The Best Christmas Present EVER!!!

As most of you know, we have been anxiously awaiting the arrival of our little girl Lucy. Her due date was December 19th, but that day came and went with not even a contraction. Fred had schedule his leave beginning on the 19th, thinking that we would have the baby by then, but oh no. The days dragged on after that. We tried everything to get things moving, but she just wasn't ready to come out!!

To make a long story short, Melissa started going into labor around 7am the Morning of Christmas eve. She went to the hospital around 10:30 am and gave birth to our little girl, Lucy Diane Bamfo at 3:37 am on Christmas day. Lucy was 8 lbs. 10 oz and was 21 inches long. She has a full head of dark hair and big beautiful eyes. We have enjoyed every second with her, even though she likes to scream at the top of her lungs a lot. We hope you enjoy these pictures. We promise to add more, but let this satisfy your curiosity for now.

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Happy Turkey Day! We had a wonderful Thanksgiving as I hope you all did too. We were invited to a friends house for dinner where we stuffed ourselves silly! I don't remember the last time I was so full! We had a wonderful time there and then went up to another friends for games and a little bubbly... and more dessert. As you can see, Fred got a little carried away with the sparkling cider. I also made a point to include a picture to show off my ever increasing belly. It was about 1/3 smaller at the beginning of the day so you can imagine how much we ate!!!

We have much to be grateful for and have seen so many blessings throughout our lives. We love you all and are grateful for the way you've impacted our lives. We couldn't ask for better friends and family.
Picture 1 (Melissa, Tiffany Witt, Fred, Alex Hernandez, Sister and Elder Tripp, Matt Witt) Picture 2 (Melissa, her belly and Kathryn Tripp)
Picture 3 (Fred and the Bubbley)

Mondu-guk and squid (YUMMY!)

My friend and visiting teaching companion took Tiffany took a couple of us out to eat at a little Korean restaurant by her house. It was SO good! The best Korean food I've had since I've been in Korea. We had a soup called Mondu-guk (mon-doo-gook) which means dumpling soup. It has dumplings, glutinous rice, veggies and a broth. It was very good. In Korea you order a main dish and they provide you with free side dishes which usually consist of Kimchi, a veggie salad smothered in some sort of mayonnaise like substance, and a couple other things which vary from restaurant to restaurant. We, being the daring women that we are, requested to try some of their squid which we had heard was very good. And it was very good! I didn't eat a lot, seeing as squid probably on the approved eating list for pregnant women, but I really liked it! A little fishy but good. Girls from left to right (Melissa, Kathryn Tripp, Tiffany Witt, Tiffany's sister Jana)

Baskin Robbins 34 Flavors???

Some of you might be surprised to know that Baskin Robbins is HUGE in Korea. I think I see a new one every day. I was in E-Mart (the Korean version of Walmart) and saw their posters introducing 3 new flavors-- Red Bean, Pumpkin and Jasmin Tea. I took a taster of the Red Bean and let's just say it was interesting.... What do you think bean ice cream would taste like? All I can say is that my little pink spoonful was enough for me :O) I don't think I'll be sitting down to a big bowl of Red Bean IceCream any time soon.

The Korean Phenomenon of Drinkable Yogurt

Koreans LOVE drinkable yogurt! It’s a huge thing over here. People even have it delivered to their home daily. We have milk men- they have yogurt ladies. I have even been to restaurants where they will serve you a little drinkable yogurt at the end of your meal. The other funny thing about Korea is that spelling often gets lost in translation. As you can see in the picture I’m drinking peach YOGHURT. :o)

LOST

Yes. We officially got lost. And not just a little lost. We were really truly honest to goodness lost. We moved into our apartment and found out that there was a bus that goes from our neighborhood right to where we have church and it’s only like a 20 minutes away!! This is a HUGE improvement, considering it used to take us an hour by subway and bus to get there.

So, we left early for church so I could get there in time to direct ward choir. We got on the right bus, but come to find out we were headed in the wrong direction. Our 20 minute bus ride ended up being a 2 hour tour of Seoul. Luckily it was a beautiful fall day and we got to see parts of Seoul we may have never seen! I felt bad about missing choir, but everyone in the branch enjoyed teasing us about getting lost :o) I guess we’re just one step closer to becoming “Seoul Savvy”.

After much waiting and and a lot of patience, we finally have a place!! And compaired to our last apartment, it's a palace. I cannot proceed any further withoug a big thanks to our realitor, Sara Yee, who worked very hard to get us into our place as quickly as possible. As the saying goes, "Nobody doesn't like Sara Yee" :o)

I have included a few pictures of our place for you to see. We are in a brand new 3 bedroom apartment in a very nice part of town. It's considered a middle class neighborhood and is very safe. One of the "bedrooms" has a nice desk in it so we'll use it for our office. The other spare bedroom will be my Mom's when she comes to visit and the baby will sleep with us. The military requires that our landlord furnish the apartment for us. We lucked out because a new apartment means new furnishings and appliances. We have a HUGE fridge, a washer/dryer combo, a dishwasher, a mini TV in the kitchen and even our own Kimchi regridgerator! Korean's are serious about their Kimchi. You can see it next to the picture of the washer/dryer. Another cool feature we like about our apartment is the door camera so we can check out whose outside and decide if we want to answer the door or not. There is also a speaker phone by the toilet in the master bathroom which allows you to speak with people who come to the door. It's kind of an awkward feature, but I'm sure it will come in handy someday. A lot of the things I'm pointing out are things you can't see from the pictures. We also have beautiful furniture and a comfy queen size bed. I will send more pictures later on but enjoy these for now.

As some of you know, Fred recieved his US Citizenship on July 26th, 2006. The ceremony was held at the US Embassy Club on the Yongsan Army Base here in Korea. Way to go Fred!!! Although he now has the documentation to say he's an American, he's still very much a Ghananian at heart.

Hello friends and family! Being so far from you all has compelled me to explore the world of long distance communication and find out a good way to keep in touch. After checking out several options, I feel compelled to become a blogger. Ten years ago the term "blogger" may have implied something involving a swamp, but today it makes me technologically "hip". So sit back and hear how this Utah girl becomes "Seoul Savvy".