Rain Rain...

I stole this picture from a friend. This is a picture of the river where I run, after Typhoon Sanba hit us. This was a super Typhoon and school was canceled again. There are two rails running perpendicular to the road on the right and in between is where I have been running. On the other side of the railing is a small road. I also run under the overpass. I didn't realize that river could fill up so fast.

Not as much stress!

I can officially post about my stress that I have been having.

I never thought that I would go back into teaching when I quit. But this past school year I decided that I would fill out a sub application just to earn a little extra $ for fun vacations. And so when I turned in an application, the school's secretary looked my application over and discovered that I am a teacher and encouraged me to apply for a job. She mentioned that the local hires are hired first because they are cheaper than stateside hires for the government. so in January I decided that I would just fill out an application online just to see what happened, and then decide from there. So after the 2-3 months of filling out everything that needed to be completed it got turned in. By April I interviewed for a long term sub job to fill in for a teacher who was leaving (1st grade yuck, and they were a hard group on top of it). Got hired to teach them. But once I was just about to end the school year I was in my teacher zone. And really wanted to get back into it.

So by the end of June I had interviewed for one of the three positions that could possibly be available (it was another 1st grade, yuck!). By the end of July after a few emails I found out that I didn't get it. Not too worried because the principal knew that most of my experience was with the upper grades. The next spot to come up was for third grade. I wanted this, but it didn't come open until the second week of August. School starts for teacher on the 22nd. I was starting to get frantic! I knew all that was needed to be going into getting a classroom ready and was definitely not at my best self. After a call to the school I was told that I would know shortly what was going to be happening at the school. They were also trying to get permission to hire an additional teacher but were slightly short to add a new class. Two days after school started for the teachers I still hadn't heard anything and was quite disappointed.

But the Friday after school started for the kids I got an email asking if I wanted a part time job. Well yes, half a sub work day and more money. I will take that over subbing! Now, I am going to be teaching reading to the at risk 4-5th grade kids at our school. I have never been outside of the classroom and so this is a new experience for me, but I am thinking that this is going to be so much easier than teaching a full group of kids. Yay Me! I have been to the school for two days now and have still yet to find out what my hours are, each day they have been different, but I probably won't be working with kids for over a week and so now I am our reading specialist's helper. I have been testing the new move in's to determine abilities for the classroom teacher, and so each day depending on what grade level needs help determines what my hours are. Each day I have been able to see the boys in their classrooms and loving it.

I have also been a little jealous of Brandon getting to go TDY and leaving the parenting scene for a while, but now I can say that I have my first official TDY in a few weeks. It is only for one day and it is only in Seoul, but it is my own. Wahooo!

Labor Day fun!

We decided to take the boys to E World today. Formerly Woobang Land. We know that the boys have enjoyed this in the past and decided that this would be a fun way to celebrate an American holiday in Korea. It was... There were no waiting in lines, and there weren't very many people there. We decided to take the boys up to a fun illusion art exhibit to have a little fun. We are showing some our our favorites taken.


Isaiah stepped up his bravery today in a big way. He was a roller coaster maniac. He was raising arms throughout some pretty crazy roller coasters and even on a coaster that looped. Was a brave boy!



Braxton was all about entertaining an audience. He was rocking out on a few of the rides that played loud music and the Korean people were getting a big kick out of the American boy sporting his moves. Today we were given 4 coupons to eat for free at the resteraunt here and we all enjoyed one of our favorite Korean meals bulgogi and rice and the boys are getting quite good at the chopsticks. We also had a fun Korean treat. We don't know what it's called we just know what it is in English. It is a waffle folded in half with your choice of either ice cream or a whipped cream of some sort. Yum! Great day!

Just for laughs!

Only in Korea! Just kidding! Only in Korea on a military instillation. We occasionally have exercises here which require all solders on post to carry weapons if walking on post and I think this sign is for them. We got a big laugh with this today.

Typhoon? Is that really going to stop us?

The second day of school was canceled because of Typhoon Baloven coming into town today. The boys decided to take advantage of the opportunity of a little down time and decided to get busy on this fort. They were then allowed to eat lunch underneath watching TV. I am so thankful for wood floors... Easy to sweep up and take care of. No,the Typhoon here in our area wan't a big deal, but even Brandon had work off and just about everything was shut down on all of the posts in Daegu. We knew it was a big deal even when our apartment announced the Typhoon a few times during the day and we know this because the only thing we could understand them say was Typhoon and thank you. Thankfully there isn't a Korean word for Typhoon. We only get bits and pieces of what is being said. At least we are getting that much right? Hopefully there will be school tomorrow!

Boys, Boys, Boys!!!!

Yay! The boys are off to school today! Braxton is starting 4th grade and Isaiah starts 1st. They both have been growing up so much. It couldn't have come on a better day. A lot of mom's have the problem of having a hard time sending their kids off to school. I am not one of those types of moms especially this morning. We were off to a rough start. We were all up at 5 am playing wii fully dressed with beds made and not wanting to miss out on any privileges that we had in the summer. They both have forgotten that when school is in session they only have 30 minutes of electronic devises per day and that happens only after school and any homework. We didn't want to have our pictures taken, but were quickly told that that is what all the good annoying mom's do and they got stuck with one of those. We were then upset about not wanting to take out the trash because their new school clothes would get dirty and remember you wanted to take our pictures? Then we were upset because we wanted to ride the bus to school and I told them that I would take them. It will be Isaiah's first day of first grade and he won't be getting taken off the bus with an aide this year. I can't believe how hard I am making both of my kids lives. But then to top it all off. Our mad scientist Braxton was experimenting again. What would happen if he stuck a penny in the padlock portion of the door and then proceed to lock it. Well, yes to your question..... we discovered the answer. The door and the lock stay shut and stay locked. Thankfully we have a small office room next to our entry with a window. That is how we were able to get to school this morning. Yes, I have been debating to do the great mom thing of having homemade cookies ready for when they get off the bus this afternoon. They may just get them I am still deciding;)

Needless to say we had to call our real estate agent to coordinate the property manager to see if the door could be fixed. The doors here are a lot different than they are in the states. The hinges don't just come off easily with a hammer and a screwdriver. I really haven't figured out how to get them off. I really thought that the door would have to be broken to fix it. But the door was fixed in about 10 minutes. And it didn't get broken. And so I may not stay mad. But I gotta love the things the boys come up with to make life more interesting and even sometimes entertaining. What will they do tomorrow?

Stress Relief

I've been putting a lot of stress on myself lately by just worrying about life. And waiting to hear about things; that I just needed to get doing something to keep my mind on other things. So as I took Braxton's school teacher to the fabric market the other day I decided that I was going to give myself a project to work on. I have never made pillows before and I wanted to do something more with our couches and tie something in with our crazy wallpaper. I found this darling designer fabric for cheap and decide that I was going to make some pillows without a pattern and no measuring. I figured it would be fairly easy. I also put in some hidden zippers so that they can be washed if needed. Now I'm thinking that I may need a few more of them in different sizes. They also had coordinating fabrics. Hummm... endless possibilities. The boys are liking them a little too much. But it is fun to be able to have something to do to keep one's mind occupied for a time. Now what to do about next week?