Invitations Revealed!

There are quite a few perks to having a small, intimate wedding, in my opinion... Other than the obvious reason of being able to spend quality time with the people you know and love the most, instead of schmoozing with people you only sorta kinda know, and being too busy to notice all of the details of the day, or not being able to spend quality moments together with your new hubby!  Ugggh, shame!  But, one of my favorite parts about having a smaller, more intimate wedding are things like being able to make personal touches... because hand making 65 wedding invitations is a whole lot easier than hand making 250!  

Can I get an AMEN?!

Lucky for me, my guest list capped out at 63, most of whom are couples or families, which left me with the attainable goal of hand making 36 invitations!  Easy, peasy, right?!  Well, do you know how hard it is to do any sort of projects with a cat who constantly wants to help?  I'm sure all you moms with toddlers get where I'm coming from!

This left me with one option, to make all 36 invitation during my afternoon free time at work.  Lucky for me, this is my 4th year teaching in Korea, so I don't need all afternoon to plan for classes!  Oh yes!  I'm not sure how many days, or hours it took to make these little treasures, but I'd do it all over again if I had to! (Well, not for a couple years though!)  I'm such a sucker for hand made wedding invitations!

    

I love their fun, flirty, colorful, and personal feel, and hope that our big day is all those things!

Crack The Code

This year, I took on an extra class of 1st and 2nd graders who didn't know a lick of English!  I knew I was crazy to take it on, but getting paid $100 a week for teaching an hour and 40 minutes was just too good to pass up.  I remember the first day of class, when they all came in and looked at me like I was a crazy lady, mumbling things that didn't make any sense to them! One by one, they would get up from their desk and start walking around the classroom while I followed after them redirecting them back to their desk! Even when I spoke Korean to them they looked clueless! I knew I was in for a rough semester! 

I'm proud to say that I have one week left with them and all 13 of us have survived!  

Not only have we survived, but we've managed to learn a good bit... Me, how to manage a classroom full of little people who don't understand English, and them, how to learn English from a lady who doesn't speak fluent Korean! It was a joint effort, and I'm a lil proud to say the least! 

In the last 3 1/2 months, they have successfully learned: 

1. Their ABC's and the sounds that go with each letter. 

2. Numbers 1-20 

3. All 12 Colors in a crayon box. 

4. Classroom items (book, notebook, pencil, eraser, computer, desk, chair, clock, stapler, tape, glue, box, board, TV, etc) 

5. How are you? I'm fine/okay/great/sad/tired. 

6. How old are you? I'm 5/6/7. 

7. Can you _________? 

8. I like _________. 

9. What's your favorite color/food/animal? 

10. What's the first letter of (blah blah blah word). 

11. What's a word that starts with A/B/C/D/E.... 

12. Please / Thank you / You're welcome.

Can you believe it?! Their little brains are such sponges!  For today's class, I made a little worksheet I like to call CRACK THE CODE!  I was such a puzzle freak as a child that I could only hope that the lil ones would like it!  Good news is, they loved it, and it ended up being a huge hit!  I gave them this HINT paper, which showed the Korean alphabet next to the English alphabet, in case they forgot.
 (iphone photo)

Then, I gave them this back to back paper with Korean letters written under blank lines.  They had to crack the code and write the English word.  They could check it with the picture next to it... which I drew!  LOL  BTW: The yellow circles are how we "check" things in Korea.  Teachers don't just write X's when something's wrong, we circle it when it's right!  As you can see, sweet lil Lisa (1st grader) got "beg jom", 100%! 

 (iphone photo)

Can you believe they did it?!  One little boy, who's the social butterfly of the class, liked it so much that he asked me if he could take his "hint paper" home so he could study with his mom!  Aaaaahhhhh.... 

(iphone photo)

I'm so proud of my little Korean babies and a little proud of myself too!  :) 

Update + Funny TV Show Clip

Aaron and I are practically counting down the days till our vacation starts!  9 work days left (one of which is a free day because of testing.. thank goodness!) ... 13 days till we leave Korea... and 25 days till the wedding.   In the last week or so, I've been busy teaching test prep at school, getting two 6th grade girls ready for the spelling bee, and secretly printing wedding stuff when no one is looking!  Sshhh!  I've been jogging along the coast of the island after work a lot (about 3 miles total - not jogging the whole time though... I'm trying, but not quite there yet!)  Then the rest of my free time, after work, has been spent getting last minute details finished for the trip back to America, keeping up with my favorite summer shows, cooking healthy dinners with Aaron, or taking spontaneous scooter rides around the island. 

Speaking of summer TV shows, Aaron and I happened to be flipping through the channels the other day and landed on a show called "Showbiz Korea." It's a TMZ style show, hosted by two 20' something Koreans.
The show's topic was....

Top 7 Stars that viewers want as their stylist!

It's not a bad topic for a show, per se... but the narrating was so terrible tonight and the fact that these are Korea's MOST fashionable people, and the celebrities that my elementary students go CRAZY over, is intriguing to me!  They're so different than any of the fashionistas in America!  Here's a little glimpse into the celebrities of Korea!

My favorite quote of the show has to be:
"Kim Je-Joong recently posted a photo of himself on the set, and in the photo he was wearing a pair of sunglasses which did not suit the top knot of his hair.  He pulled off the unbalanced top knot fashion style and looked like he transcended time and space."
Huh?!

Happy Birthday Ashley!

Two days ago was my sweet, adorable, spunky, dance loving, crazy girlfriend Ashley's 25th birthday, and last night Aaron and I went over to her place, along with 15 of her closest friends, to celebrate!

Adam and Ashley

Introducing Jeff... one of the coolest, funniest, laid back guys I've meet in Korea.
Loved these pics of him. 

 Everyone brought a little something to share! With 15 people crammed into a tiny apartment, it was bound to get messy!  But, that's the fun of it right?!

I walked into Ashley's bedroom, later in the night, and saw these three laying there chatting, with their feet up on the wall, and had to snap a photo.

I didn't realize, until I got home, that I had barely taken any pictures while I was there. :(

Regardless, Aaron and I had a blast, and Ashley was celebrated to the max, just the way she deserved to be!

Happy Birthday Post-Rad. :)

Long walks on the beach...

I know it's cliche to say, "I like long walks on the beach," but it happens to be true.  Last Thursday, the sunset was abnormally beautiful, so Aaron and I jumped on Scoot and headed up the mountain, on the island, to get a good view of it.  Unfortunately, there are just way too many little homes, stacked one on top of the other, to get a good view of anything from up there!  Don't think we didn't try! We took the elevator to the roof of two apartment buildings, but the doors were locked. :(

Sooo... we got back on Scoot and drove to the side of the island, parked, and had ourselves a little walk along the cliff.  

Aaron and I have always talked about doing this before we leave Korea.  I love the idea of it!  Maybe after the wedding when we're DEFINITELY locked together for life!  

The beach was tempting us to come down, so we took the 297 steps (yes, I counted) down to meet it.

We both had our cameras with us... What's new?!  So, I asked Aaron to sit here and let me practice doing some sunset shots where the lighting it really awkward.  I definitely have a lot to learn when it comes to shooting on MANUAL. You really have to know your camera, and what all the different settings are, in order to get a nicely composed shot.  I'm still very much in the process of learning all of that.

The sun was setting really fast and the rocks were getting a little hard to navigate through in the dark, so we hurried over to the last stairway on the beach, and made our way back up the 297 stair cliff on the far end of the beach.

There was a little look out point about 3/4 of the way up the cliff.  We were shocked, to say the least, at how beautiful the island looked at nighttime, from this spot.  

We made it back to the top and started our trek back to Scoot... 

but stopped here when we spotted this FREE telescope!  You could literally read the restaurant signs and see the people walking, over where the lights are in the background.

... and I could perfectly see the craters on the moon.  I'm not sure I've EVER actually looked through a telescope, unless I was really young and just can't remember.  It's pretty amazing what you can see with those things.

No Scoot ride is complete without a stop at Serry's!  Tonight, she was on her leash, outside, enjoying the perfect weather.  As soon as she saw us, she jumped up, tail wagging and barked for us to come closer.  Gotta love being loved by a dog.  So we sat with her for a while and talked with Emo while we drank our banana milk that she insisted on us taking from her.  

Tonight was the perfect little school night adventure!