My 26th Birthday

My 26th birthday was two weekends ago.  I still can't believe that I'm 26!  I read a story with my class a while ago about how, at any age, you're not simply that age, but also all of the ages that lead up to that age.  So I am 26 now, but I am also 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and so on, depending on the circumstance.  I think that's true.  When I feel like crying about something silly, I'm 4.  When I feel like jumping and dancing around in excitement, I'm 7.  When I feel like being rebellious, I'm 16.  Also, I'm learning that age doesn't have much to do with anything, but it's how you feel and what you've experienced that matters.  And right now in my life,  I'm so happy here in Korea, and excited to see what this next year will bring!

To celebrate my 26th, Tim and I had a full weekend of activities.  It started on Saturday with Tim making me a delicious omlette for breakfast.  He also gave me perfume and wrote me a poem!  Such a sweet husband! :)

Then we headed to the 63 Building, a big tourist attraction in Seoul that we hadn't been to before.  It's the tallest building in Seoul and has lots of fun things to do inside.  We went to the aquarium, the IMAX theater, and the art gallery on the 60th floor, which is supposedly the highest art gallery in the world.  The views of Seoul from the top were great!  We had such a fun Saturday!

The 63 Building.  Three stories underground, 60 stories above ground.

Reflection of us.

A real penguin at the aquarium.  At first I thought it was fake because it just stood there like a statue!

Under the Sea

IMAX theater fun!  We learned all about dinosaurs.

At the top.

Winding roads and lots of traffic.

My new sparkly TOMS from my fam!  I love them!!

Sunday was my actual birthday.  We went to church and then had shabu-shabu (Chinese stew) with our friends for lunch.  Yummy!

 
After lunch, we hit up a Board Game Room, which is pure Korean genius.  Basically, it's this place with huge tables and hundreds of board games.  You "order" your board game from a menu, and they bring it to you to play.  You can also get food and snacks there, as well as dress up with a mask or wig (which of course I opted to do).  We stayed for 2 hours playing a Korean game called Halli Galli and also The Game of Life (in Korean).  Thankfully we had a Korean with us to translate! :)  Tim brought a cake to the game room too, so I could make a wish on some candles.  The cake was the best I have had in Korea so far!

Doly, Collin, and Luke playing Life.

The whole group

Making a wish.

After the game room, we went to a lantern festival that was happening in downtown Seoul.  It was beautiful to see all the artistic and colorful lanterns lining the stream.  I loved it!

Tim and Luke

As if all that celebrating wasn't enough, this past weekend, we had a big birthday party for the four of us from our Sunday School class that had November birthdays: Doly, Matt, Luke, and me.  Edie had us over to her house, and we ate pizza, Mexican soup, and brownie sundaes.  It was delish!  We had such a fun time talking and hanging out with each other.  I felt so blessed to be there, surrounded by so many amazing people.  

I am so thankful for all the people I was able to celebrate with, and also those that called or sent messages or packages.  Being away from home is hard, but I can't help but feel blessed by those that are here and those that are not here.  I feel the love from all over the world.

Off to the Races!

This past weekend, Tim and I went with a group of our friends to the Seoul horse races!  I'm telling you, Korea has EVERYTHING!  It was a blast!  The racing stadium was in a suburb of Seoul where there are races every weekend of the year.  On Saturdays, there are usually about 11 races per day.  At the stadium, there are 5 levels, all with an outside and inside section.  Outside is where you sit and watch the races.  Inside is where you can get food, watch the races on the TV screens, and most importantly, place your bets!  We bought an informational book that told all about the horses and their stats, so we used that to help us choose who to put our money on.  (I chose horses with low odds and cool names.)  The actual betting process was all automated.  We put money on a ticket at the beginning, and then used that ticket as our money supply.  To place a bet, all we had to do was put our ticket and betting card into a machine, and it subtracted the amount of the bet from our money supply.  After each race, we could put our receipt and ticket back into the machine, and it would tell us how much money we had won.  Don't worry, we didn't place any big bets!  Any bet over 1,000 won (1 dollar) per horse was risky business. :)  There were different kinds of bets that could be placed.  You could guess the winner or choose a horse that you thought would place (1st, 2nd, or 3rd).  The more hardcore betters could place bets on which two horses would come in 1st and 2nd.  We definitely saw some hardcore betters.  Men dressed in suits, smoking, and cheering loudly as the horses raced to the finish line.  We were happy that we didn't have any significant bets on those horses because that would have been stressful!  For us, it was just a fun way to spend the afternoon. :)

A Pirate and a Ladybug Celebrate Halloween!

I love Halloween!  It's a great excuse to dress up in a crazy costume and eat lots of candy!  This year, Tim dressed up as a pirate and I dressed up as a ladybug.  We wore our costumes to school, and the kids loved it!  Some of them dressed up too, and we had fun eating candy and making masks.  After school, I wore my costume around town and got all sorts of strange looks! :)  The pictures below are of my favorite class of teenagers!  I have them every Tuesday and Thursday for three hours and I adore them.  They are all so crazy, talkative, dramatic, hilarious, and smart!  As you can imagine, we had lots of fun celebrating Halloween!

Our costumes!

They made me wait outside after break time so that they could turn off the lights and prepare to scare me! 

AH!

This is Candy.  I need to devote an entire blog post just to her.  She is CRAZY, but also so sweet and caring.  She makes me laugh so hard every day.  For instance, she eats dog biscuits for snacks and says they are delicious.  She often smells me during class.  And she always tries to beat me to saying "Bless you" when someone sneezes.  She is awesome!  But that's just the tip of the iceberg!

HA!  Typical.

Justin.  Though you can't see his face.

Ann and Courtney.  So smart and creative!

This is Cherry.  She's super smart and has a big personality!  She's also an amazing pianist and has so many goals for her life.  

Arrr!  This pirate had come to steal my markers!

Jack-o-lanterns

Pinata!

I love it when I get the chance to do fun, crafty things with my students- especially when it's with my adorkables (a term of endearment for my class of 8 year olds)!  A few weeks ago, our story for the day was all about how to make a pinata.  So what did we do?  We made a pinata!  I think it was actually just as fun for me as it was for the kids!

First, I hung a ballon from the ceiling and made a paste out of flour and water.  Then, we cut up strips of newspaper, dipped them in the paste, and placed them on the balloon.  It was kind of messy!

The boy posing is David.  I love him!  He is literally Eeyore.

The girls were not as thrilled about getting messy as the boys were. :)

We let it dry overnight, and the next day I added two more layers of newspaper and paste.  The day after that, I popped the balloon, but the shape remained.  The kids brought in candy to fill it up!  Then we made fringe out of tissue paper and glued it to the pinata.  Here is the finished product!  It's a fish pinata!

All the kids got a chance to hit the pinata!  

When the pinata broke, there was mass chaos!  Everyone was gathering candy from the floor except one girl who was pouting and saying, "Teacher, it's not fair!  It's not fair!"  Haha!  Don't worry, I made sure everyone got plenty of candy, but this boy, Alex, got the most out of everyone!

Who knew English class could be so much fun?!