We love breakfast.
We love veggies (well, most of us do...)
We love muffins.
And since muffins aren't really jiving with us right now I decided to make a special kind of muffin.
Egg & veggie muffins.

Chop up whatever veggies you have on hand.
I used
mushrooms
green peppers
tomatoes
spinach

Oh, and some ham.
I know ham is not a veggie, but just chop some up too.

Heat a little coconut oil and sauté those veggies (and ham) right up.

Oil the heck out of your muffin pan, because this recipe STICKS.  And it sticks VERY WELL.  Not that I would know.
Put veggie mixture in the bottom of the muffin cups.

Then fill with scrambled eggs.

Bake at 350 for about 15-30 minutes....I can't remember. 
Just check on them and when they look like the ones in the next picture take them out.

Eat.
Love.
Be happy.

Since I don't have time to write much today I thought I would leave you with another Not Quite Right gem.

"Honey, the car I bought is too big for the garage."

Seoul is very entertaining.
Can you find the NQR?
Hubby spotted this one; I would have walked right past it.

SHUT THE FRONT DOOR.
These babies are good.
I'm going to go ahead and say it....
I think they are better than my peanut butter cookies with gluten in them.
True story.

You guys might ask why the gluten free kick all of a sudden Trish? -- Well briefly:

Girl has always had tummy issues.  She is in the medical books.  Youngest child with giardia.  She developed 'issues' at 6 months old - it wasn't until she was 9 months old that they discovered she had giardia.   She was so young in fact that they had to MAKE an antibiotic for her.  We have no idea how she contracted it - we lived in Kentucky at the time and had NOT been out of the country.  Long story short I believe her 'issues' are related to this.  Call it mother's intuition.  Call it frustration, I don't know. I'm just looking for answers.  We have seen doctor after doctor after doctor.  We have seen specialist.  She has gone to physical therapy.  She has been on & off  meds her whole life.  It wasn't until I did the Whole 30 that it clicked....  Could food have something to do with her issues?  We took her off dairy for an entire month - symptoms let up, but didn't disappear.  Then we took her off gluten.  Symptoms are diminishing even more.  BUT do you know how hard it is to put an 11 year old on a gluten & dairy free diet when that said 11 year old LOVES, LOVES, LOVES dairy and gluten?  It's pretty damn hard.  We see ANOTHER specialist next week - I'm demanding they do allergy/food testing on her.  I'm tired of the doc's giving her meds and nothing else.  I feel bad that this is normal for my daughter. 

With that being said I have been scouring the internet for yummy recipes  I can make for her....well for us all since the entire family is trying to be gluten free (at home) with her.  I was a little leery of this recipe, but once I made them....HOLY GOODNESS!  They are a total winner!  I got the original recipe here.  You should make them even if you are not gluten free.

1 cup of natural peanut butter
1 cup of sugar
1 large egg
1 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350
Place all 4 ingredients in a mixer and mix on low.
Using a cookie scoop drop cookie dough onto cookie sheet.
Flatten with a fork in a criss-cross design.
Bake for 10-12 minutes.
Cool.

For an added bonus, slap some marshmallow fluff in the middles of 2 cookies.
Your kids will give you extra hugs after they run off all that sugar.  :o)

Ttukseom Swimming Pool at Ttukseom Resort.
Holy Goodness.
I've always wanted to hit one of the pools on the Han River so this seemed like a perfect thing to do with our group of friends that we hung with on Thursdays this past summer.
Only problem -
I didn't realize it was summer break at the Korean schools too.
(They have a totally different school schedule than we do.)
You can only imagine our surprise when we arrived in the subway station (above ground), looked out and saw this:

We texted that picture to a few of our friends that were behind us with the message "ABORT, ABORT!"
Serveral of our friends did abort the trip, but many of us powered on.

Our plan was to meet up with our friends at the pool...I mean how hard can it be to find a group of Americans... 
Right?
Maybe a little harder than we initially thought.

Are you kidding me?

Thank GOD Beth had the common sense to stop at the CVS before entering the park and pick up a couple goodies.
Notice the caption at the bottom?
Our answer was "HELL YES"!

It took us a little while, but thanks to technology and pasty white skin we finally found our group & we were thankful Marcille was tough enough to man our spot without anyone popping a tent.

This is the lazy river.
LAZY RIVER.

Instead of "Where's Waldo"....
Where are the Americans?

There they are!

Again, Beth is a genius.

I was even thankful for Cass.
True Story.

A few of the kids sporting their mandatory head covers.

They were so excited to have a little room when they were some of the first ones in the lazy river after the whistle blew.

All that free space didn't last long......

This boy decided just to pretend he was in the lazy river. :o)

Little kid area.

Welcome to Korea!
These two had only been on the peninsula a couple of weeks.
They weren't sure if they should be smiling or running for the hills! 

I know....lots of pictures of the lazy river, but I just couldn't get over the amount of people!!

Tent city.

Apparently you arrive early, set up camp and stay all day.

And when the park runs out of room to set up your tents, no worries - just go set up BEHIND THE porta-potties!!
(GAG!!)

We really had a great time. 
Lots of smiles.
Lots of laugher.
Lots of freak out moments.
Lots of FUN!
I'm glad we went.
However, one time is enough.
Next year if we go I will double check the Korean school calendar.

The Ttukseom Swimming Pool is only open from July - August.
To get there Seoul Subway Line #7 to Ttukseom-Resort Station. 
Exit 2 or 3.
Trust me, you will be able to find it.

You can take food, coolers, grills, tents and more in....really, whatever you want! 
This is Korea.
Pretty much anything goes.
Prices: Ages 4~12: 3,000 won / Ages 13~18: 4,000 won / Ages 19 and older:  5,000won

I'm not sure about you, but I really don't want to eat anything in sulfur.....
This is one dish I will gladly leave for the locals.

Date night in Korea is never dull. 
There is always something new out there just waiting for you.
This week was no different.
We had been dreaming of Hawaii, so why not find a little Hawaii in Seoul?

OK, so there was no beach, but this quaint restaurant in Hongdae made me feel like I was in Hawaii for a split second - especially when our pitcher of Mai-Thai's arrived! 

Then I was taken right back to Seoul when I checked out the menu.
Pasta & Pho?
What the what, what?!?

Once the edamame arrived I was taken right back to the table at Dukes where Hubby and I had one of our first meals in Hawaii with this CRAZY good garlic edamame.

Edamame, Mai Thai's, the love of my life....the only thing that could have made it better was to have a little sand under my toes and a nice ocean breeze...  OK, maybe being IN Hawaii would have made it better.

We ended up ordering the set menu.
The first course was unlimited edamame & french fries.  ??
Unfortunately you are only allowed the plain edamame with the set meal, even if you are willing to pay extra for the garlic.

Next up was this sweet set.....
A little odd, but tasty.

But the main course was WONDERFUL.
There were BBQ ribs, soy garlic chicken & rib eye steak.
 All were equally delicious.
And the corn. 
That wasn't Korean style corn on the cob, that was TRUE corn on the cob.
YUM - O! 
My mouth is watering and is not even 7AM yet! 

You won't be able to get out of this restaurant for less than 30,000 won per person.
I'm trying to find the directions on how to get there (because my memory sucks), but for now I will just leave you with their information:
  364-14, Seogyo-dong, Seodaemun-gu, Seoul
02-324-7718
www.alohatable.co.kr/waikiki/

After stuffing our faces at Aloha Table our friends wanted to take us to this fun bar they found. I'm sorry, I cannot give you the name or directions as I was not paying attention at this point.  But if you see this girl, you know you are here.

Somewhat of a dive bar.
Cheese puffs are the snack of choice & I ordered this groovy blue drink.
Yes, I ordered it because it was blue.
No, it was not very good, but it went well with cheese puffs.....

....and the stream that went through the bar.

Somehow we accidently ordered this delicious concoction.
Spicy chicken, onions and cheese.
HOLY GOODNESS.
Even though I was full, this was THE BOMB!
I would totally go back and order this.
If I could ever find the place again.

They came over and made rice balls for us to cut down the spicy....

I'm not sure what I liked more about this bar.....
The stream, the rubber duckies, the cheese puffs, the blue drink or the shower.
That's right.
A shower in the middle of the bar.
Apparently drinking games begin a little later in the night and the loser ends up in the shower - with clothes on.

Seoul...what's not to love?

If you follow me on Facebook over at Trish At SixinSeoul you will know what I am talking about.

My 30 day challenges.

Remember Kat's Killer Kore Klass?  (That's right the one that drives you OCD spelling and grammar freaks a little bit batty?)  Well, it's back!  And she has kicked it up a notch.  That's right.
 
I mean Yoga was good and all, but really, during all that quiet time I had too much 'stuff' running through my head like, "This breathing stuff is hard.  I'm not sure I've been doing it right my entire life.  Why are the birds chirping so loud?  I have so much to do I should have stayed home, I'm not really getting anything out of this anyway...I mean listen to those darn cicadas they are so loud how can I concentrate on breathing anyway?  Ok, today I must go to the dry cleaner, commissary....dude I hope they have my coconut juice & RAO's...why did I ever share that these things are so good?  Now the commissary never has them on the shelf.  Why is my dishwaserh bolted in?  I really need to pull it out and clean beside it, all that dirt & grime that I can see on the side really makes me nuts - maybe I could put a paper town on a chopstick and clean it that way. CRAP, I forgot to breath, I think I may pass out.  Did a freaking ant just crawl across my leg.  Where should we go on our next vacation?  I think I need to see a doctor, these stretches are killing my sciatica...."

Seriously, for a month.  I tried to clear my head. Maybe I'm a little ADD?  Maybe I drink too much coffee?  Who knows?  But I do know I love the Kat's Killer Kore Klass!  15-20 minutes of hard work and I'm done!  I don't really have time to think.  Oh, and just FYI, I can do a yoga head stand now and I will continue to practice some of the yoga moves at home.

Any-who....this isn't my new challenge; the Kore Klass (in the park) is now just for fun, I'm still trying to figure out what my new 30 day challenge is.  I'll let you know in the next couple of days on my FB page. 

But for now, let me leave you with the work out we did yesterday.

Remember these?  (this is an old picture and it was taken with my crappy phone.)

They are back, and better than before.

Yesterday we did:

Sit up, stand-up, upper cuts for 2 minute

Sit up, stand-up, cross punch for 2 minutes

Repeat for 16 straight minutes with no breaks.

Awesomeness.

Join us if you dare - it's only 15-20 minutes out of your day.

**PS....did I mention that Kat does this for FREE 4 days a week just because she is good, kind and giving?

What is SI?

Whatever it is communal bar soap is the cure.

I don't know about you, but the communal bar soap phenomenon in public places here in Korea freaks me out.

This is something the we had been looking forward to for 4 years - every since the last mud festival we went to back in 2009!  Last year we missed it because we were fresh on the peninsula and we were up to our ears in boxes.  (I'm still wondering why we didn't just put the boxes down and head out to Daecheon Beach.)  And unfortunately Hubby and Boy 1 missed the mud festival again because they were in CHINA eating all kinds of creepy crawlies......

This year my friend Beth and I rented a bus to take 50 of our closest friends to Daecheon Beach for the festivities.  There were tons of newbies and most had no idea what to expect. (I should have told them more about the shower situation at the end....more on that later.)  I recomended that they wear a swimsuit they don't mind getting ruined, bring towels, chairs and coolers full of food and drinks!  (It is not completely necessary to bring food as they have many restaurants & vendors to choose from.)  Bring cash.  Expect to get dirty & let your freak flag fly.

Daecheon Beach
The invasion of tiny American's....

Once we arrived on the beach it wasn't too long before we found the pits of mud paint.
All people young and ..er...older....could not contain their joy.

Just when we thought it couldn't get any more fun, we found COLORED MUD!!!

And as with every adventure in Korea there are always a few 'Not Quite Right' moments:

High heels at the mud festival:

Sun = NO GOOD.

Tractor driving and working on crowded beach.
Repeatedly.

Unknown locals coming over and rubbing & covering the men in our group with mud & then giving thumbs up.

And the best "Not Quite Right" moments that I don't have pictures of are my friends & I  going into the Korean style showers.   BAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!   Let me paint a picture for you.

You stand in line 10 minutes waiting to get into the shower.
You pay 1,000 won.
First you enter a small room with 20 of your closest friends.
You take off all your clothes.
Seriously, take them off.
All of them.
Next you are herded like cattle into the 'shower room'. 
A big room with 50 shower heads.
No shower curtains.
No dividers.
No nothing.
Just you, God and 50 of your closest friends & their children.
Many of our young tween daughters are now scared for life and will be needing therapy in a few years.

I wish I could share with you all the entire conversation my friends and I had in a group message a couple of days after our shower scene, but alas I can't or I might find myself friendless.  However I have taken a few sentences out for your enjoyment.  I have not included names or pictures to protect the innocent.  (And to keep from being tortured by my friends.)

"Because naked showering in a communal stall with thirty friends and strangers
while my daughter frolics in the dirty water of thousands of muddy women and
nakedly bolts for the door wasn't memorable enough.  It was a shower I will
remember FOREVER."

"So those random shower screams from me? That's why.
Had little to do with ****** washing my back."

"Oh yikes!  I did not notice the random shower screams at all. That is too funny."

"Well I think we are all ready for the naked spa lunch date."

"The naked spa is a piece of cake compared to that shower scene."

"I really hope Facebook never has that privacy error again where private messages
become public!"

ROLLING.  I am laughing all over again.

I wish I had been a fly on the wall in the boys bathroom. 

All I know is that the guys were not nearly as clean as the girls on the way home.

Little boys had mud all over them still and here is just a little bit of what I heard:

"Is it customary for guys to wash each other in communal showers in Korea?"

"I just wanted to get in and out as fast as I could."

"Mom!  Really, I can't do this."

"We can NEVER talk about that."

So, if you ever find yourself in Korea in July, don't miss the Boryeong Mud Festival.
If you do you will miss out on a boat load of fun memories!

Good times on the ROK.