News

Whew I've really been slacking on doing this this year. I think life is becoming more same old, same old so I don't feel I have tons of news to share all of the time.

We do have some news now though. We are excited that we have officially signed our contract for another year. Yep, the year is almost finished. I can't believe it! It has flown by so fast! We are really enjoying it here.

The school will be moving to a new building at the end of the year. We will be changing completely to a new franchise. It will be bigger and the franchise is well known. I think it will be a great change!

Since we will be changing locations we decided it would be wise to move closer to the new school. So Oct 24 we will be moving into our new apartment. It is smaller, but that is fine. This huge apartment we are in now could be overwhelming at times. We just hope that the cats will be able to adjust easily.

We have been busy with our church. Cameron has really been enjoying taking part in the board game activities that our pastor hosts. He is also doing a Bible Study with a couple guy friends as well. I'm also meeting with a friend for Bible Study and with a group of ladies doing Beth Moore's Esther study. I've been trying to figure out where I fit in best for doing ministry at church. We are glad to have a church home away from home.

Cameron and I are both excited to be traveling over Christmas during our vacation. Cameron will be going to Brazil to renew his visa and spend time with his family. I'm headed to SC to meet my parents there and clean out our storage unit. We are excited that we will get to see some friends as well! We are both anxiously anticipating our trips! I've been singing and listening to Christmas music already.

This is my favorite time of year! Fall brings to mind coziness, warm scents, and just a feeling of warm fuzzies. It is the season that brings in all of my favorite holidays and great memories of family time!

Living in Korea

I've been wanting to write a blog about this but thought I might freak myself writing it.
I thought a few people might wonder how it has been recently since there has been so much going on with North Korea in the news.
Personally I have been a bit freaked out! I have been fighting anxiety, but I have been working through it. We have great supportive friends and God who is in control and can give peace. I have to keep reminding myself of this.
I will also say that if I didn't look at Yahoo I wouldn't have any idea what was going on. We live near a military base and have friends who are in the military. We have a lot of friends who are connected with other people in the military. They haven't given us any reason for alarm. Unfortunately the media likes to put as much hype and danger into everything. I won't say that everything is peachy, because I'm sure that they are staying on high alert.
I believe that it has been on the Korean news stations, but I really can't say what the level of alarm is with them. We know by how people act. Honestly if we went by them we would have to say there isn't a problem. The people here haven't even given a hint of being alarmed. I'm so glad of that.
I think moving up here closer to the border has given me a little more nerves than I had thought it would. In that I would appreciate your prayers. It is a bit unnerving when the fighters fly over during there drills. But it also keeps us aware that they are staying ready.

We are continuing to love our school. As of late I have had some stress regarding classes where the students like to play and not listen. They have changed my schedule to see if some other classes might be a better fit. So far it has been a good change and the other teachers involved seem to be okay with it. We are really hoping and looking forward to staying here. We haven't signed a new contract yet, but things are looking promising.
The kids are a bit more challenging these days. I think it is because summer is here and they would rather be outside. Vacation is coming up for them - which means some time off, but also more intensive classes. We will be doing some intensive classes, but only for a few hours each week. The rainy season is also here and you would think that the kids would be sleepy and drowsy, but I think they get a little wired being cooped up all day. I'm trying to think of new ways to keep my students interested.

We are enjoying our new "babies." We each kind of have our own cat now. Orion has taken to me and Callie to Cameron. They both loved to be loved on. They are both the sweetest. Neither have been aggressive to us at all. Unfortunately Orion came down with a cough this week so I took him to the vet near us. All I could do is picture the Garfield cartoons while trying to take him out of his carrier - both paws clinging to the sides of the opening. It was quite humorous. I'm hoping to get the medicine thing down a bit better. He definitely wasn't excited about being pinned down with a syringe of meds shoved into his mouth. We are just hoping Callie won't get it.

We are getting excited for our vacation. We will be going to Namiseom Island for a few days. It is known in Korea for the movies and TV shows that have filmed romantic scenes there. It is a man-made island on a river. From what we have heard from friends it looks and sounds very relaxing.

We are continuing to enjoy the ministry of Uijongbu Baptist Church. We have formed some great friendships there. I know my faith has been growing a lot. God has given me a great friend to do Bible study with and it has been such an encouragement. Cameron has been really enjoying the Game Day that our pastor hosts. He tries out new games from different board game companies. He has 100's of games. We have played some pretty neat games. If you are looking for a great wholesome way to spend time with your family check out some game websites. There are a lot more games out there than I ever realized.

I guess that is about all I have for now.

Summer is here!

Yes I have been slacking and I know I have. I just haven't been wanting to blog lately. I feel like life has gotten into a routine. Although we have had some exciting happenings in the last few months:
-Spring came and went - it was beautiful and it's still green!
-Cinco de Mayo with my girlfriends from church at On the Border
-Teacher's Day - lots of fun gifts from our students.
-Our church picnic - I actually got a little sun with SPF 50.
-New friend's moving on :o(
-A really fun Korean baseball game - need to post the video of that one!
-A surprise market that stayed until late one Friday night.
-Game Day with our pastor, who has hundreds of boardgames, and a bunch of people from the community.
-Continuing fun and challenges at work - there are some student's you love and some that drive you nuts!
-Our 6th anniversary! On the Border and shopping at CoEx
-Adoption of the 2 sweetest cats in the world! Callie and Orion.

I will try and write in more depth later. I just wanted to do a quicky for now. Check out all of the photos. I just added a bunch of links to Facebook.

Spring is finally here!

Our new looks for Spring. I got my hair cut about a month ago and Cameron decided it was time to shave for the warm months.

I need to take my camera out and get some pictures. We finally have trees blooming and new leaves coming out! It is so refreshing to see the flowers. I think this was the longest winter we had since we lived in Buffalo. Last week we finally had consistent temperatures of 60s and 70s.

March was pretty much same old, same old. We have been adjusting to some changes at school. There has been some competition coming in the area. People are realizing that English Academies can be great money makers. We have noticed this with a few students leaving, but we have gained many new students. It seems that each month we have started new classes. I still have one space to be filled in my schedule. Maybe next month. For now I don't mind having a break.

Cameron and I have both fought colds again. It's hard to know if they are colds or allergies with all of the dust in the air. I'm getting over my most recent one. Hopefully this is it! It can be rough while teaching. We have rain in the forecast this week and are hoping that it comes to settle the Yellow Dust. Each day there is a haze in the air as the dust continues to blow over from China. I noticed on the way to church yesterday that many of the cars have a light coat of yellow.

Although it never seems like we have done much I believe we have been busy every weekend. Our weekends usually have some form of shopping on Saturday and then Sunday we have church and sometimes more shopping. We have been enjoying getting to know more people at Uijongbu Baptist Church. I went to a Lady's Tea as part of the new woman's ministry at church. It has been a blessing to get to know fellow Christians in the area.

Earlier this month we had a going away party/dinner for our Korean co-teacher. Soon she will be headed to Australia to continue her education in English. She is a great teacher and we are sad to see her go. Her new adventure will be exciting and an experience of a lifetime.







Amazingly we are almost at our halfway point with this contract! Pray for us as we look for God's direction for the future. I know we would both like to continue on here, but we want to be in God's will.

February flew by!

February went by fast and March is going by even faster. After my last blog was Valentine's Day. Cameron ended up with a cold and went to the doctor a couple of times. We did go to Costco that weekend because we needed some stuff.
We had our Valentine's date the 21st instead. We went to Itaewon - the section of Seoul most known for foreigners. There are lots of foreign restaurants and stores. There is an English bookstore there and a food store that carries lots of soup, sauces, and misc. - basically anything and everything. We were also shoe hunting for Cameron. He was wanting a pair of Kswiss ,his favorite brand, but hadn't had much luck with his size. Most Korean stores only carry up to a size below his. He wears an 11. He ended up getting a pair of Puma's which he really likes.

Some pretty flowers we picked up in the subway on our way home one of the weekends.



We were hoping to catch a movie that day, but by the time we got to the theater that we knew of at the Yangson station and mall, there wasn't one showing until late. So we did a little looking around at the mall. Then we headed home. Traveling around takes a lot of time in such a big city. You have to really plan out your days.
That Sunday we decided to check out the church we had gone to first again. So we headed to Uijongbu Baptist Church. It was a nice change. A couple we had been getting to know goes there ,which was nice. We met some more people and had lunch out with our friends and another new friend.

After church we decided to check out the theater in Uijongbu. I was really wanting to see Marley and Me. I bought the book last year and hadn't gotten around to reading it. Then I heard about the movie and got right to reading. It was a great book! I recommend it. It's hysterical and heart touching - a tear jerker. The movie was great! Not without it's little differences, but all around they did a great job with it! May have to get that one when it comes to DVD.

The week following was March 1st. The first Sunday of the month our church always has some sort of special lunch arrangement. This month they did "Guess who's coming to dinner?" You could sign up to be a host or a guest. We signed up to be guests since we were new. So after the service they drew names out of a sack to put with hosts. We were chosen first.
We went to the house of a Korean woman in our church. She is married to an American soldier who is in Iraq right now. They had been stationed in Korea and he was sent to Iraq. He is due home in November. They have 2 children, a boy 11 and a girl almost 2. She was fun! We got to play with her and she entertained us while we waited for lunch. Also, another Korean couple from our church came. They lived in the states for many years as did our host. She went to school in the states. We had a great time of fellowship getting to know these great people. The food was amazing. We had bulgogi BBQ. I think it's beef, but it might be pork. I need to find out. It's a common Korean meat that is marinated and the cooked over a burner or coals. Usually there are vegetables served with it. We had onions, squash and mushrooms all cooking on the pan at once with the bulgogi. We also had rice and kimchi. I'm really coming to like Korean food. I'm still getting used to the spicy stuff. As long as there are pickles of some sort I'm usually fine. There are usually various foods that are pickled which cleanse the pallet of the spice that lingers in your mouth. The most common one is pickled radish.
We really enjoyed having this special time and can't wait for the next "Guess who's coming to dinner?" - maybe we will host next time. I will start looking for recipes to plan.

Random: Here are a couple of pictures of the sweet potato pizza that I've mentioned here and there. Just in case anyone was wondering what it looks like.



School has gone fairly smoothly the last few months. We had a big change with March - adding 2 new Korean teachers. One Korean teacher is replacing another Korean teacher which is sad. But our co-teacher is getting ready to move to Australia to study which will be awesome for her. We also added a new foreign teacher. She is from Canada. Our schedule was changed around a bit and we have added some new classes. It's good because our school is growing. Our boss I know has been running around a lot. We now have a new manager. He is going to be a great asset. He has a lot of experience from another school where he was a vice-principal. He has brought in many new ideas. I know our boss has been thankful having the help.

We have been gradually improving our living space adding little things here and there to make it easier for us. It was already a great place to live. We got another rack for our laundry area which is much better for keeping up with our never ending laundry piles. When you hang dry everything you have to be strategic about doing laundry. Cameron usually does the laundry and I know he is really thankful for the new drying rack.
We were able to get a set of speakers to listen to our iPod's on in the kitchen living area. I'm so thankful for this. I love to listen to uplifting Christian music or just fun music while doing dishes, cleaning up or getting lunch ready. Before we had to listen from our computer which I was afraid might be disturbing the neighbors if it was up too loud.





The newest and most exciting addition is our oven!!!! We got a convection oven which can be used as a regular oven. It has a bunch of cooking options on it. It is a counter top size - around the size of a microwave, but probably a bit longer. It came with it's own pans which I made sure of before ordering it. This weekend I baked a batch of Nestle Tollhouse chocolate chip cookies and some banana muffins. It works great! I'm so thankful that we were able to get it. I was really missing being able to bake. I had gotten some silicone pans to use in the microwave, but didn't find many recipes for the microwave that I could get ingredients for here.

On one of the last few weekends we also hiked up the mountain again. This time we made it all the way to the top. It was not an easy hike. We really need to get some hiking boots. There were a couple of spots that almost felt like rock climbing. It was fun and great exercise. We also got some good pictures of our apartment complex and got to see a great view!











We have been having some pretty good months. I have had some issues with anxiety again and I think some depression. I think just having a rough start with connecting with a church and finding some great Christian friends has been hard and it has taken it's toll. Wanting to be a mom is also a hard point for me. I'm going to write more about that on my blog site. Right now I'm trying to cope with it using natural supplements. If I need to I will go back on medication which I haven't used in about 2 years or more. Keep me in your prayers regarding this issue. It's very frustrating especially since our job situation has been great! The only thing we can ever complain about is the occasional unruly student or getting behind in our lessons. I feel really blessed to have found such a great school and such wonderful co-workers. God is good!

Events in the last 2 months:
Happy Birthday to our dads! Cameron's dad hit the big 60!
Happy Anniversary to both our parents! My parent's had their 35th!

Whew! I'm getting behind!

The weekend after Beth came was Lunar New Year so we had a 4 day weekend! Tara, our co-teacher and friend from the last academy we taught at came for the weekend. We had a blast! Shopping, shopping and more shopping! We decided to save our first trip to the CoEx Mall for her visit.

It is supposedly the largest underground mall in Asia. I'm thinking that must be true. Every corner we turned there were more stores and it seemed we walked forever. We both had missions to find things. I needed sweaters and she needed a new bag. Cameron was looking for a jacket. And of course we had to find a few fun items. They have a Sanrio store, the makers of Hello Kitty!


Tara and I could have probably stayed in there all day debating on what to get. Thankfully they had some great sales and what wasn't on sale were easy no's. The name brand stuff here can be pricey! We were able to check out a huge bookstore that had a huge selection of English books and a few English magazines. I got a new C.S. Lewis book and Cameron picked up the latest X-Files book. We ended up spending 8 hours total including transit times. We are trying to remember how long it took to get down there - it was about an hour and half including bus and subway. Many times now if we are not in a time crunch we just go with the flow and don't worry about the time.
We really had a fun weekend. Tara is a great friend! We missed having her around. She finished the English winter camp is back in Australia and looking to start her next adventure.




I almost forgot that with Lunar New Year weekend came the most snow we had seen yet. It was fun for Tara as she is from Australia. We got some pictures to commemorate the event. She had her first road trip in a snowstorm. She said it was a bit crazy! I said it was old hat. As far as I know she didn't have to drive.

Thursday of that week was Cameron's 32nd birthday. We were going to have a dinner party for him that night with our co-workers, but decided to postpone it until the following week. We were tired from our busy weekend! But we didn't decide until Wednesday night. I had already gotten him an ice cream cake from Baskin Robbins - so we celebrated early. I guess we kind of had an extended celebration. It was nice to celebrate just the two of us.


Just in time for Cameron's birthday, our Christmas packages came from the states. We had planned for them to come in January instead of December - money. We were so excited! This year we had 3 coming with a little bit of everything plus a few surprises from our family. The best part was the Christmas cookies my mom made for us - Mexican wedding cakes for me and snicker doodles for Cameron. Our favorites!



The weekend after Cameron's birthday we went out to lunch with our co-worker Alice and her friends Michelle and Betty. They are learning English together and wanted to meet us. We went to a western/Korean style restaurant, meaning they have Korean options on the menu and American type options like steak or spaghetti. Cameron and I got spaghetti. Mine had seafood in it. I decided to give it a try. It was okay. I prefer the Korean style squid. We enjoyed a nice time chatting and getting to know each other. It was a nice afternoon. We are hoping when it warms up to go to the Folk Museum together.



Cameron's birthday celebration was Tuesday. I started cooking Sunday night. I tried a couple of new soup recipes. One was a chicken corn chowder recipe that was amazing and the other a potato soup for the crock pot. I made the chicken corn chowder ahead of time and it ended up being better that way. Our co-workers Alice and Rachel came and our boss Ricky. Our other co-teacher Victory couldn't come because her mom was really sick. We had a really nice time! I was so excited to finally get to host our new friends. They surprised Cameron with a birthday gift - a nice jacket. It looks really good on him!







That Sunday (before the dinner party) we went to church. We found out our pastor had a stroke. Keep him in your prayers. As far as we know currently he is doing well, but the recovery is very difficult. Last we knew he couldn't speak.

This past weekend we had a relaxing Saturday and Sunday. We were hoping yet again to hiking Saturday because the weather was supposed to be warmer, but it ended up being gloomy. We both kind of just vegged around the house instead. I felt like such a bum. We ended up sleeping in Sunday. Then Sunday afternoon after running some errands and having lunch we got to go on our hike. It was beautiful! We didn't go for very long because it was getting late, but it was nice to get some exercise! The trail is really close to our apartment which is nice. We are hoping to use it a lot more and they have exercise equipment on the trail at the base which we are also hoping to use once it gets a little warmer. When we got back we had supper and watched a message online from Jerry Gillis at The Chapel about intimacy with God. It was really good and inspiring for the week!
While we were out I took some pictures from the bus. There are a couple of a man made ice rink and some distant pictures of our apartment complex - one looking from the opposite side of the bus through the window. The other pictures are from our hike.














The time seems to be moving so quickly! I can't believe we have already been here three and half months! We are still enjoying school. We both have challenging students, but for the most part the classes are great! I still feel like I'm trying to get a rhythm for some of my classes. I have a few that have some very rambunctious students which make the time go too quickly sometimes. I really enjoy the books we use. They are involving for the children and they seem to like them as well. One of our book series called Wake Up has two children characters and two gorilla characters in it and in one of my classes my students refer to it as the "gorilla book." It's kind of cute. The funny moments make the challenges worth it! The other day I was teaching about earthquakes in my older class and the discussion question was "What would you do if you were on the 9th floor and the building started to shake?" The first thing one of my students said was "talk to God." I said yeah that would be a good idea. It was a great moment! We are constantly having funny moments where the students say the things the wrong way. I probably shouldn't repeat them on blog. We kind of just have to smirk and move on with the lesson. Occasionally we have to correct things they pick up off the the TV which is not usually edited for language content since it is subtitled.

All in all we are enjoying the school. We are still looking to build some friendships which we haven't done a lot of yet. We would like to find some more couples our age to hang out with.
We are excited that a new teacher is coming at the end of this month from Canada!

I guess that is the catch up for now. I need to try not to get so behind.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Finally!

I finally got over that nasty cough!

The first few weeks of our new year have been good. We started a new month at school so we had to adjust to a new schedule and get back into the swing of things. I'm still adjusting to a couple of the new classes I have. They started last month and the students don't speak much English at all. It is a challenge starting from scratch especially since they are young and don't like to sit still. My other classes are going well. It has taken a while to really get the hang of the new style of teaching we have here, but I think we both like it. The laid out schedule can be challenging, but it is nice to have goals.

Last weekend we had a unexpected visit. We got snow!




AND our friend Beth got in touch with us and asked if we were available to hang out over the weekend. We said that would be great! - so she came and stayed the night. It was a great time catching up. The only thing was that my immune system isn't quite back to par. I had a few early mornings and an exhausting weekend. So now I have a sore throat. I'm hoping it's just an allergy and worn out thing. It hasn't gotten worse. The weather has also gotten warmer which is another allergy factor.
We were able to go downtown Sunday and see part of the 63 Building. It is the third tallest building in Korea and I think the tallest building in Seoul. It has 63 stories - 60 above ground and 3 below. It was pretty neat.




It was a good weekend. We have a long weekend coming up for Lunar New Year (Chinese New Year) and maybe a another visit from a friend. I think this weekend I will make sure I get tons of sleep before my exhausting days.