Christmas 2013

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!

When we got home from America we brought back a couple of gifts for Richard and Suzi! Richard got an ALABAMA hat and Suzi got a gift pack of American Jams. I think they enjoyed both!

At some point Nick and I dressed very similar and we had to take a photo in front of the Christmas tree..

One day I got brave enough to take the scooter into town.. Yes I'm wearing kitchen gloves.. and yes they kept the cold wind off longer than my other gloves. (FYI: now we have proper gloves for the scooter)

A week before Christmas we got some snow!!! We woke up to such a beautiful surprise!!

 
We had a wonderful church party!! The cute Primary children stood there while the missionaries sang the Nativity song from the Children's song book. It was very touching! This really helped me focus on what the Christmas season was all about!

We had a huge CEV dinner!! everyone brought a dish or two and we had a great feast! I was extremely grateful for Grandma Bunny's package. She sent a beautiful table cloth with matching plates and napkins. It was perfect!!

For Christmas Eve we were invited up to spend the night with the Wood family from church. They are so AWESOME!!! We stayed up late and woke up early! 

From left to right you have Tim, Grant, Lauren, and Connie!!!

They were dog sitting!! Isn't she cute!

Nick got me these really cool earrings. I love them so much!!

Nick got his Nintendo 3DS XL with a few games (Thanks Arielle... I Love you.. oh and I bought Lauren and I Borderlands 2 this week.. can't wait to play it with her)

My mom sent me this really cool bumblebee board eraser!!!

Nick got me the Samsung Galaxy note 8.0 (I am in LOVE!!!)

Sorry this post is so choppy.  I'm just trying to catch up and get us ready for the next big adventure, CHINA!  We are really looking forward to going to the most populous country in the world, so much so that it is hard to concentrate on anything else, but I feel it is important to let all our family and friends know that we are thankful for them and their support both in packages and messages.
We really enjoyed Christmas this year thanks for all of the packages! You really made it seem like Christmas!!! We love you all so very much and hope your Christmas was just as amazing as ours has been!  Until next time, L-and-N!

Sumo!

If you read my blog you know that I took Nick on a secret vacation. He had no idea where we were going until the day we left. Everyday for one week prior to that particular day  I gave him a clue to throw him off the trail. Yes, I am capable of lying! 

We stayed at the Paragon Hotel in Busan because it was near the bus station and the airport. Our view was really pretty!

I gave Nick the final gift while we were eating Tang Tang chicken in our hotel bed. He freaked out when he saw the sumo wrestling tickets!

We flew to Japan Saturday and went straight to our Hostel. After checking in we did some research to find a food that was a hot item in Fukuoka. Turns out that delicious food was Udon noodles! We found this restaurant because of the awesome map our hostel provided us with!

The cook cut and cooked our noodles right in front of us!! The soup and noodles were so delicious!

After dinner we found a little grocery store and we purchased some of our favorite snacks...

I didn't take a picture of my favorite Japanese ice cream because as soon as I bought it..... it was gone!

We went back to our hostel and read everything we could find about Sumo wrestling so we would be in the "know" for the competition. 

Sunday we had some amazing breakfast (curry pastry) and some other awesome things we picked up at the local bakery! 

We loaded up on snacks and sandwiches and then we went to the main event of our little get-a-way, SUMO WRESTLING!

We took a bus straight to the stadium! When we checked in a sweet lady helped us find our awesome seats! I have to do a shout out to http://www.buysumotickets.com because they helped me out so much! I pre-ordered my tickets through them and they did a fantastic job! Nothing was what I or Nick expected it to be. We had a little area just for us. You had to take your shoes off before you sat down. We had plenty of room to stretch our legs out. Our place had two big purple cushions and a nice cubby for our shoes and snacks we brought with us. The men sitting behind us helped us understand the schedule we had gotten to keep up with who was fighting. 

 Nick with a cardboard Sumo man.....

 Lauren with a real sumo man!!!

Here is a video I made. If it doesn't work on my blog you can find it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3LGjQRmuWw

After Sumo we walked a lot, attempting to find a good place for dinner. Most everything cheap was closed we ended up at the grocery store with cheap roman noodles!

Monday we checked out and walked around for a while. We went to a beautiful, small, traditional Japanese garden. 

 Spot the bird?

While we were there, a couple soon to be married, were taking some beautiful photos in Japanese traditional dress. We had a great time watching them! As soon as they saw the bird they freaked out and took a ton of picture with it.  Maybe its a sign of good fortune. It was funny!

After the garden we walked to a huge shopping center and walked around for a while. We ate some more ramen noodles (they didn't taste very good) Then we headed back to the Subway station on our way to the airport.  The weekend went by super fast, but it was so amazing! So glad we were able to do this... One more thing checked off our bucket list!

Arielle's Eric Carle Baby Shower

Wow!! This baby shower turned out better than I could imagine! Leigh and I worked so hard on it and let me just say it paid off. We both have a creative side and when we work together miracles can happen.

I hope this blog can help anyone who is attempting an Eric Carle theme for any party.

We purchased most of our decorations from this website: http://www.eric-carle.com/world.html

 We found the idea for the invites here

The game was great!! It is now my go to game for Baby showers!! You make the matching board with poster board and wrapping paper that matches your theme. Then you come up with 12 words that go with your party (baby shower words: OBGYN, Baby giggles, Epidural etc.) When someone makes a match (two of the same words) They get a candy bar that goes with it ( Epidural=Lifesavers candy) It was such a great game.. we found the idea here.

I purchased the candy here

Food: Pretzels dipped in red colored chocolate with brown chocolate dotted on each one. Strawberries cut in half with chocolate dots. Cherries and Grapes for caterpillars, used toothpick.We also had sandwiches, Veggies, Chips and salsa

We had our cake made by a very talented girl! You can find her FB page here

Beautiful wall decals from the Eric Carle website!

Outside going up and down the sidewalk were balloons. They were suppose to look like the caterpillar.

Decor by the entrance. We made a cute sign-in, the guests wrote on a note card with advice for the future mom. We also had Eric Carle book marks for them when they left.

Our floral arrangement was done by Debbie Hoover. She is such a talented friend! She let us borrow things that really brought the decorations together!

Our guest also got into the theme. 

This Grouchy ladybug diaper bag was handmade and given to Arielle along with the book!

A cute little outfit!!

Handmade boxes for the nursery!

This shower was so much fun to prepare, almost as much fun as the shower itself. It seemed that everyone loved the theme and loved the shower, I know I did! Everything my sister and I purchased for the party decorations was given to Arielle to decorate her nursery.  She will also have a very nice child library for her sweet little one that is due in January! I hope the Munchkin is an Eric Carle lover like we are!

New Teachers and Halloween

Wow, The last few weeks have gone by so quickly. I'm sorry that we haven't blogged in a while. I have been really busy with new callings and what not. At the end of this summer I was called as the Primary President. The calling has been fun so far... I think our primary program went really well. While doing all of that I became the lead teacher at CEV right before 4 new teachers came on board. Everything has been going good so far, but it is just a lot on my plate. To top everything off I have planned a secret vacation for Nick for this coming weekend. He doesn't know where we are going, I can't wait till he figures it out and we are on our way! After vacation we will arrive in BAMA!!!

The newbies! Both couples are AMAZING!! Amanda and Nick(bottom) just finished up a two year adventure with the peace corp in China. Lauren and Josh( top right)  got married this past summer and are from the south, it doesn't matter that they are from Louisiana and are LSU fans!

Halloween was a big hit this year. Each teacher picked a game to play in their classroom and we had the classes rotating so they could play all of the games. The students loved the candy! I did a cake walk where the students got chocolate pies instead of cake! All of the rooms were a huge hit.

We had a huge box of costumes/decorations. I decided to do my own thing so I changed/ added or took off layers of clothing/ and had a sign that said What season am I, 1 sentence=1 candy. The kids attacked me going down the hall at the end of every period. I just started throwing the candy so they would leave me alone.

 

This week was our 1 year Korean anniversary and My 28th Birthday! This year has gone by so fast and it was one of the best years of my life!

We love you all and we can't wait to be home for a few days before we come back to our Korean family..


Any guesses as to where we are going this weekend on Secret Vacation? (if you already know, don't give it away)

Workshop October 2013

This workshop was bitter and sweet, as we celebrated with our CEV family. Amanda and Brandon went out with a BANG! We had a great relaxing trip to Busan/Gimhae. We left CEV at 9:00 am in two vans, Busan bound. Our first stop was Busan aquarium. Nick and I almost visited here during Chuesok, but I'm glad we decided not to. We had such a fun time looking at all the sea creatures with our coworkers. We had a few favorite parts, actually the whole thing was fantastic. We got to witness penguins eating and swimming around, and later sharks, GIANT grouper, and sting rays eating. Then if that wasn't cool enough we got to hold real star fish, and see empty shark eggs. Then if that wasn't cool enough we got on a boat with a see-through bottom, and got to see/feed fish who in return feed the sharks in the tank! It was a pretty awesome experience.

 Before we left that area we ate some Indian food (spicy) and walked on the beach (of course I took my shoes of and played in the water) Before we knew it we were back in the van and on the road again to a HUGE Lotte Department store where we walked around for a couple of hours before we met up again. Nick and I were good and didn't by anything. We have made a new budget and so far it is working well. 

Once again we found ourselves on the road. Nick and I had the pleasure of riding in the same van as Richard, Suzie, and Sohee. It was interesting to see how much Korean I understood, and how lost I was in every conversations. They would throw out an English word every now and again to hook me back in to the conversations. I have been really practicing my numbers, telling time, and money. I feel that if I can get these down I will feel like I have accomplished something with the Korean language. As we drove to Gimhea in the rain from the Typhoon I couldn't help but think about life and how much I (and we) have grown here in Korea. Every time I turn my head I see a new challenge to face. It has been hard and rewarding at the same time.

We pulled up to our hotel and checked in. We have a little time to unpack and get ready for dinner. We drove to a different Department store and ate at a Vietnamese restaurant! We shopped around for a little then back to the hotel for the night. Nick went out to grab us some ice cream because he was in the mood for some chocolate. While he was gone I decided to take a shower and relax. He came back and rang our room bell, knocked, banged on the door and I didn't hear him. He freaked out a little because he thought I had fallen and was unconscious (or something) he went down and tried to get another key for our door. Needless to say there isn't an extra key for the rooms and when he came up the second time I just turned off the shower and could hear him banging on the door. He busted in and just hugged me for a while thankful that I was okay. 

Tuesday morning we met everyone at 9:00 am and did something that MANY teacher don't have the opportunity to do. We visited Richard and Suzi's Home in Gimhea. We felt very special to visit there and to eat breakfast. They have a really cute, well decorated apartment! When we finished eating we all jumped in the vans again and came back to Changnyeong to unpack and then we had a farewell lunch for Amanda and Brandon. Afterward we saw them off! I can't believe time is flying by so quickly, before we know it, our 1 year anniversary for being in Korea will be here.