Boom! We're Yellow!

Braxton had an advancement test in Taekwondo this past weekend. He was so nervous and wouldn't talk the entire way to his test. When we got there, we found that he was the only white belt that was advancing and so he was having to do a lot of the steps and moves by himself where the other advancements had others passing off the same belt and they all got to go together. He did so well for his first time and we are so proud of him. When it came time to break the board Master Song told us that the board Braxton was going to be breaking was for a student who was a little more advanced than he was but that he knew that Braxton could do it. Braxton broke right through that board and we could just see the relief on his face. It was the part that he worried about the most. He has been practicing and helping his brother out at home so that he can become better. Way to go big guy!

Halloween 2012

Halloween happened here the Saturday before Halloween. Our ward invited the Korean branch to come out to a fall festival here at our building. There were quite a lot of activities for everyone. We had a great time. Then here on post they have a trick-or treating day set aside and thank goodness it isn't ever scheduled on a school night. So the boys have already been out trick-or-treating. They both came home enough cany that it filled an entire gallon ziplock baggie full. The cool thing here is that the army is more lenient onto the amount of guest that each family can escort onto base and so we have quite a lot of korean children who are able to participate in an American tradition. It is so fun to see. We were able to bring a friend and her friends two children. My adult friend was trick-or-treating with the rest of them. And the two small children were so cute. My favorite phrase of the the night was when one of the kids went to the door and said, "Trick or Trick", gotta love it.

Jinju Lantern Festival

The boys and I went with a group from our church branch down up to the Jinju Lantern Festival that they have here. It is supposed to be the biggest and best festival here in Korea. We went on a Monday night and stayed out late (got home at midnight). That breaks all of my rules as a parent, of being in bed on time on a school night. Oh well, we recovered after a few days of torture. We weren't able to see the entire festival, but I guess that will give us something to do next year... somehing to look forward to. The boys were excited to be abe to make handmade art things that they had in the craft area. Braxton had to make one of every kind of stamp that they had there. He told me that the boys who were helping him make them told him that he was doing such a good job, that he needed to keep doing more of them. I was helping Isaiah make a straw bird that held an egg. He wanted one so bad and I didn't realize that it was going to be something that I was going to need to give full assistane to, so Braxton was left in the booth next to ours making as many stamps as he wanted. See what kind of a parent I am? Yup! That kind! I even let the boys try something that I didn't think that they would try. Silk worm larva. Yes, that's right. They both tried it and both said it wasn't great, but it wasn't good either. So now we are officially turing into Koreans. We can eat bugs!!!! We had a great time looking at the fun lanters that they had out and about. There was even a dragon lantrn that breathed fire. We were allowed to walk on a type of bridge that was made to be able to see the lanterns better and another area of the festival. What a great time and new experience for us. Next year we may just have to stay over night to see two days of the festival because they had a castle area witha performance that we could see happening but wasn't able to make it to that side of the festival. We are still having a great time living here and are enjoying all of our new opportunities. Anyone want to come and visit?

Here's what the boys have been doing...

This week the boys started two new activities. Taekwondo and Piano. So far the Taekwondo has been given a two thumbs up and piano has been awarded the okay mark. Taekwondo is a big thing around here a lot of children attend different Hagwons learning different skills after school. And now our boys are added into the Hagwon excitement. They are attending Taekwondo and Piano five days a week for an hour each. Learning is a big deal around here and they take it very seriously. And I think that is why the boys awarded that piano only an okay mark. The instructor gives them quite a lot of homework before they get to practice on the piano at least 20-30 minutes worth. She does want them to know the stuff and language is a barrier here with the piano instructor. she has great piano english and that's about it. But she is patient and has about 3-4 things going on in her studio at the same time. She has four pianos and can have that many kids practicing and a few more working on notes and music homework at the same time. It is pretty interesting to see. Braxton is getting the hang of reading the notes and loves to sing out loud in his little piano room when he is practicing. He sings out which finger he is suppose to be playing at the time. (1, 2, 3, 4... 2, 3, 1). Isaiah has already told us that he now doesn't need any lessons because has learned the notes and can play really well. The Taekwondo instructor is Master Song, and he loves what he does. He is able to come onto post and pick the kids up from school and walk them over to his place. It is about 200-300 yards off of post, but the streets are crazy here and I am glad to have him do this just for the peace of mind. Then after, the boys walk downstairs to go right to piano that is in the same building just on the bottom floor. In the picture you can see the Warrior sign. That is Taekwondo and the bottom windows with the music notes everywhere is the piano hagwon. Well, the boys haven't had much of a break this week as far as relaxing. But they don't fight us when it is time to get into bed. We can't wait to see how the boys advance in the new skills that they are learning. We are so excited to see them being able to learn new things.

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!