Merry Christmas!

Derek and I both had Christmas Eve off work, so we were able to sleep in which was nice since it was so cold (high of 16) outside. I got up and started preparing some of the food for Christmas dinner. Then Lindsay came over and we put together the candy bags that we would take to the orphanage on Christmas.

We planned on going ice skating on Christmas Eve, but since it took three hours to get to Seoul, and by the time we got there it was absolutely freezing, we just took pictures in front of the Christmas tree and then went to have dinner.

On Christmas morning, Derek and I woke up and exchanged Christmas presents. We actually both got each other the same book. We were both really excited about giving the book to each other so it was both disappointing and funny at the same time. I guess great minds think alike!

After opening presents we went with several friends to Gae Myong Orphanage, which is a local orphanage on the island. They were having a Christmas service and talent show for the kids and invited us to come and watch the talent show then pass out candy. Although we didn't understand the service, it was nice to listen to the Christmas songs in Korean, while I quietly sang them to myself in English. The talent show was cute, the smaller kids danced to music while the older ones sang, played the flutes, drums, piano and violin. They also showed a slide show of pictures over the past year, and although I know it must be hard since the kids don't have families it looked like they had a nice year traveling to places like Cambodia, Vietnam and several places within Korea and are well taken care of. After the service and talent show we passed out the candy bags to the kids and wished them Merry Christmas. When we were leaving they told us that in the sixty years the orphanage has been open we are the first foreigners to ever visit and they welcomed us to come next year as well. If we were staying I would definitely like to become more involved with the orphanage and I am happy we were able to be part of their Christmas.

We had everyone over at our place for Christmas dinner and had a great time eating way too much food and playing Dirty Santa. Derek and I both lucked out and got a bottle of wine and chocolate truffles from the game, which was nice since I usually end up with horrible presents when I play Dirty Santa.

Overall it was a wonderful Christmas, and although it was hard to be away from family and friends, it was nice getting to celebrate it with new friends and to be a part of the orphanage's celebrations. We love and miss you all and hope your Christmas was merry as ours!

Gift tags and candy bags we made for the kids at the orphanage.

Christmas tree and lights in City Hall.

Freezing in front of the decorations in Seoul.

Matching Christmas presents Derek and I got each other for Christmas.

Talent show at the orphanage.

Group shot of the kids, workers and volunteers at the Gae Myung Orphanage.

Food for Christmas dinner. I think I went a little overboard on dinner!

Chocolate cake I made in the rice cooker. It tasted just like the first one, but it looks much prettier now that I now what to do!

Christmas Greetings

It's been a busy last week of school. Not only is it the week before Christmas, but it's also the week before school gets out for the year. We still have some winter camps to do for the next month but tomorrow we are done with regular classes for the year. Oh how time flies!

We have been doing some Christmas lessons with the kids, but I was very surprised last week when I started getting Christmas cards that the kids made on their own time. It was a great surprise and they were so sweet so I had to share them with everyone.

Today I also had the best day at school in probably the whole year. Three of my 5th grade girls that are in my after-school class surprised me with an End-Of-The-Year/Christmas party. They put it all together and bought everything, and we spent the afternoon eating cake and watching Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs. It was such a great way to end the year with them. I will definitely miss my after-school class and those girls! Reading their sweet card actually made me tear up a little.

Anyways, so here are some pictures of my Christmas cards and the surprise party.

Decorations from the End-Of-The-Year/Christmas surprise party.

When I went to cut the cake, they actually apologized and said, "Teacher we wanted a bigger cake, but it was too expensive."

Handmade gifts from the girls. It's kinda like cross stitching but with yarn. They also got me a snow globe that says, "Sweet Heart."

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas

Between the first snow last week and our Christmas decorations it's starting to feel like Christmas. Although, it kinda doesn't, cause we're not use to snow at Christmas, but you get the point. So here are some pictures of our Korean Christmas experience so far!

Our Christmas tree, lights and tinsel that I borrowed from my school.
And the presents are from Mom & Dad!

The stockings are from Mom & Dad, and those are the masks that we've
gotten from the countries we've visited so far.

More of the apartment and decorations. You can see how big the tree is.
But it's better than nothing!

It snowed a lot on Wednesday night, unfortunately it started melting pretty early.
This is outside of my Thursday school, Hajeom Elementary.

Thanksgiving in Korea

We hope everyone had a nice and safe Thanksgiving. I know everyone is worried about the news and we have been watching it closely, but as of now everything seems the same. We went to Seoul this weekend and nothing seemed out of the ordinary there either. If there is any change or we get any more information we will be sure to let everyone know.

Even though we had to work on Thanksgiving, Derek and I really still wanted to celebrate it in one way or another. So we volunteered to host dinner at our place. I made a trip to Seoul on Monday because I was determined to have green bean casserole. I've never gone a Thanksgiving without it and I wasn't going to start now. I was super lucky; not only did I get all the ingredients for green bean casserole, they also had Stove Top stuffing mix! On Wednesday we made a trip to Costco and I was able to get a pumpkin pie, an apple pie and some roasted chickens for dinner (they had frozen turkeys, but we don't have an oven).

It was strange working on Thanksgiving, but it didn't feel like Thanksgiving so I just had to force myself not to think about what I would be doing if I was at home on Thanksgiving (eating my Mom's elephant ears, yum!). I left school a little early to head home and start cooking and Derek carved the chickens, while I made deviled eggs, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, and stuffing.

It was a different Thanksgiving than we were use to, but it was nice to celebrate it with our friends that have been such a big part of our lives here on the island. We didn't take lots of pictures, but here are a couple of our first Thanksgiving away from home.

This is a Thanksgiving banner I did with my after school class. We watched a small video about the first Thanksgiving then each student made one of these.

The rolls and chicken were from Costco, but I made everything else, the dip, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, and stuffing. A friend also brought some chicken alfredo, which was great because we didn't have any leftovers really.

The Ganghwa Island crew.

Sunday Night Football

Thanks Mom & Dad for sending us, I mean Derek, the football! Today several of us got together to throw the football around. We started just throwing the ball then decided to get a little game of two-hand touch going. After explaining the rules to the South Africans it was me and Derek for Team America, and Hennie and Jonathan for Team South Africa. I wish I could say Derek and I dominated and taught the South Africans a thing or two about American Football, but after they got the jist of the game and started using their rugby moves also, we were definitely evenly matched. Luckily we had two more players come and help us out. We played for a couple of hours and decided that we would like to make this a weekly game and officially started the Ganghwa Football League (team name to come).

And although it's early, we want to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving. We love and miss you all and are thankful to have had your love and support over the last year! We'll think of y'all on Thanksgiving.

The Ganghwa Football League

Derek explaining the rules of the game

Free Fallin'

Well they say it's fall here, but if you ask me or Derek it's already winter. Highs are in the upper 40s/low 50s and lows are already in the 20s/30s at night. Yesterday was beautiful and actually felt somewhat warm and it was only 60.

Since we don't get much fall color in Alabama, I just assumed that fall here would be like fall in New England, with the mountains full of fall color. There were beautiful colors speckled throughout the city and mountains, but nothing like I expected. So here are some pictures around town and my schools of fall on the island. Good thing I took them when I did, the other night we had a bad storm and it blew off most of the leaves. I have a feeling next time we have a storm like that it's going to be a blizzard.

I don't know the name of this temple, but we walked by it in the Spring to go look at the Cherry Blossom trees.

This is in front of Ganghwa Elementary, which is one of the biggest schools on the island.

This is at Habil Elementary which is my main school. The leaves on the back tree are almost all gone because the the kids like to hang on the limbs and try to see how many leaves they can shake off.

This is behind the school at Myeongsin Elementary, which is my Friday school.

These are also at Myeongsin Elementary. Friday was beautiful, so I walked around the school and listened to my iPod under the tree after I was finished teaching. The other teachers thought this was so weird and kept coming to check on me and offering me a computer to use the Internet.