Our last Korean Birthday

Our last moments in Korea were amazing. The week before we left we celebrated mine and Nick's birthday. It was a great last two days of work!!!

Our wonderful co-workers gave me this wonderful mug from our coffee shop. Every time we visited we would order the same thing...... hot chocolate and a waffle topped with two scoops of vanilla ice cream. It was heaven! So glad I can remember that place every time I drink from this mug.

Cakes in Korea are so different from American cakes. They are not very sweet and the icing is more of a slightly flavored thick cool whip. The cake pictured above was a coffee cake with macaroons.

My Birthday celebration was also a farewell celebration for us so we had a party. We enjoyed coke, pizza, and Suzi's famous bulgogi tteokbokki. Everything was delicious!

On Friday we celebrated Nick's Birthday. He got a bag full of snacks and a butterfly brownie.

Every picture I took of Nick, Josh was in the background making funny faces!

Thanks to all of our wonderful co-workers at CEV for making our last days so wonderful. We wish you guys the best of luck and we miss you!

Letters of Love

Sometimes students write us letters out of the blue and give them to us along with a special treat on Friday. Sometimes they write us a letter in the post office instead of writing their mom or dad. Whatever the reason for the letters, we love them all. We are going to miss all of our students so much. It is nice to know that we have changed lives, even if it was only one week of it, they definitely changed ours.

Please note that if you have a hard time seeing the letters, click on them and you will get a bigger version. If you are looking at this through email go to our blog to see the larger pictures.

In case you can't read this the top heart says, Don't forget me, Cindy, Ha Yea-jeong. The bottom heart says, You are so beautiful, You look nine

 Nick gave Peter Twizzlers because he was the only Korean that liked them.

 We both had the privilege to teach Emma, she is such a smart and gifted student.

Our classroom management plan was giving students stickers. Depending on the number of stickers determines how much candy you get. 20 stickers is the max!

When I look at this picture I can see all of the students in my mind. My rule was if they spoke Korean I would take away points. I guess he thought I took more points from the boys than the girls, he was really upset about it.

If Nick and I are teaching English camp in the same week, we usually come together for a couple of activities. Our students get to know both of us and I'm pretty sure they all love Nick more :)

 Ju Yeol is a student Nick and I both taught in Cyber School and we love him so much!

I think we both taught Crystal many times because she was a loyal student to CEV. During vacation she would attend here and during the evening for evening class. She is super sweet!

 This letter just cracks me up so much... I guess it is Google translate in all it's glory... well a centipede!

It is always great to know that students get excited and have fun during class time.

I have a small nose!!! YESSSSSSSS

I hope you can see this because this is a drawing of Nick and his classroom style! He truly inspired some students! He has a natural teaching ability.

Please notice the music notes next to Nick! He loves coming up with random songs!

Starbucks (Young-Dae)Has been Nick's Cyber school student for two years. I had the fun opportunity to have him in my class and he wanted to write Nick a letter. He loved us both so much that he wishes we stay a couple for a long time! Super sweet!

Love this picture....

And this picture just hits my funny bone!

We have so many more but I only picked our favorites. I hope you had fun reading them. I'm sure through the next couple of months these letters are what will get us through.

Three Weeks Left

Nick and I are trying not to concentrate on the fact that we have about three weeks left in Korea. Our schedule is super busy. This weekend we are going to the Seoul LDS Temple for the last time. The following weekend we are going to Busan for the last time. We aren't sure if our last weekend will be spent cleaning or in Daegu.

We have made some really good memories with some really special friends that we will never forget.

Some recent memories include eating boneless chicken feet for the first time. We walked the five minutes to eat at Nice Chicken for the last time. We wanted to try the boneless chicken because we thought we saw it on the menu the last time we ate there. Turns out that the last word after boneless was 발 (feet) we didn't catch that part, and we ended up with a nice plate of spicy boneless chicken feet. I think the owner was a little mad that we didn't eat em'.

The Feet

Our miscalculation here was all Nick's fault, so we determined that he had to pay the ultimate price and eat one.  Nick kept procrastinating his fate so 'Manda just popped one into his mouth. This picture makes me laugh so hard.

Look Google finds it funny too and made a gif out of it.. I could watch it forever!

Another fun memory that I will never forget is that Christina came to visit me this month and she brought with her Heather and the Talbot munchkins, Aiden, Lily, and Reagan. We went to a beautiful pond in Changnyeong and walked around before we went to the street market and then back to school.

 Isn't it a gorgeous view?!

I'm so grateful for Christina!

At school I gave them a tour and right before they left Richard asked them to stay and meet the students who had just arrived. The students cheered as the three children entered the room and crowded around them. They pinched their cheeks and touched their arms and heads. It was adorable! I have never seen anything like it before.  The kids were super awesome even while being thronged like little celebrities.  Heather wrote all about it, you can check out her blog post about the experience HERE.

 Suzi gave them some souvenirs. They will never forget CEV!

The kids with Sohee!

We have also eaten our fair share in Korean BBQ

 Look at all of those side dishes!! YUM!

 The Beef!

 Cooking the beef!

We obviously don't cook it the right way because she came and took over!

And we went bowling for the first time in Korea

Time seems to be flying! I'm so glad that I still have time to blog about all of our adventures! I hope you guys enjoy reading this blog as much as I enjoyed writing it.  That's not to say there isn't more to come! 

Fall Workshop trip to Jinju

Nick and I started off the wonderful workshop trip in the CEV van with Josh, Lauren, Sohee, Richard and Suzi. That alone could have made it the greatest workshop trip ever but there was so much more to come.

Our first rest stop off the highway wasn't very good, guessing by looks, so we got back on the highway and took the next one. It also didn't look great for lunch so we went to the bathroom and jumped back on the road. The third stop was a charm. We sat and ate a wonderful lunch of Bibimbop and Ttok Ramyun!

We hit the road again and before we knew it we were in Namhae. Nick spotted a turtle boat and really wanted to take a ride in it but settled for a picture. We got lucky that our next stop was near it. We ran and took a picture of it before we got on our boat. On our boat ride we fed the seagulls, saw a dead body, dolphins, and flying (jumping) fish. It was a great adventure.

 Super Sweet Bridge!

Turtle Boat!!!!!!!

 Mine!?

We left Namhae after the boat ride and headed towards Jinju. We found our Valentine motel, checked in and had a couple hours to ourselves. Nick and I chose to relax for a little bit then go out and explore the town. We found an awesome toy store right next door to where we were staying. We also walked a small portion of the river and just got to know our where we were staying.

We left for the city with dinner on our minds. Sohee found us a wonderful “all you can eat” meat buffet and it was delicious. After we ate we walked to the lantern festival. We were super excited about it because we wanted to go before we left Korea. I’m glad we were able to go and see how beautiful it was. I felt like we didn't have enough time to really explore all of the lanterns, mostly because we didn't realize the lanterns were just in the one area so we walked past them and into many tents. We really wasted time there. All of the teachers stuck together until the last little bit because some were taking a long time to do something so they were left behind. 

 SO LANTERN-Y I'M GONNA DIE!!!!

 Nick got too much into playing with his glow sword.

 Me and 'Manda rockin' the Glow Bows!

 TO VICTORY ON MY NOBLE BULL!

The next day we were able to wake up slow and then we hit the road. We went back to the lantern festival only this time we were on the other side where the temple was. It was a place we all wanted to see at night but we didn't have the time to get there. We are glad we got to go during the day though.

 Random High School Students.  We may have been mistaken for celebrities.

 BONG!!!!!!!!!!!

 Hey there sweet cheeks!

 Me, sir?

 Nick and I dressed up and got our pictures taken. It was super cool. 

We had a great two days! It was so perfect to go to the lantern festival with our CEV Family!