomorrow we are taking The Kid to a cool gaming place in Ann Arbor that has lots of computers so we can get our WoW on as a great big family.  We got her an account of her very own finally, and she is over the moon about it.  I have got to get a picture of the most insane and delicous crepes evah!

Hope you are all doing well!   Want to hear from you all!

So, we left O’ahu after the New Year.

We had a late night flight to another island.  Our itinerary said that we were flying w/ US Air, so when we showed up to put our baggage through the Agricultural inspection and it was closed, we asked someone working there if we could use another.  The told us it didn’t open for two hours, almost an hour after our plane was supposed to have taken off.  They told us we must be confused about the flight time, and laughed.

No, ass hole, we had the right time.

But when the military booked our tickets they didn’t bother to tell us that all inter-island flights would be through Hawaiian, so our itinerary was wrong.  SATO is good about this, as they sent me to the wrong airline in the past (when I moved to O’ahu) and I missed my flight while arguing that I was in the right place, since no one knew where I was supposed to be.

We got to the right gate, our baggage inspected and checked (if we weren’t military, it would have cost us about $400 for all the changeovers w/ our baggage and checking and such), and we were on Kauai less than an hour later.  Funny about this, if you were trying to intentionally book a flight from Kauai to the Mainland or vice versa, they would make you go through Honolulu.  Just sayin…

We had a two hour wait, then we were on a red eye to Phoenix (a six hour flight).  

Another two hour wait.

When we boarded the plane for Des Moines one of our carry ons wouldn’t fit in the overhead, but it had on the other planes.  It was mostly The Kid’s school books for the month of home schooling she is doing right now.  But for some reason, at the last minute, we had decided to pack my laptop in there for one less thing to carry, and didn’t remember to take it out when they insisted on checking the pack on the plane.  The flight attendant had us tag it, and she carried it to the cabin, where there was a stroller, three wheelchairs, and two other packs.  It maybe had to go 80 feet.

It never made it out of Phoenix.

I was furious, both at the airline for losing it and at myself for breaking the “never check your laptop” rule, even if it was out of exhaustion.

So we got the bag back a few days ago.  I just cleaned out 56 emails and comment alerts from my inbox (I love you peeps!), and hopefully the free wifi in the hotel will keep up.

We made a six hour drive from Des Moines to St. Louis yesterday to take The Kid to see her bio father, and that exhausted me.

I also finally managed to take a crap, which might be TMI for some of you, but that is a major development, and a long story.

We are sitting lazy in the hotel right now, and we may get up and explore for a bit.  

I finished New Moon, and will be blogging about it soon, since Mzbitca finished up Twilight for us (yay!)  I had to take a break and read something that didn’t make me want to rip my hair out.  Warrior and the sequel Witch, by Marie Brennan, which are worthy of review if I get some time.  Great reads.  Chewed through them in just a couple of days.  This is how the SFP is done people…take note.

Hope you are all doing well.  Feel free to check in!

Soju smells like rubbing alcohol*.

It doesn’t taste much different.

But I think I might be able to like it one day.

Korea, ready or not…

*The bottle in the picture on Wiki is the exact one we just had.