See ya, Sallie

We have some big news to make...we've paid off Sallie Mae! I (Ashley) started paying beginning in January of 2009 but since I was saving for our wedding, I only made minimum payments. We started really attacking this group of loans that were all by Sallie Mae in November of 2009. 11 months later....we're done (with Sallie Mae). Total amount paid since January of 2009: $25,562.20. We still have about another $15,000 to go but we are well on track to knock it out! We have learned so much about managing money through Dave Ramsey and specifically his program "Financial Peace University." That's one of the first things we did as newlyweds and it is paying off! Even if you think you know a lot about money, you should check out his book "The Total Money Makeover."
We are on Step 2 of the Baby Step program (based off the comedy What About Bob)

Baby Step 1: Save $1000 emergency fund. Little emergencies no longer become emergencies that, gasp, would require putting more debt on a credit card.
Baby Step 2: the Debt Snowball. Pay off all your debts from smallest to largest. The reason for this is to build momentum (think: snowball rolling down a hill)
Baby Step 3: 3-6 month emergency fund.
Baby Step 4: Invest 15% of household income for retirement
Baby Step 5: College Funding for Kids
Baby Step 6: Pay off house
Baby Step 7: Build wealth and give!

For more on the baby steps click here: http://www.daveramsey.com/new/baby-steps/

And just as a side note....we are not rich. We have just been on a very tight budget over the last year. We ate all our meals at home, spent very little on entertainment and gifts, and many other things, but most importantly at the beginning of the month we sit down together and do a written budget and only spend what is in the budget. Another thing that has really helped is the cash envelope system. I could go on and on but I'll stop there. If you want more details you can talk to me. :)

I wanted to share some pictures that I took recently. Taylor somehow got elected to be the elementary lunch teacher. Basically, he takes them to lunch in the cafeteria, makes sure they eat and don't pick on each other, and watches them until they start their next class. The entire elementary consists of about 11 kids. Most of them have lived in the U.S. and I think all of them have parents that are employees of the school.

Here they are attacking Taylor.

I think this is super cute...Taylor walking all the kids to class.

Here's Noah. He's my favorite!

Update on Taylor's mouth: He's doing great! He's managed to heal up without ever experiencing a dry socket. The stitches were removed a few days ago and his mouth is slowly recovering.

The best feeling in the world...

Taylor had 2 wisdom teeth removed on Tuesday night (Both teeth were on the right side). Unfortunately I had to leave him to go to school on Wednesday morning but I came home as soon as I could to take care of him. His diet over the past few days has consisted of homemade applesauce, mashed potatoes, oatmeal, cream of wheat, and ice cream. Beside the first night when he was in complete pain at 1:30 am he's been doing pretty well. Here's a picture of him on the night he came home from the dentist


..I will let him tell the full story once he has recovered, but I will suffice it to say that just the sight of him and hearing his mere attempt to tell the story made me light-headed and feeling woozy. I had to leave him to go sit in front of the fan and get some oxygen so I wouldn't pass out.

His face started to swell up yesterday. I don't think he was very happy with me for taking a picture of his chipmunk cheek but I wanted to document it.
This picture was from yesterday. It's even more swollen today. It looks like he has a big wad of gum..or chewing tobacco, stuffed into his right cheek. He was brave enough to come back to work today.

Taylor is a brave, brave man. After hearing his story, many of the other teachers, myself included, decided we don't really want to have any dental surgeries done here in Korea.
The one major plus was price....$100 for 2 wisdom teeth extractions, including 2 x-rays, local anesthetic (yes, this means he was awake for the entire 50 minute procedure), and pain medication. It's hard to argue that price!

In other news, the night Taylor came home from surgery happened to be the same night the power went out. He came home and fell asleep but we were both up around 1:30 am as he was in extreme pain. He was pacing back and forth in our apartment with an agonizing look on his face. This went on for about 20 minutes, then BOOM, the kitchen light made a loud pop and went out. Then we noticed that the power was out all over the apartment. Come to find out, it wasn't just us, it was our entire building.

The power went out Wednesday morning at 1:30 AM. It did not get turned back on until Wednesday afternoon at 4:30 pm. Luckily, I took all our perishables in a cooler to work and stuck them in the fridge. Once the power was turned on at 4:30, we discovered that some things had been damaged and needed to be replaced. Like the light in the kitchen for example. Another one....the water heater.

The water heater did not get fixed until Thursday afternoon around 5:30. In lieu of taking ice cold showers, we took no showers, hence the title of this post. You know that feeling when you haven't showered for awhile, or you've managed to get yourself really dirty? But oh, when you take that shower and get clean it's the best feeling in the world!

Luckily, it hasn't gotten cold enough to need heat in our apartment. The heating is done by hot water being flushed through pipes underneath the flooring. Essentially, it is floor heating. But without hot water there is no heat.

We're very glad to have this wonderful resource back. Sometime we lose sight of how great we have it in life but it's moments like these that give a reality check.

The other night I was reminded of the month I spent in Uganda, Africa. One of the best times in my life. Every other night we were without power and forced to eat, fellowship, clean up dinner, and go to bed by candlelight. There simply was not enough power for the entire town of Masaka.

Korea is a very developed nation and I am thankful that the adjustment hasn't been as drastic or extreme as it could be if we had moved to a Third World Country. But I never want to forget the beautiful people living in those nations that don't have it so easy. In the U.S. and some other countries (not Korea) we can turn on the faucet and have clean drinking water. It's that easy.

I have met children in Uganda who walk miles and miles every day to get clean drinking water and they carry several gallons of water back across the many miles, oftentimes with no shoes.
When we think about these sobering facts, really, honestly, what do we have to complain about? A cold shower? Old clothes or shoes? Going to work to earn a living? Food?

Think about what you have. All the many blessings God has bestowed upon you. The health, prosperity, friendships, environment you live in. So many things to be thankful for. So many.

The unthankful heart... discovers no mercies;
but let the thankful heart
sweep through the day and,
as the magnet finds the iron,
so it will find, in every hour, some heavenly blessings!
Henry Ward Beecher

Chuseok Holiday

I love Skype. Just got off the phone with my grandma Heyse. We got a new subscription plan where we pay a base monthly rate and get unlimited talk time. Before we were paying 2 cents a minutes which does begin to add up. That means now you can call us whenever you want (okay not whenever, because we do like to sleep at night). If you want our number (it's a 913 area code so you can dial from a landline or cell phone) send an email and we'll give it to you.


Last week was so wonderful! We had the whole week off of school in celebration of "Chuseok" which is basically the Korean version of Thanksgiving. According to Korea's tourism website (view site here) it is the "biggest and most important holiday in Korea." I know that Lunar New Year is very important to several Asian cultures so I checked with one of the Korean teachers to see if Chuseok really is the most important-even more than Lunar New Year. The answer is- they are of equal importance.

You probably notice that Christmas didn't make it on that last. I think Christmas is definitely one of the top, if not the most important holiday celebrated in the U.S. What do you think?

It will be interesting to see how Christmas is celebrated here. Last week we celebrated the holiday that far-surpasses the importance of Christmas in the Korean culture. Chuseok is basically the yearly thanksgiving for the year's harvest. The days of Chuseok are Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday but since they fall in the middle of the week, we get Monday and Friday off too. Everyone returns to their hometowns and get together with family to eat good food. Another very important ritual of Chuseok is to go to their ancestors graves, not only to clean them up and pay respect as we do in America, but with an added factor. They present a very expensive meal to their ancestors and also have sort of ancestral worship....

We went to a Northeast Province with another teacher, Joseph. We stayed in Joseph's hometown of Dong-hae. His father is a pastor of a Presbyterian Church. We actually stayed in a spare room on the 4th floor of the church (no elevators- I figured out that's one of the reasons why Koreans are so skinny!).

Here's a picture my handsome husband in front of a valley we stopped at on our 3 hour drive to Dong-hae. Korea is so beautiful!



This is Joseph's house:

This is the church right across from his house where we stayed:


Here's Taylor demonstrating the traditional Korean way to sleep- on the floor. We had about 4 or 5 blankets for padding underneath us and that was it. This is very common in Korea.

The first night we were there we went to the beach which is 10 minutes walking distance from Joseph's house. This picture was taken as it was starting to get dark out, which leads to a whole other interesting story- first run in with Korean military. I'll leave it at that for the sake of the grandparents reading this. If you want to hear the full story go check out the pictures in Ashley's Korea album on facebook.

On Sunday we went to Joseph's church. It was very convenient- we just had to walk down a couple flights of stairs. This is us with Joseph and his twin brother, Jonathan. Joseph is on the right.

We also had a nice Korean meal after the service. This was our first time actually eating chicken (besides fried fast-food chicken). One of the things Korean culture is known for is sitting on the floor to eat. You always take off your shoes before entering these types of restaurants. Other restaurants will occasionally have tables and chairs. You usually don't have to take off your shoes in those types of restaurants. As you'll notice in the picture, even the elderly people get down and sit on the floor. They don't seem to mind it at all.
These cute little girls tried to jump in the next picture:


We went hiking in Mureong Valley with Joseph and his mother one day. This woman is a superstar! She didn't fall behind even once and she's at least twice our age. At times I was embarrassed because I was stopping to rest and she was ready to keep going ahead of me!

There is no way to adequately describe how many stairs we climbed on this hike. But I think we discovered a key difference in the hiking here. In the U.S., we use paths that wind back and forth on the mountain until you get to the top. I think the Koreans just decided "Why use a path?" "Let's build staircases that take you straight up the mountain!" You would have had to be there to understand but there were hundreds and hundreds of stairs to be climbed.

We stopped to rest at a little waterfall. The water was cold and so refreshing. We didn't really bring food because we didn't expect to go on an all-day hike necessarily but Joseph and his mother were prepared. We ate the oh-so-famous Korean corn on the cob that is not so delicious...
Here we are off to the bottom right corner peacefully enjoying our corn snack.

Taylor also brought along a traditional rice drink that Joseph's family made. Yes there are actual piece of rice in the drink. He is such an adaptable person to other cultures. I'm not so much. I'm very glad to have him with me on travels because I can sneak food to him that I don't want to eat. That way we don't have to worry about offending people because Taylor will eat/drink it (usually).


Here's a picture from when we finally reached the top of one of the peaks:

The next day we went to the fish market with Joseph. First we got up really early to watch the sun rise on a famous beach that gave the city its nickname of "Sunrise City". Every year on the 1st day of the new year, thousands of people come to this beach to watch the sun rise. It is also known for its famous "Candlestick rock." I was able to capture this shot:

After the sunrise we went to the fish market. I'm sure they have these on the coasts in America too but I have never seen anything like it. I guess that's what I get for living in the center of the United States my whole life.


This is one of my favorite pictures from the fish market:

This is another one of my favorites- a live octopus, selling for $215:

Fresh Crab:

Right before we left we got a picture with Joseph's father and grandfather. They were a very nice family:

Our last night there Joseph took us to the Donghae lighthouse:


All in all, we had a great trip. We came back to Eumseong on Tuesday night and realized after being in another city of Korea that we are truly in the middle of nowhere. I mean, this place is like the equivalent of Wellsville (for all you Kansas folk) or something similarly terrible. There is nothing to do here but that's okay because the school keeps us plenty busy. Now we are back into the daily grind. I think Taylor and I and all the new teachers have a much deeper appreciation for the teachers we had growing up. Teachers do A LOT of work. It is one of those professions where your job doesn't stay at the office...you bring the work home with you..you grade the papers, do the lesson plans, etc etc... We've realized that our first semester here is going to be very challenging but God's grace is sufficient. We do appreciate your prayers though.


If you're reading this, you should send us an update on your life and how you and your family are doing.

P.S.-what do you think? Is Christmas the biggest holiday for Americans?

TAE KWON DO!

Just got an important email from the Tae Kwon Do Master himself. It made me smile so I thought I'd share. Hope it makes you smile too!

안녕하세요?

How are you?

태권도아카데미 홍병진 관장 입니다.

I'm Master Hong TKD academy director.

.늘 맡은바 과중한 업무에 바쁘시죠?

I understand. you are always so busy right?

그럴수록 마음의 여유를 갖어야 하고 그러기 위해서 건강해야 여유를 즐길 수 있습니다^^

So you need relaxed your mind and body.

태권도가 여러분의 건강과 호신을 도와드리겠습니다.

TKD will help you for your confidence and self-defense

GVCS만의 특별한 기회인 태권도 수련을 꼭 놓치지 마시고 함께 나눌 수 있기 바랍니다.

Don't miss it!!

Do you know. this is a very special chance . just GVCS can give you.

약간의 투자만 하시면 됩니다.(시간, 돈, 땀^^)

You just need some time, mony and sweat .

Here is the Information

- 언 제 (when): 매주 화, 목 오후 5시 30분- 7시 까지 운동할 거구요 9월 30일(목) 오리엔테니션 첫 운동을 지작 합니다.

We will begin September 30.

- 어디서(where) : 다윗관 태권도장

At the TKD gym

- 준 비(preparation) : 도복착용과 아직 없으신분은 운동 복장으로 (도복 주문 받고 있음)

- 방 법(how) : 시간 되시는대로 다윗과 지하 태권도사무실에 오셔서 신청하시면 되구요 도복 주문도 그때 같이 해 주시면 됩니다.

Please hurry up fill an application.

- 혹은 우선 전화로 신청해 주셔도 이곳에서 신청을 받아놓겠습니다.( 내선 7105-7) (010-3445-4000 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 010-3445-4000 end_of_the_skype_highlighting)

you can try to call us

- 월 수련비(how much?) : 월3만원씩 급여에서 자동 지출되구요 처음 시작하시는 분은 도복도 3만원 입니다.

monthly 30,000 Won, if first time, need TKD unIform.

(특별히 교직원반 월 회비는 우리학교 태권도시범단 장학금으로 적립되오니 교직원이 건강해 질 수록 시범단원의 힘이됩니다)

- 등록 마감(deadline) : 9월 29일(수) 5시 까지

감사합니다.

I'm sorry, my English is no good^^ but don't miss it!!

Thank you.

I DO need relaxed my body and mind. Count me in!

Apartment Pictures!!

We have been waiting sooo long for this moment to come...okay, a couple of weeks.


An Air Conditioner!!!!! It is so humid here-probably because it literally has rained almost every day that we've been here. The days it has not rained, it most likely rained during the night. I wonder if this is what Seattle is like?

Anyway...we actually bought the A/C Unit from someone off of Craig's List. Yes, they have Craig's List in Korea too.We had to hire an instillation man to come install. The day he came was the day Korea decided to cool off. No joke. It has been so hot (and humid) here since Day 1. The very day we get our A/C installed, it starts cooling off and everyone starts turning the A/C off and opening windows. Hummph! It is still nice to have and we have still used it.

The next picture is of our living room.


The furniture was already here when we arrived. We've only turned on the tv once or twice and actually found Aladdin in Korean! One very important thing to note in Korea (and many Asian countries) : you ALWAYS take off your shoes before you enter a home. There's usually an entryway where you leave the shoes and then you enter the apartment barefoot. The people living at the apartment usually have house shoes that they wear around.

Here is the view of our entryway where you leave your shoes:

It's actually a really wise thing to do. There are so many chemicals and dirty thing we track into our homes with our shoes..this solves the problem! Even servicemen remove their shoes. When the A/C Instillation Man came the other day, the first thing he did was remove his shoes.

The next picture is of Taylor cooking in our kitchen.


The table in the bottom portion of the picture can be pushed in underneath the counter where the microwave is to provide more space. We do not have an oven. That is one of the things I definitely miss and I know that my longing for an oven will only continue to grow. I guess we know why there's a lot of stir-fry in Asian cooking...everything is done on the stove! :( We're looking on Craig's list for an oven, but even then- the ovens are the size of a toaster oven so I can't quite fit a whole pie or cake in there. I guess that's another reason why Asians are so thin...they don't have all the desserts we do!

Behind Taylor is our laundry room


This is another very typical Asian thing- no dryer! Everything we wash must be hung to dry. Let me just tell you- when you live in a humid climate with no A/C- it takes 2-3 days for things to dry, and even then, they're still a little damp! Dryers are not very common here but it is something that usually is provided for the foreign (American) teachers who work at the school. So hopefully we'll be getting a dryer soon. But now that we have A/C things dry faster. I've heard that in the winter time with the dry air and heated homes that clothes dry super fast. We'll see!

Notice the window in the laundry room to the right of the washer. That actually opens into our office.
Here's Taylor watching college football in our office. This room did have a bed in it but that was traded in for a double bed for us to have in our bedroom. The windows on the back wall are the ones that lead into the laundry room. So sometime we just open the window and throw dirty clothes through there. :)

Directly across from the office is our bedroom. For the first 3 weeks, this is what we had for beds:
2 Twin beds pushed together. By the way the beds here are extremely firm. Many Koreans actually don't use beds. They sleep on padded mats on the floor. Last week we had our bed delivered. Yay!!
We had to give up 2 beds for this bed. Originally there was one twin bed in each of the bedrooms. They took 2 beds, so now we have this big bed, 1 bedroom with a bed, and the 3rd room has become our office. I will be going to Costco soon to get a comforter. To the left of the bed is the master bathroom, which is actually pretty small.In the top corner there is a shower head. The whole bathroom is essentially the shower. See the drain below the sink? We do not use this bathroom to shower because everything in the entire bathroom gets wet. On the other side of the apartment we have a larger bathroom with a full shower/bathtub.

Outside of our bedroom is a little screened in porch area that we don't use for anything except drying clothes.
The doorway leads directly to the next screened in porch area that is directly off the living room. We also just use this for drying clothes and storage.

Let's move on to the 3rd room.
This is the room where YOU get to stay when you come to visit!

Behind the glass doors/windows there is a small screened in porch area that is not connected to the 2 off the master bedroom and living room. This is where my wardrobe is and also all of our extra luggage.

Across from the 3rd bedroom is our larger bathroom.
I was very excited last week to actually get a shower curtain!!!

This is what our bathroom looked like before the shower curtain:

Basically, every time we took a shower, water got all over the floor, the mirror, the sink, the walls..... I am so happy to have a curtain now!



This is our apartment! Hope you enjoy the pictures!

Teachers In-Service

Well, the past 2 days have been incredibly long. We have been at an all teacher/staff training both Monday and Tuesday from 8 am to about 9:30 pm. 90% of the training was done in Korean and about 50% of it was translated for us. We had these neat little headsets with multiple translators- some were better than others but we appreciate all of them for trying to help! We are learning more about Korean culture every day. As Americans, we can hardly see the point of stretching these meetings out for days on end with repetitive activities or things that "just don't make sense" in our minds. You see- we're all about finding the quickest and most efficient solution to a problem. Korean culture is different. From what we understand, it seems that they don't care so much about efficiency, just as long as the ultimate goal or message is delivered. In short: they take a really really long time to explain, evaluate, discuss, lecture, etc....at least triple the time it would take Americans.

Not wrong. Not bad. Just different.

We are learning.

At the end of tonight's session we took a group picture. It doesn't have everyone in it yet- actually I don't think either of us is in this one but here it is anyway:



We also had the opportunity to hear from the founder of the school: Reverend Nam. He shared from his heart about what the purpose and mission of the school is and his vision for the future years. It was a challenging message. He is such a visionary! God has given him great responsibility and he has managed the things well that God has entrusted to him. We were challenged to not only teach these precious children academics and to be successful in that realm, but to become global leaders that go out and change the world and serve Christ. We are not just here to teach but to encourage the students to follow God wholeheartedly, wherever He may take them.

Some other random facts....

Koreans love corn on the cob. At least all the faculty at our school does! The corn is very different here. There really isn't much flavor to it and it tastes like it's been boiled for hours. I (Ashley) am from Kansas, so I do know what good corn tastes like. However, I think even someone from the Northern States would agree with me on this corn. Still...it's something fun to do and it passed some of the time during one of our afternoon meetings today.


You can't tell but they are all eating corn behind me too. Here's another picture to prove I was not the only one:



We went to Costco this past weekend! The closest one is about 1 1/2 hours away by train. I should have taken a picture of us bringing back a suitcase full of stuff- we didn't have a trunk to put it in! I got a couple pictures of Costco though:


This is the biggest Costco I've ever seen!
2 Stories!!
Where's Taylor?

My favorite purchase of the day!