Day to Day Stuff

The students here in Korea have all been on winter break since just before Christmas and are enjoying their last few days of vacation . . . for now.

The kids come back to school this Monday (Feb.4) and have class Mon & Tues. Then, in honor of the biggest holiday in Korea, Lunar New Year, they will be off the rest of the week. They will come back for one week and then the sixth graders will graduate and the school year here will be over! Students will have a two week "Spring Break" and then the new school year will begin the first week of March! Seems odd, doesn't it?

For us, as Native English Teachers, we have been and will continue to work through the breaks. We took our 2 weeks vacation over Christmas, of course, and when we came back jumped right into Winter Camps. Cory had Winter Camp for 4 weeks and I (Jen) was fortunate to have it for only 3. The camps have been set up a little differently for us both, but consist of only morning teaching hours. Afternoon have been spent preparing for other lessons and sometimes . . . surfing the net.

I've NEVER been bored at work before . . . but this week I have had some trouble keeping busy, I have to admit. I did a lot of cleaning and organizing, and tried to heal our seriously ill classroom computer. Apparently with my thumb drive I carried it's viruses around to 2 other computers - one at school and ours at home. My AMAZING husband was able to heal our home computer and get our anti-virus back up and running. I used his method to fix my computer at school, but the one in my classroom is too far gone. The computer guy came, but he doesn't speak much English so I couldn't really explain everything - just showed him as best I could.

So, that's life right now. Cory has been progressing quickly through his Tiger Woods xbox game and I made a chocolate cake last night that was terrible. I make so many "adjustments" to recipes here it makes it hard for me to pinpoint which one might be the problem! I am skeptical of the cocoa powder - it doesn't seem to be the same as what you & I are used to - so I think I'm going to break down and buy the American Hershey's cocoa at the basement mart that costs at least one big toe!

We hope to do some traveling next week over the Lunar New Year holiday - so if we do we'll be sure to fill you in! Take care, everyone, and thanks for taking the time to read our blog!

"In Front of Them All"

July 27, 1953 brought the signing of the infamous Armistice Agreement, but the world has yet to see peace and unification between North and South Korea.

We had the honor of visiting Panmunjom - the former farming village that now serves as the site of the United Nations Command, and where soldiers daily commit themselves to maintaining peace. The experience was humbling and gave me a new appreciation for those who serve in the military - for the freedom of fellow Americans as well as so many around the world. These soldiers truly stand "In Front of Them All."

We toured the DMZ, stepped onto North Korean soil in the MAC building where the official unfriendly and sometimes hostile meetings are held, and climbed through the 3rd tunnel found built by North Koreans in an attempt to infiltrate South Korea. Take a few minutes and check out the few pics we can share with you.

This One's For You Pam, Well, The First Part Anyway

So this game on the street is called...well, I don't know what it's called, but it's basically like the game of Buck-Buck. If you don't know what Buck-Buck is, you should ask your youth pastor and he'll tell you.

I was talking to my Aunt's Dad over Christmas and showed him the pictures of the game and he was like, "Oh yeah, we used to play that. My friend would jump on my back and try to knock me over, and I would try keep him up. If he didn't fall off then we'd play 'Paper, Rock, Scissors' to determine the winner!" I looked at him with the widest eyes I could muster and dropped my jaw in disbelief. I thought this was a Korean invention, but nope, it was an American thing too. Who knew?!

Anyway, we just finished our second week of winter camp and I have two more weeks while Jen has only one. She's been working harder than me for the last two weeks so she deserves to finish earlier than me. Speaking of Jen, she made this baked chicken with honey mustard the other day (which was a really good recipe) and then she turned around and used the leftovers to make a honey mustard chicken wrap to take to school for lunch the next day! What an amazing woman! Thankfully we don't have to eat school food during winter camp because they don't cook during winter camp. However, we have to find ways to provide lunch for ourselves without using a microwave. Jen's doing a great job of it, as you can see by my expanding waistline.

Well, that's all for now, we're off tomorrow to see the DMZ (demilitarized zone) for those of you who aren't familiar with the military lingo. :) If they let us take pictures, we'll post them next week! Take care everybody, have a great weekend and watch some football for me. Go Chargers!!

You Can Stop Waiting Now

I know I said I would explain what the picture was from my last post when I got back to Korea, but I ran into some problems. Namely, I am still very unfamiliar with my kickbutt video software, and we ran into a hiccup with the blogging website we use. As you will see, I'm still very unfamiliar with the program and we decided to bypass the website and put the video directly into YouTube. So you'll see it via them. Anyway, enjoy. And if you did actually guess what the machine was before you saw the video, go ahead and give yourself a cookie and a pat on the back. You deserve it. :)



Take care everybody. I hope you had great holidays. It was good to see those of you that we saw. I wish we could have visited longer. Happy New Year!!

A FEW Christmas Pics

Praise the Lord, we again made a safe trip halfway around the world and back! We had a wonderful time in America - and what a whirlwind! We flew into Pittsburgh, drove down to Jen's parents in WV, drove up to Cleveland to watch the Lakers with Jonas, and had a great time at Jonas and Rachel's wedding - all in the first 3 1/2 days!

We spent the next few days with the Larkin family and the day after Christmas headed to Kansas to spend time with the Dyck's. We've got lots to share, but for now, just a few pics from our trip!