Hunger Games

Aaron and I met up with our new friends Ashley and Adam to see the Hunger Games tonight!   

Aaron and I both read the first book and were excited to see it on the big screen!  

I was a fan... Aaron was a critic!  Can't make everyone happy, I guess!

We saw it at a theater in Nampodong that has a front entrance into the theater... ie, the door to the theater is near the screen and you have to walk up the stairs to get to your seat.  About 10 seconds into the movie, a woman in her 30's walked in the door and immediately tripped over a step and went face forward onto the ground, popcorn and coke flying in the air!   I'm not gonna lie, it was really funny!  I'm SORRY!  But what was even funnier was when her boyfriend reached for his phone and shined a flashlight app down on her from about the 10th row, basically spotlighting her for everyone to see, as she attempted to get off the ground and collect herself!  It's bad enough that she fell... but then her boyfriend spotlighted her for everyone to see!  We all probably giggled about it for at least 5 minutes!

Luckily she was fine, just a bit embarrassed... the movie was great, and having Ashley and Adam with us was just icing on the cake!  Who doesn't love double dates to the movies?!

BTW: Special shout out to my dad who turned the BIG 66 today!  Love you dad!

New baby niece!

I am an auntie a third time over as of yesterday afternoon!  

Welcome to this wonderful world

Hannah Grace Murphy

I love that your name means "beauty" and "passion" because with a gorgeous mom and a handsome dad, there's no doubt you'll be beautiful (inside and out)... and with a family like you'll be surrounded by, there's NO doubt you'll be passionate as well!  

I love you already baby girl!

Rap Box!

There's a section in each lesson of the 5th grade textbook where the students sing an English song that goes with the words in the chapter.  This weeks lesson wasn't a song... it was a rap (Aka: RAP BOX)!  

I gave the group of students who rapped the loudest and had the best "rapping hand gestures" an extra point for their team!  It was quite possibly the funniest thing I've ever seen in one of my classes in Korea!

A full, fun weekend!

After work on Friday, Aaron and I had a nice dinner date at The Pan in Nampodong and then did some DAISO shopping! 

Saturday, I woke up early and headed off to Busan Jin Market, which is like a glorified Joanne's Fabric Store, to look for fabrics for the wedding!  Unfortunately, Korean style is a bit different than American style, so I had to get really creative with what they had!  I ended up finding these 6 fabrics to make flag banners to hang along the fences.  I'm going to go back and get a dull blue color as well, to make it feel a bit more springy! :)

At 1:00pm, Aaron and I met Emo (Serry's mom) for lunch at a beef restaurant near my apartment!  She is the sweetest woman we know, and always feel so loved after spending time with her!

The rest of the afternoon, I sat around, petting Kitty and cutting triangles from the fabric I had bought, and then Aaron and I headed over to our new friends Ashley and Adam's apartment for a little party with some more new friends!  It's funny how we think we don't have enough room to entertain 15 people in our big American homes... try doing it in a room the size of your childhood bedroom!  It definitely feels nice and cozy!

After Ashley's, Aaron and I met Meagan at Thursday Party in Nampo for a drink, before heading home for the night! :) 

On Sunday, I went over to Gill's to have a homemade lunch with her and Sam!  I love spending time with these two, but unfortunately we can only do it on the weekends!  They both work at private academy's from 2pm-10pm Monday through Friday, which is when I'm FREE! :(  It's okay though, we make it a point to spend time on the weekends! :)

After leaving Gill's, I went back to my apartment and decorated Easter eggs with Aaron!  He is teaching his students how to decorate them in his culture class this week, so I thought it would be a good idea to make some examples!  Wink wink!  I'm a sucker for doing stuff like that! 

After finishing, I layed in bed and read about 5 chapters of the Hunger Games!  I'm trying to finish reading it before the movie comes out on Friday here in Korea!  

I think I'm gonna make it!

So, that's what happened over here!  Hope you had a great weekend too! :) 

Are we dreaming?!

About a month ago, Aaron and I started looking for roundtrip flights to America, for the wedding, and were shocked at how much it was going to cost us!  Usually it's about $1,800 per person, but this time it was going to be closer to $5,000 total... and that's not including flights that we would pay for to go for a honeymoon!  Ugghhhh!  We were discouraged and frustrated with how much of our savings would go to stupid flights! 

We decided to put our resourceful caps on and came up with and idea!  Aaron's aunt Vicki travels a lot for work and has been saving air miles for years.  We thought maybe she would be up for making a little deal with us!  Who doesn't love a good deal, right?!  She books our tickets with her miles, and we pay her $1,000 per ticket!  It's a win, win right?!  She'd make $2,000 bucks!

Well, Aaron contacted her last week and she said she would see what she could do, but that she wasn't confident that there would be frequent flier seats available this close to the wedding.  But, she went ahead and called a bunch of different airlines, looked at a million different routings, and basically spent hours and hours of her free time figuring out the routing from Busan to North Carolina and back!

Well, today, we got an email from her that she had found seats and had them on hold, but realized later that she booked them under JILL (my maiden last name) ANDERON, instead of JILL (my middle name) ANDERSON, which is the name on my passport.  She said the only way she could book the reservation was if I changed me name on my passport!  Well, we all know that can't happen!  So, she decided to start all over and try a new routing! 

By the GRACE OF GOD, and Vicki's persistence and resourcefullness, she was able to book roundtrip flights for us with an even better routing!!!  We'll have a 3 days layover in Germany for our HONEYMOON!  What?!!  We were beyond thrilled!  We never imagined, in our wildest dreams that we would be able to go to Europe for our honeymoon! 

Then... when we thought we were the luckiest people alive, it got even better!  Vickie went on to tell us that she wouldn't accept the $2,000 we had promised her, because she wanted this to be her gift to us! 

WHAT??  ARE WE DREAMING?!!

We are feeling beyond blessed this beautiful Saturday afternoon, and very loved!!  We joked that with the extra money we're able to save, we won't have to stay in a youth hostel for our honeymoon!  LOL

Vicki, your gift was beyond generous and we are forever greatful! 

Thank you from the bottom of our hearts!