The latest from the Fletchers

Joseph arrived home from South Korea on March 24th!!!!! We have all been enjoying being back together as a family! It is such a blessing to have Joseph home! I have been busy doing a Grad class in order to renew my teaching license – hence one reason why I have not been able to keep up with the blog. I am happy to report the class is done and now all I have to do is jump through some hoops to renew my license. I am also 32 weeks along now and go to my first OBGYN visit here in San Antonio tomorrow. I hope I like the doctor here as much as I liked the one I had in Indiana. Once Joseph arrived home, we have been busy visiting with family in both Indiana and Kansas, finding a house in Oklahoma, picking up one of our cars in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area, and moving to San Antonio for Joseph’s training. Besides being busy, we’ve had fun too. While we were in Kansas, we went to Science City in Kansas City. It was a fun and educational outing which we recommend if you are ever in the area. We did find a house in Oklahoma and will close on it by the end of this month. We are all looking forward to our life in Oklahoma. Right now we are living in a one-bedroom apartment here in San Antonio, which for those of you who saw our place in South Korea, is still almost twice its size. I am not sure what to do with all the extra space…not really…loving the extra space…what a blessing! But because we might have visitors, we’re moving into a two-bedroom apartment tomorrow!!!! WOW! Just think of all the space! When we’re in need of a little more room outside, we go to a nice little park for walks and bike rides with the kids. There is also a pool here at our apartment complex which is wonderful with the heat here. It feels much hotter here than in Alamogordo! Since arriving in San Antonio, we have seen our friends, the Runkles, and made a trip to the Johnson Space Center in Houston (and to see David, Jessica, and Erica). Last weekend we went to Sea World – it was a blast!!!! Mark, however, didn’t like getting splashed by Shamu! We plan to go to the San Antonio Zoo this coming weekend. I’ll provide another update after the outing.

Back from Korea...

We made it back safe and sound from Korea. It was a long trip…over 36 hours of traveling which included a two and half hour drive to Incheon International Airport, four flights (one to Hawaii, then LAX, then Dallas/FW, and finally Chicago O’Hare), lots of waiting in airports (will the fun never end?) and topped off by a three hour drive to Grandma and Grandpa’s home. It was LONG and VERY PAINFUL! I do not want to do this much travel with young kids by myself again any time soon!! It took a lot out of me. I got so much gray hair from this trip…I’m going to finally break down and color it! It took us all a good week to get over the jet lag which seems pretty good considering the 14 hour time change.

We enjoyed a fun Thanksgiving meal at Aunt Tiffany’s and Uncle Jeff’s home with their new baby. She is just the cutest little baby girl I have ever seen! It was good to finally get to meet her and hold her. After Thanksgiving Mark got a nasty cold and then ended up with an ear infection. So, he is on an antibiotic and seems to be doing much better. He did feel the need to share his cold with me, yuck! I’m still not over it and Andrew sounds like he is getting it also.

I have been for my first OB doctor’s visit. Everything went great…I really like the doctor I have now. He was able to find the baby’s heartbeat! I’m still smiling! I’m 12 weeks and my due date is June 28th. I had my first ultrasound this past Wednesday and got to see the baby who was very active…arms and legs going and body wiggling...very cute for an ultrasound picture of him or her. It is way too early to tell the sex yet…just have to wait until the next ultrasound around 20 weeks. So, sometime in February we might know?

Seoraksan National Park

November 10-11, 2008 – We headed off for a short but much needed getaway to Seoraksan National Park. It was a beautiful three and a half hour drive through South Korea. Once we arrived we check into the Mt. Seorak Tourist Hotel. It was a nice clean room at a great price with marvelous views. The fall leaves were still striking in all their colors even this late into the month. After getting settled in it was time to take the cable car ride up to the top of the mountain near by. Mark kept saying we were flying while on the cable car. Once we got to the top we hiked the rest of the way up to the summit of the mountain. It had been raining and we were hiking on rock so it was a very slippery hike. Some of the higher mountains were even a bit snow covered! It was quite a lovely sight. As is typical in Korea, there were some women hiking in heels! CRAZY, from my point of view!!!! The Korean women like to hike in style I guess? The next hike we did was the Two Waterfalls hike. The waterfalls were impressive and the hike was not only gorgeous but peaceful also. By then it was time to eat dinner and head back to our room to watch a movie and go to bed. The next morning after breakfast, we hiked the trail that starts behind the very large Unification Buddha near our hotel. It was another outstanding hike up to a prayer hall inside a cave called Gyejoam. The huge boulders all around had Chinese characters carved into them. By the time we got back, it was nearly 2 pm and time to start the long drive home. We stopped at a rest stop for a late lunch on the way out. Overall, Seoraksan was wonderful to get to spend time in God’s amazing creation together as a family.

Thanksgiving - November 8, 2008

Saturday, November 8th, the Somers family (Owen, Lynnience, Alexander and Zachary) and our family took a full Thanksgiving feast over to Moonja and Jong Gun’s home to teach some 20 of their students about Thanksgiving. It was an enjoyable and educational day! The three older boys did a short presentation on Thanksgiving for the Korean students which I recorded and you can watch on You Tube. The Korean students were all good sports about trying the very different foods. They were not sure what to do with the gravy since they do not have anything like it in their diet. Some tried to put it on the side to dip food in which did not work out so well! I’m sure the food was somewhat bland to them since most of their food is spicy. I don’t think any of the students came back for seconds but the Americans sure did! It was very delicious!

Who's the dummy directing traffic?

Two dummies and two U-Turns! (second dummy was driving and not available for a picture)

Happy Halloween!

Andrew "the Ninja" and Mark "the Pilot" checking out their loot!

Last night in China...October 26, 2008

Eating dinner and the kids showing off there finds from the market on our last night in Beijing, China.