North Korea Update

I'm sure some of you are wondering what's going on and what the impact is over here.

For those who don't know the recent news, yesterday North and South Korea got into a military skirmish. South Korea was doing military drills- firing West. North Korea claims they fired North (they didn't) so they started attacking with shells. 2 South Korean marines were killed, 15 soldiers, and 3 civilians were wounded. This took place on a small island off the west coast.

It is not believed that this will turn into a war or be a big deal. This isn't the first time that North Korea has done something like this. Some believe it is because of the U.S.'s push for 6-party talks on de-nuclearizing the North. Other analysts say it is because the current leader Kim Jong-Il is shifiting his power down to his son.

One thing is for sure- the situation is not as bad as the American media would have you believe. The Media does a great job of hyping people up and making things seem worse than they are.

North Korea knows it is not in their best interest to start a war. In fact, in the event that they did, they would quickly be destroyed. South Korea has so many other countries backing them up; it would quickly be over. Nobody wants to go to war.

We are fine. We are safe. Pray for peace between the 2 countries. Maybe even 1 day, North and South Korea will re-unite. That would be a miracle.

Picture Updates

One of the readers asked for more pictures so here they are.



One of my students doing his best to give a sad face. He was begging to watch a movie in class instead of having class.This is what happens when you leave your personal computer unattended in the classroom.

One of my student's brain projects for AP Psychology. This was the best one.

Poor poor puppy. I don't know if my aunt Cristy reads this but if you are reading, I feel the same way you do!

Rice Fields in August

September October

Taekwondo and PTC

In the last post, I mentioned the Pepero holiday. Here's one of my favorites from a student. I'm starting to save notes from students. I keep them on my desk and pull them out when I feel overwhelmed or ready to give up.


Two weeks ago we had our first parent-teacher conferences. It took place on a Saturday. Since we are a boarding school, many of the parents do not live close-by and have to travel some distance to get here. This was a very interesting experience. Sometimes there weren't enough translators to go around, so the unfortunate children that were with their parents had to translate about themselves. Some of them really did not want to. They found it embarrassing to repeat back to their mom or dad that they were a good student (if that was the case). I had a few students that I absolutely did not trust to translate to their parents exactly what I was saying, so I waited until one of the bilingual staff was available. Overall, it was a good day.


Unlike the U.S., people tend to dress more formally for everyday events. It is not uncommon to get on a bus or train on a Saturday and see men in suits, or women in business attire. Parent-teacher conferences obviously warranted some extra fancy attire. Here's Taylor, Cody, and Allan at the end of the day.

I (Ashley) am proud to say that I earned a yellow belt in Taekwondo tonight. I went from the beginner white belt to the second yellow. I don't really feel that I deserve this- seriously my form was terrible! But, I am happy nonetheless. Taekwondo is a lot of mental activity in addition to physical activity. I was not aware of this. It actually requires a lot of memorization. There are over 8 different forms to memorize. Luckily, the test for yellow belt only required the first two. I was so focused on getting all the moves in the form right that I did not focus on my actual form- my punches were weak and kind of sloppy.



Here's a nice action shot:


This is my attempt to upload a short video. I don't know why it is so small but maybe you can get a little glimpse of Taeguek-2. Yay for yellow belt.


Well, it looks like the video didn't work. :( Maybe some people will be able to watch it.


Happy Thanksgiving to all our friends and family. I was thinking this morning that Thanksgiving is either #1 or #2 on my favorite holidays list. It's pushing for #1 over Christmas because it is all about family, celebration, and thanksgiving. Lately with Christmas the emphasis has been too much on gifts. I am definitely missing my family this Thanksgiving.

Eat some turkey and homemade pumpkin pie for us!

Photo Holiday Cards from Shutterfly.

I hadn't given much thought to sending out Christmas cards this year. After all, we are halfway around the world and postage is not cheap. However, I just learned of an awesome promotion going on with Shutterfly. They are giving 50 free cards away to bloggers. And they'll even directly mail the cards for you!
Shutterfly has a wide range of designs and offers folded greeting cards, flat stationary cards and flat photo cards. There is no minimum purchase for the folded greeting cards. Flat photo cards can be purchased in sets of 12. There are lots of great designs this year, including Story Cards.

Last year we used Shutterfly to make photo books of our wedding for our parents and grandparents and we were so pleased with the results. It was an expensive way to make a very meaningful gift. This year, I'm excited to try out the photocards!

P.S. How cute is that little girl? There are so many great options for these cards, and I'm looking forward to trying to narrow down the choices. If you have a blog, you can qualify for 50 free cards too!

Let me know if you want to be on our Christmas card list. :)

Happy Veteran's Day/ 빼빼로 Day

Thank you to all the veteran's who have served our country. Also a big thanks to those who are currently serving our country. A special shout out to the men in my family who are currently serving- my 2nd cousin Brandon, who just left for Afghanistan and his wife Morgan. Also my cousin-in-law Chris and my cousin Jennifer in Guam. And to our friends Chris and Lacey Stevens serving in the Navy. I cannot even imagine being a wife of someone in the military or having that lifestyle. We are so grateful for your sacrifice. I read the following quote on somebody's facebook status today and wanted to repost it.

"A Veteran is someone who at one point in their life wrote a blank check payable to the United States of America for an amount up to, and including, his or her life.That is beyond honor, and there are way too many people in this country who no longer remember that fact."

Korea celebrates an entirely different holiday on November 11. Pepero Day. Pepero is a type of snack/candy. It's basically a biscuit-like stick dipped in chocolate, covered with chocolate and nuts, or filled with chocolate. You might be familiar with the Japanese version called Pockey.

Now, America has its fair share of commercialized holidays, but they all seem to be in commemeration of some special date or event, right? Pepero Day is basically a holiday celebrating candy- similar to Valentine's Day but much more commercialized if you can believe that. It is rumored to have started in Korea by a bunch of school girls in 1994. There is no historical or religious significance to this day. Even more impressive (that may not be the right choice of words here) is that Pepero is manufactured by one company- Lotte. Lotte is like the Walmart of America but even worse. Pepero Day is therefore a monopolized holiday. In fact, Lotte does about 55% of their Pepero business in November. There is some speculation as to whether or not Lotte started this holiday to increase their sales or just started marketing after they heard of the Pepero trend. Regardless, their marketing scheme has been quite effective. We participated.

We were told that you give a 빼빼로 stick to people that you really like- your close friends, family, favorite teacher, etc. So we decided that we would buy a bunch of 빼빼로 and give it out to all of our students. They were very appreciative. We even got a few back from them.

One crucial factor that allows people to accept Pepero Day as a holiday and not a fraud is the day it falls on. It's not just celebrated on any random day. If it were, it wouldn't be a holiday. It has to be celebrated on November 11. Why, you may ask? Think of the numerical writing: 11 11. Looks like a bunch of 빼빼로 sticks lined up. This simple numerical representation has lead to a genius marketing campaign by Lotte.

Here's the 빼빼로 that my husband gave me. I love the cute little package. This is quite possibly one of my weirdest smiles.

Just imagine what next year will be like: 11.11.11

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?