Update on our Ohana (family)

Since our last post it seems like we have been very busy but then when I think about it, not really. During to week we didn't do much except on Zack's birthday we went to the movies and then to McDonalds, his choice. Then we just kinda went through the days til the weekend got here and then we went to the Bay again to go snorking (I will try to get Billy to put pics on later tonight, they are on his camera), to the North Shore for a drive out to the point and in to town to get shaved ice. This week I took Zack to get the rest of his shots for Kindergarten, then to spend some of his birthday money. They ended up not having the shots he need for right now so we just went shopping, Zack wanted everything but could not make up his mind so finally he decided on some bubbles, Spiderman action figures, and a toy cell phone that teaches him our phone number and his letters and numbers. He still has like $20 left. Zack and I met Billy a couple of times for lunch. I went to a Pampered Chef party last night and spent alot of money but still didn't make up for the amount Billy spent yesterday on wet suit seat covers for the Jeep. The seat covers will protect the seats from the dirt on the trails, the rain showers when the top is off and from our wet bathing suits, so I guess it is cheaper then replacing the seats someday, but not by much. We will be dropping the jeep off on Saturday morning for them to be installed while we are at Wet and Wild Hawaii for Justin and Kyle's birthday. So after Saturday we should have some pics of the jeep and of the water park and maybe some of the kids. :) Tonight I am going to play Bunko with the Enlisted Spouses Club it is our end of the year party. I know it is not the end of the year but when it comes to the elections for board members and also we don't have meetings or fundraisers and such until after the summer is over.
Also for those of you that don't know we finally got our house on base. It is one of the newer ones, we will be the second family living in it. So it is not brand new, but then maybe all the issues of a brand new house have been worked out. They come pack our stuff on June 9th and then we move in on the 12th, there is a gap in there because there is a Hawaii holiday. We are very excited and can't wait to be on base, the gym, schools, commissary, exchanges and Billy's work will all be close again. Kyle will be going to Washington (the state) to visit his best friend from Virginia, when we moved here they moved there. His parents bought Kyle a plane ticket to come over there for 9 days, so he will be there from June 5 til the 14th. Then the week after that we are going to NC for the boys to go to a camp for military kids. We are flying on military aircraft so depending on when we actually get there we may have time to take a quick trip down to Disney World but it will all depend on the timing of the planes. Once we get back from NC Billy will be leaving for Paupa New Guinea for like 60 days and during that time Aunt Susie will be coming, maybe Karen, Zack will start Kindergarten, Justin will start middle school and Kyle will start at a new middle school because we are moving. I think that wraps up everything for now, like I said I will try to get Billy to put some pics on tonight because I won't be here but it might not be until tomorrow. Aloha

P.S. Don't forget the Memorial Day is not just for vacations, time-off and BBQ's, it is for remembering the people who gave you the freedom to be able to do all of those things. And all the POW/MIA's that Billy goes out to look for in the countries he goes to. If you go to http://www.jpac.pacom.mil/index.php?page=home&size=100&ind=0 there are two new videos (March 2009) on what they have been up to. Billy is not in them because they focus on Vietnam in these but he is doing the same things.

Beautiful Sunday

Well... today was a beautiful day here on Oahu... we woke up this morning and werent sure what to do. We ended up going off road down by Ka'ena point which has multiple activities... we hiked, 4 wheeled, had a picnic lunch in a little hidden cove by the water and went snorkeling. Here are a couple of pics.

Moving Dirt

Stan and Greg break ground where a witness claimed to have buried remains he found two years before.





A true professional; the poster boy for all who consider themselves elite. A real man amongst men... me.





Alex and Larry work to clean up the dig so that Greg can look at the soil for color changes, consistency differences, feature changes and all sorts of other anthropologist gee whiz stuff that will help us determine where remains may lie. Unfortunately, we did not find remains at this site.





"Damn! That really smarts!!!!" is what I'm assuming it says in Korean on top of this sign. Though I understand the warning, I was feeling risky so I went ahead and walked by.... no anvils dropped on my head... this time.





Larry and I sift through dirt dug from the site we previously found a toe bone at. Chips and fragments of bone can be very small so we look carefully through the dirt.





In this picture Greg and Jerod are sifting on the other side of the site while Alex feeds our screens with dirt. Despite finding a toe bone earlier, we did not find any further remains here.





Ahhhh... another Saturday night back at The One and we finally did it... we topped off our mug full of bottle caps. Here I am setting this magnificent trophy on its new perch, where patrons entering the bar will see that we conquered the challenge. Our reward: a never-heard-of brand of whiskey that could easily take the rust off a WWII tank that's been buried and untouched since the end of the war.... uugghhh... nasty, but well worth the effort.





There it is, shining in all its glory amongst others who completed the task. We set it in the middle because.... well... just because.





The night ended with some noise made at the karaoke bar at the bottom of our hotel. Here Dustin and Larry wrap up a Journey song.



Well... there's another installment of my pictures here in Korea. I hope you've enjoyed them. Bye for now!

Finding and Making History

At this house we made a new friend... this cute little three year old came out and started playing with us; we had a snowball fight with her. We saw her again this morning and she remembered us. Her grandmother took us out on a trail (which you will see later) and she wanted to go to.








From what I can gather, they have an abundance of wilderness homicides investigations. Its very sad to see.








This is another night at "The One"; Greg convinced the owners to let him behind the bar and mix up some shots remembered from his bar tending days.... they were awesome!








This was when we climbed the steepest slope Ive ever been on. It was very fun but we probably should have had some ropes and mountaineering equipment with us. I actually had a couple of slips to include one I would call a "very close call", ended up hurting my leg on that one in particular.








I took this picture to give you an idea of some of the rock faces we encountered, luckily most of them you could walk sideways along and kind of work your way up rather then attack the 90 degree angle face you see here. I was the only one who climbed all the way up, man what a sight it was, to look down at the steep mountain you just climbed.... very cool stuff.








We went up the mountain searching for a reported skull and boots but found neither... I was the first to find anything on the mountain and this was it... an unexploded 105mm artillery shell... everything still intact... live explosives... I was very excited. Not bones, but still something very cool... this thing was fired with the purpose of destruction over 55 years ago, it was a dud and here it is... I found it. Amazing.

This is a dog tag that was found in a man's yard when he was putting up a foundation for a house. Completely intact and legible.

This helmet was shown to us by another man, it appears to be a US helmet with an exit wound to the back of it. Unfortunately the helmet was given to him by a friend long ago and he had no idea where it came from.

Apparently there is a fan nearby that will completely blow you away... pun intended.

Another night at "The One", the soju was flowing and so were the beers, it was a long week and we deserved a Saturday night of being 3 sheets. From left to right is Alex, Larry and Greg.

After many soju bottles were empty and on the table, the inevitable happened... Jared missed his chair as he went to sit down and proceeds to laugh hysterically.... so we joined him.

There are no Waffle Houses or Denny's to try to burn off the drunkenness, so what do we do? We go eat spicy kimchee and mandu. mmmmm mmmm.

Somehow, only one of my eyes is bloodshot... must have been only half drunk.

This was Sunday, our day away from hiking and talking to folks... a report writing day for the boss... some of us went to Chunchon to get away from the our little town of Yonggu for a while. We ate at McDonald's for lunch and Outback for dinner... A little hit of American food amidst the eating of Korean for the last two weeks straight. It was a nice little break in things.

This morning we got up and picked up Grandma from the little girl's house in the early picture... as you can see here, Grandma led the way up a rather steep mountain to the spot she found a skull two years ago.

Greg and Dustin use the medal detector to try to find buckles, boot eyelets or anything else pointing to the fact that someone may have given thier life here.

Through-out the day of searching and digging, we found numerous fired and unfired bullets, a backpack buckle and two of these... pineapple style hand grenades, without the spoons or pins, which again means they were duds but yet still considered live explosives. Have I mentioned that I LOVE THIS JOB? What a great duty to be able to have as my responsibility.... We never found a skull but we did find what appears to be a bone... we will dig further at this site on Wednesday.

After a long day of hiking, digging and not being blown up by live explosives, I decide to lay down on a nice soft spot and rest.... ahhhh... comfy....

Well, that's it for now, Ill post more when I can!

Kamera Krazy in Korea

OK... Ive been snapping away like crazy, and I just got a chance to put some of these on the blog. Each one has a caption below the picture, so if you want to know what the picture is about... see the caption.



This is us crossing a street in Seoul



We stopped here, at the Electronics Market, where you can get all kinds of cool things made of wood... OK, maybe not wood, more like wire and metal... we bought DVD movies here.



This was some random road in Seoul, I just took this to show the look of a typical store front.



This is the Han River with Seoul surrounding it on both sides, Namsan tower, which was in my Hilton Hotel window picture in the earlier post is at the top of the mountain in the pic.

This is Korea... the country... very pretty... we were on our way to an old village by the river, just 8 miles south of the DMZ.

The road down to the village proved to be a challenge for the small SUVs, the minivan and our in-experienced (off-roading) Korean drivers. We even ended up getting the van stuck in a mud pit. We finally got it out 25 mins later.

This is a traditional Korean War era home... not too many of these still exist today but this one was here and is currently lived in. Pretty cool huh? It was about 15 foot long.

These are my friends Jared and Larry just before we break for lunch. They are both fluent Korean speaking linguists, which is very nice to have with you as you are strolling around Korea.

Stan (on the left) is also a Korean Linguist (Korean born). Here he and Jared are cooking our ramen lunch.

This bar is called "The One" we have essentially claimed this bar as our team bar here in Yanggu. Jared is on my right and that's Greg, our anthropologist on my left.

This is another night at "The One", as you can see Larry and I are enjoying a pitcher of Cass (Korean Beer). Notice the extreme large size of the pitcher and then the almost shot glass size mugs... makes you feel like your throwing back a bazillion and a half beers when its really only been like 3 or so.

This is yet another night at "The One". This guy works in the hotel we are staying in and wanted to go out with us. His name is Huang Sol Lee. We call him Han Solo since it sounds very close to his name. He likes that since he likes the Star Wars movies. He's a pretty funny guy, he keeps paying me lots of respect though.... says, I'm like an older brother to him so he must pay me respect as such.

The Crew waiting for a boat captain that we need to interview... from left to right is DJ (Team Leader), Greg (Anthropologist) and Alex (Medic)

Here's more of the crew being pyros... from left to right is Stan (Linguist), Larry (Linguist) and Dustin (Explosives Ordinance Disposal).

I think what this is trying to say is if you lean against the wall you might fall out a small hamper or doggy door and land on your head. Not really sure though.

These two signs are obvious... the top one is their way of regulating the population by trying to get dumb drivers to drive off the edge into the water right here... the bottom one is just telling you that they sell raccoon tails up ahead.

OK... here is my favorite Korean food... Kimbap (pronounced keem bop). Very tasty!

Here we are as a team one night in Yanggu eating pizza... cant eat Korean food all the time... it was good but you have to tell them not to put corn on it... they love corn on their pizza.

This was today, we went up north just 3-4 miles south of the DMZ to interview villagers again, I took this picture to show you the One-Eyed Buffalo. NO, NOT THAT!!!!... shame on you... this machine is what is called a One-Eyed Buffalo, its basically an engine on wheels that they hitch different trailers to... a very versatile tractor type farm work thingamajig.

Right before we finished for the day, it started snowing quite heavily, as you can see here. The sign is a weight limit sign for the bridge just out of view of the picture, it shows truck weight and tank weight. Yup, tanks.

Well, that's all the pics I'm going to put up for now. Be on the look out for more... I will probably try to post more again this Sunday night if I can. Hope you enjoyed the pictures!