Almost Back to Normal

Hey y’all! I didn’t realize it’s been over a month since my last post, but oh goodness do I have some updates! In one week, I went from having almost no blog to write about, to having three blogs that needed writing! Thank you to all of you who comment or message me letting me know that you enjoy reading my blog updates, it means a lot to me!

Quite a lot has changed in the past month. First, we went from HPCON Charlie Plus to HPCON Charlie. I explained some of that in the last post. Then, this past week (5/20/20) we went down to HPCON Bravo!!! That means that we are able to now go off post to eat at restaurants and go to salons/nail salons off post! It also means we can travel the peninsula now, with the exception of Seoul, as that area is still considered HPCON Charlie for the military. As soon as the garrison commander made the update on Tuesday night (5/19), which was my birthday so it was the best birthday gift, I made an appointment for a pedicure. So did many other ladies, as when I went to my appointment, they told me they were booked for the next two weeks. I’ll talk more about this at the end.

Secondly, we moved apartments!!! I am going to do a separate blog update telling you all about our switch, mainly just how much better this apartment is. Our last apartment wasn’t horrible by any means, but the amenities and location of our new one is much better. I will more than likely have that update later at some point soon. We spent last weekend moving over here, it’s just a five minute drive from the other one, so it wasn’t horrible. We found out Tuesday (5/12) that we were moving, so during the week, we took small trips slowly bringing things over. Then on Saturday we did our big moving, as well as on Sunday with Austin’s help bringing our tv over. We are sad that we left Austin at the other apartment. There were many nights where we would go over and watch movies or just chill in his room with him.

Third, I turned 25 on May 19th!!! That is a quarter of a century y’all! Buddy took the day off to be with me, as birthdays are super important to me. This is the first one where I haven’t been with my parents, so I was glad to be able to spend the day with him. We had a lazy day and ordered our favorite Japanese takeout for lunch, Rica. They have the best sushi and chicken karaage (Japanese fried chicken). We found them during this quarantine time and now order from them once a week. Luckily, we are now only about a 5-7 minute walk from their restaurant, which is great since we can finally go and eat out at restaurants and not have to only do takeout or delivery. After lunch, we took a break and started watching a new series on Amazon Prime called Upload. We watched about 5 episodes and then we did the 30 minute drive to Osan Air Base to go to Chilis for my birthday dinner. We ordered margaritas, a skillet queso, dinner, and dessert! I love going out to eat on my birthday, but I hate when restaurants come out and sing to you. When I was younger, my parents and I would always usually go to Texas Roadhouse where they make you sit on the saddle while they give you a big yee-haw. I just hate the attention from it, because I never know where to look and I just feel awkward. I thought once we had ordered dessert, that I was in the clear. Well, apparently when Buddy went to the bathroom, he had come across our waitress. We were sitting with our backs to the kitchen, but as soon as I heard a bell ring, I immediately knew what was fixing to happen and if looks could kill, Buddy would have died from my glare! But they were so nice to sing happy birthday to me. It was a pretty good birthday! Mom had sent me a birthday gift that I had received in the mail the week before, a Ronaldo bracelet. My mom loves them and I haven’t gotten one yet, so she sent me my first and it is so pretty. Buddy’s grandparents also sent me a card. Thank you to those of my facebook friends who wished me a happy birthday on there as well!

So before my birthday happened, we had Mother’s Day! It’s nice living over because holidays and birthdays last two days for us. We celebrate it over here first as we are 14 hours ahead of west Tennessee, then the following day when it is the actual day back home. We were able to facetime with my Mom, and I am thankful for my Aunt Mary, her younger sister, who was able to help me get a gift to my mom. My mom loves going to Board and Brush, but because they’re studio isn’t (or wasn’t open to go in) they were selling already painted gifts for Mother’s Day that also included flowers and a gift card for when they are finally open. Then we were able to facetime later with Buddy’s mom, his Nana, his sister Krista, and then sweet little Everleigh. We had also sent them gifts that we had gotten for them in Seoul when we went back in February.

Thursday (5/21) was the first night we went and walked in the Ville since late February. While we were still all wearing masks, it was just nice and refreshing to be out and about among other people. Seeing people sitting in restaurants and cafes while just wandering aimlessly, because now we can, made me happy. We are slowly getting back to normal, or our new normal. Us over here have had a longer and stricter shut down than the states. Valentine’s Day was the last time we ate at a restaurant in the Ville. The following weekend we went to Seoul, and then the week we were back was when we weren’t allowed off post anymore to go sit down in places. We will take our little freedom of wearing masks off base if that means we can go out now. Like I mentioned earlier, I had also gone to get a pedicure on Thursday. Everyone inside work a mask and besides the ladies doing the nails, everyone was kept at a good distance. It felt amazing to get a pedicure. All the ladies know what I’m talking about, when you can finally do a little self pampering, it just does your body and mind good.

This is where I’m ending this blog. My next blog will be about our move, so even though it will be a short blog, I want it to be its own entity. My third blog will be about our weekend trip to Cheonan, where we went to the Gakwonsa Temple. If you are my friend on facebook, you already saw the pictures. But I am going to do a post about it with more information, plus it will also include what we did for the rest of the weekend!

Thank y’all for coming back and checking out my blog updates. With the fact that we are able to travel the peninsula now, we are taking advantage of that. We have plans for the next couple of weekends now to go see places. So that means that weekly blog updates will most like resume!