Happy Thanksgiving!!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone...I know that I am 2 days late on getting this posted and I am very sorry for that. We have had a busy week around the Utter house! The kids had school Monday through Wednesday all day:-) Wednesday was the big Thanksgiving feast in Emily's classroom...it was really interesting with 18 1st graders, their teacher and lots of Mom's, Dad's and little brothers and sisters in their little classroom!! All that matters is the kids had a blast! On Thanksgiving day we went to Camp Bonifas, where Tim works, to have Thanksgiving dinner with his unit...it was beautifully decorated but Koreans just can't cook American food like we can:-) It was nice to be able to spend time with the other soldiers and the few other families!

Friday we had the pleasure of being visited by my friend Amber. She is from Syracuse originally and is here in Seoul as a Missionary for her church. She lives about an hour away and she came over to visit us yesterday and had the pleasure of getting to eat American food for the first time in a long while...she loves being here for her job but after a while Korean food gets old. We made some of my Oatmeal Cookies, which I let her take home a bag, and her Korean roommate has discovered that she likes very much! She was so excited to see our regular sized appliances because in Korea everything is tiny!! She was also excited to see American foods like Ranch Dressing...she was very excited when I told her she could have a whole bottle to take back home with her!! I made her some baked chicken in Italian dressing with Cheesy Hashbrown casserole and after her first bite she said her tongue was tingling with excitement!! She is so sweet and I look forward to her visiting us more often now that she knows the bus runs from her apartment to right outside our front gate! She is lucky though because she gets to go home on the 7th until the 21st! We were discussing yesterday some of the amazing things she will get to do while home such as eat a Hoffman hot dog, go to Doug's Fish Fry and be able to buy clothes:-)

Today, Saturday, I cooked a huge Thanksgiving dinner for 3 other families and ourselves!! We had a 27 lb turkey, a huge pot of mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy, green beans, corn, crescent rolls, deviled eggs, creamsicle salad, apple pie, pumpkin pie and pecan pie!! The men put away some serious food and we still had a ton of leftovers, so I called some other friends to come and get leftovers for their dinner, and I still have a bunch left! My family has taught me to cook for an Army so I did and they loved it:-) We loved it even more! I have realized this week that I am turning into my mom! AAAHHHHH:-)

So anyways in conclusion this Thanksgiving I have realized many things:

1- Family is so very important!

2- No matter how far apart you are from your family they are always just a phone call away!!

3- You can have a family outside of your biological family, my Army family!

4- God never gives you more than I can handle at any given time, I can handle quite a bit thanks to his help!

5- Enjoy every minute you get with your friends and family because you never know when they will be leaving you!

I hope that you all had a great Thanksgiving and know that we think of you often!
Lots of love and prayers,
Steph

Crazy October...

Hello all...to say that October was crazy is just a mild explanation of our month!! To be honest I don't really know where the month went for us...
TJ, Emily and Elijah are now fully established in their school routines! They have all adjusted to their new classrooms and teachers quite well! Elijah had a bumpy start but after much "thinking" in the thinking chair in his class has now gone almost 2 weeks without sitting in it! TJ had a couple of exciting field trips and his favorite one by far was the day that they went to K-16(which is the air base here in Seoul for the military)...while there they were able to go in the flight simulator! He has now decided that he wants to go in the Army so he can fly Blackhawks. According to the father, who actually flies them for real, TJ was very good at it! Emily is still doing great at school other than the occasional over running of her lips!
Tammy is still trying to adjust to having Mommy all to herself during the day...we are pretty busy though! Monday I volunteer in Emily's class during the morning so Tammy hangs out with Chelsea. Then Wednesday morning we have PWOC which she goes with me and hangs out in watchcare with her "Korea Grandma" Miss Robin...who will unfortunately be leaving us in a little over a month so Tammy is not happy with me about this!
I was blessed with an amazing opportunity to go to Hawaii for 5 days in October...it was so beautiful and I really want to go there as a family. The one bad part of my trip is that I managed to get a mild case of the flu...but have no fear it didn't stop me. I was swimming in the ocean the day that I was running a fever:-) The water was warm so it was all good:-)
Tim has been busy with work and we are now looking at less than a year before we leave here. His anniversary date of his arrival was October 28th!! Unfortunately we found out this month that he will not be joining us down here for his second year over here as we had anticipated. He is so good at his job that they don't want to let him go...but we are ok with this decision...we have settled into our routines and it works really well! He went to the board this past week and passed so hopefully in the next few months he will be promoted to an E6!! We are really excited about this. He has been back in college for almost a month and really likes his new school. He is working on going from Green to Gold and hopefully we will know more about this soon!!
Fall has finally arrived in Korea...tonight we are supposed to have a low in the mid-30's for the first time since we arrived here! Tomorrow our high is only 40...but it is only lasting 1 day...the temp is supposed to go back up into the 60's for the rest of the week!! We are really enjoying the mild weather! Well I guess this is all for now...time to chase Tammy off to bed so I can finish the laundry and picking up the house. We hope that all of you are doing well! We miss you and love you lots!