Tag Archives: holiday

Memorial Day 2016

Unfortunately our freedom today comes at the cost of all our brave fallen men and women lives. Memorial Day is a day dedicated to honoring those past heroes, and is also a day that is often confused with Veterans Day, where we honor our present heroes.

Today had me really thinking about how we are all very guilty of bumbling through life, acting as if all of our tomorrow’s are guaranteed….We Place our eggs in life’s irrelevant baskets, place our happiness in others emotional state/hands thus affecting our day-to-day. We place such a high value on life’s petty things such as, getting social media “likes”, or money. But why? So since days like Memorial Day are really good in your face reminders telling and showing us that our tomorrow isn’t guaranteed, please make sure to take some extra time and truly reflect on this day and send an extra thank you upstairs to those who have made the ultimate sacrifice and given us the opportunities of today and possibilities of our tomorrow’s.

Memorial Day has always been pegged as the “unofficial summer start”. Calendars show that the true summer season doesn’t actually arrive until later, however our warm Korean weather has been serenading us with a sweet summer song, plus kiddos are just as the cusp of breaking out of school and anywho like we all don’t need an excuse to get out and grill good food, and wear our patriotic pride colors!

Just because we’re in Korea doesn’t mean that we aren’t festive too! We try to uphold picnic and holiday traditions, just on a smaller scale. For our mini Memorial Day picnic feast, I prepared Mr. B’s Aunt Gail deliciously famous macaroni salad, the Mr. grilled a variety of big ol’ sausages and we slathered them with Coleman’s mustard, we munched on my grandmas homemade pickle recipe, and enjoyed the non-traditional side of Armenian eggplant clavier (we’re just a teeny bit obsessed). Dessert was honey pound cake topped with fresh vanilla whipped cream and local strawberries (But guess what? Our bellies were so full, we had to save them for tomorrow.)

Poor bumblebee….just a tall order of milk for now, lol!

^Cannot resist those baby belly buttons and leg rolls!

‘Merica! Love from the Bees!

Backpackbees

Children’s Day 2016

I completely forgot this post up to share with you all. Oops!

Children’s day is a nantional holiday in Korea was celebrated annually on May 5. If you are not familiar with Children’s Day, it’s a day dedicated to family and encourages parents to get out and spend time with their children. Schools are closed and parents are off. It’s such a wonderful concept, so meaningful and completely unlike the generic Hallmark greeting card holidays.

The traditional places families head to are children’s parks in almost all communities here, amusement parks, zoos, or to the cinema for an entire day dedicated to just fun and games! Places are just packed! Of course bumblebee and I took a stroll downtown and had to get in on the action. Getting to see all these cute little kids run around just full of smiles from ear to ear made for such a wonderful afternoon!

Enjoy some of the photos I snapped from the day. (I’m partial to the fifth photo down… USA booth food representation…. Hmmm….)

Backpackbees

It’s Not To Early for A Bit Of Christmas

….Is it??

Typically we wait until the day after Thanksgiving to put up our tree, well except the past two years. Last year Mr. B got excited and insisted we purchase another tree because he had crossed the 5 year mark in Korea and I think he realized that the one we had sitting in storage wasn’t going to be making an appearance anytime soon in Korea. He also declared that he wanted to put it up before we had hosted our Friendsgiving. It was really sweet.

This year i’ve noticed many of our friends posting photos of their cozy homes all decked out with their Christmas swag. At first I thought ALREADY?! Then this past week it got me and sucked me right in. I’m guilty, i’ve had Charlie Brown’s Christmas music on and have changed out our pumpkins for red berries and greens.

After I decorated the first tree, I decided something needed to be filling the air with its Christmasy flair. I’m not talking about a candle, it needed to be homemade and baked for the right feel to go along with the good vibes.

As you know, I adore our cookbook collection and of course consulted my gal-pal Isa and whipped up an orange chocolate chip bundt cake. The cake uses orange zest and really added that hint of citrus spiciness you think of around the fall/winter holidays. Just enough to tickle the nostrils and stimulate your taste buds! Plus Mr. B is a huge fan of chocolate. Win-win!

You can find the link to her recipe here. I highly recommend you pick up her book, even if you check it out for a bit from your local library. I tweaked the recipe due to the availability of items in our kitchen. I used unsweetened vanilla almond milk, homemade vanilla extract, tangerines in the place of orange for the zest, used Ghirardelli Chocolate 60% Cacao Bittersweet Chocolate Baking Chips in the place of semi-sweet, and I cut back on the sugar. I also didn’t end up adding in the ground flaxseed. Digging into the cake that evening was a treat! Next time I’m going to make sure I have oranges on hand just to taste the difference.

We are not skipping or discounting any part of Thanksgiving this year, but as i’ve seen and recently have felt, it’s never to early to get excited about something as important as Christmas! What are your feelings, or are you waiting until after Thanksgiving to get in the Christmas spirit?

Backpackbees

Click, Ship & treat yourself!