Valentine’s & Snow

Hey y’all! I am so excited to write this blog, and I am even more excited for what will be in next week’s blog! Make sure you read all the way to the bottom to see what kind of adventure Buddy and I will be having this upcoming weekend, because it is our first year wedding anniversary!!!

This past week started off with nothing exciting. On Monday, I went to the Commissary to stock up on groceries for the week. On Tuesday, I went to Daiso! I keep forgetting to take pictures of everything in Daiso when I go, but that’s because there’s always new stuff to see and it’s a little overwhelming. Next time I go, I promise I will try to remember to take pictures! It is about a fifteen minute drive from the apartment, so it’s not too far and I can always think of a reason to make a Daiso trip.

On Thursday, my day started off with an hour long facetime call from my Aunt Mary, and it made my day so much better. My entire life, I have been called her mini me, for I look a lot like her. I definitely get my love of everything Memphis and sarcasm from her. We haven’t been able to have many conversations since me coming over here three months ago, so that was really nice.

Around lunch time, my friend Kerri came over to the apartment to spend the day with me. She’s pretty much the first friend I’ve made over here. While there are many good things about being a part of the military community, there are not so good parts as well. The main one being that usually as soon as you make a friend, they leave because of a PCS. She’s heading to Georgia in the States to be with her boyfriend at the end of the month. She’s a staff member at the USO, and we just clicked right off the bat. She’s thinking of getting a master’s degree in social work, which is very similar to a master’s degree in clinical mental health counseling. Plus, I asked her one day if she ever watched Crash Landing on You (the Korean drama on netflix I talked about last week), and she loves it too! She came over and we watched a new movie that came out netflix, and then she got me started watching a brand new Korean drama series on netflix! Basically, we spent the entire day watching Netflix and that’s completely okay.

When Buddy came home from work, we decided we would all go out to eat some dinner as I had offered to give Kerri a ride home since she had already sold her car. We went to a newer Mexican restaurant in the Ville called Que Rico. They have authentic Mexican tacos, and it was so good! We were the only ones in the restaurant, and the owner came over and told us about how he opened the restaurant up and where he came from.

After dinner, we took Kerri home and got to explore a new area as she lives with her parents out in a rural area. On the way home, we passed a coffee shop that we pass whenever we go to Daiso, but had never been in. We decided to stop and try it out. It was very fancy looking inside, and the waffles they had looked amazing. I wasn’t impressed with my coffee, but Buddy loved his.

On Friday, I went to a new local grocery store (only new because I have not been to it yet). I went searching for strawberries that were good for chocolate dipping. The Commissary had some, but they were tiny and not what I wanted. Holy cow, they had strawberries galore at this store and some were as big as my palm. I forgot to take a picture of them before they were dipped (and I dipped them in melted Hershey’s Cookies and Cream bars), but they were so red and sweet. I really enjoyed this store. The other Korean grocery store we’ve been to a couple of times feels cluttered to me, but this one is big and open, and reminded me of a grocery store from the states. Plus, there’s a coffee shop and bakery in this one!

Friday evening was date night, but it was also Valentine’s Day! I hadn’t been to Braai Republic (South African restuarant) in a while, and that’s where I had requested we go! I even got all dressed up and curled my hair for the night! Before we left, we stopped by Austin Anton’s door to ask him if he wanted to join in on dinner, but he politely declined to let us have dinner just the two of us. He did ask if we could take him to the PX later though, so we still got to spend time with him on Valentine’s. Plus, he even took our picture for us!

After dinner, we went back to the apartment and picked Anton up, then headed to the PX. He was looking for some flowers to give out. I was helping him letting him know which flowers were my favorite because I knew whoever got that bouquet would really like them. He ended up getting two different bouquets, and as we were walking out of the PX towards the food court, he handed me a bouquet! Now, Buddy and I do not really celebrate Valentine’s Day as our dating anniversary is February 26th and we got married on February 21st last year. We only went to dinner for it because it was already Friday date night. So Buddy has never really gotten me anything for Valentine’s before (and I usually only get him a card), besides dinner, but it sure was nice to get flowers from Anton!

On Sunday, I woke up super early at 5:30 and was able to catch up on my Grey’s Anatomy while waiting for Buddy to wake up. We had fallen asleep at 9 on Saturday night. Around 9am, he finally woke up (yes, he can and often will sleep 12 hours if given the opportunity). We facetimed with my mom, and my Aunt Mary and Daddy Wayne (mom’s dad) was with her. So we got to chat with them which I loved. Then we facetimed with Buddy’s sister and her husband. After that, we then facetimed with Buddy’s mom and nana. We got in most of the family that day which we both really enjoyed. We are both very much family people and that has probably been the worst part about being over here, so we are very thankful for technology. Both of my grandfathers were stationed here in South Korea during the early 1960s and they only had pen and paper to keep in touch with the family back home then. While we were facetiming with Buddy’s mom Joli, I happened to look out one of our bedroom windows and saw it was snowing, hard! I screamed out of surprise and made buddy get up to look, so while he was still on the phone with his mom, I facetimed my mom again to show her the snow! Both she and I love the snow!

After all the facetiming, we got ready to go out in the snow. We went by Dewdrop first for some vanilla bean lattes, then headed over to a park we had not been to before. We always drive by it as it is right off the main street and across from the Korean BBQ restaurant I posted about a few weeks ago. The snow flakes were huge as they were falling and it kept at a steady fall. After we left the park, we headed on base to get some of the best chicken tenders at the Original Pancake House (where we ate on New Year’s Eve). They are so good. Then we came back to the apartment and watched several episodes together of Crash Landing on You. It was the perfect snow day, and I’m so glad it happened on Buddy’s day off.

This upcoming week is just going to be another usual week, like I mentioned earlier, I might go to Daiso again, because why not? But.. Friday is our one year wedding anniversary! Buddy has Friday and Saturday off, which means we have a three day weekend! Friday starts off with us going for a couple’s massage, and then we’ll grab some lunch before getting in a taxi and heading off to Seoul for the weekend!!! We are going to do a couple of tours while in Seoul, and we are so excited. So make sure you definitely come back and read next week’s blog! To finish this post, I’ll leave y’all with the arrangement I did of the flowers that Anton got me!