Update and a Little Competitve Check

Well I'm working through my last week and a half of school before the holidays and I am sooooo excited and just ready to be out of the school for a while... oh and being on a beach in Australia will be ok too :)
So I found out this week that I am losing another one of my elementary students. It's crazy how fast they come and go at times. So this time is was Jasmine from one of my favorite elementary classes. She asked me to please remember my camera and take some pics because she was really going to miss us and wanted some pictures to remember our class. So that's exactly what we did. Here's the class... Molly, Jasmine, Nina, lil Daniel and myself. And yes, Daniel is quite the character... he wanted to stand out in this pic.

On Thursday, we took our preschool kids to a play called 'Strange Soup'. The kids loved it and it was a lot of fun to get out and do something different. We've kind of been locked in the school with all this swine flu stuff going on, so this is the first field trip we've gone on in the last few months. Here's a pic of some of my kiddies munching on some lunch before we headed back to the school.

And of course I had to get a photo with my bus partner, Shaina. Sh'es a doll. She's one of my newer students, but I have sure grown to love her quickly!!

So as some of you may know, I haven't picked a basketball up in 9 months and it's been really hard at times. I usually get my competitive drive out on the court, but it's been a little different this year. I've had to rely on my competitive kids to challenge me. I thought maybe I was losing a lil drive and becoming a little more chillax when it came to sports or really any competition. Nice try Kristen...

One of our newer teachers, Jacquie, has started coming to the same gym as me. I've been trying to recruit any teacher I can just because I enjoy having a gym friend that I can actually speak English with. The first time we went together, she said she was going to run on a treadmill a few down from me because she was intimidated and wasn't in as good of shape. I thought it was silly, but let it go.

So tonight we went to the gym together after a long week at work. She got in the gym before me and jumped on a treadmill and when I got in, I took the treadmill right next to her. She asked me about what interval program to do. I told her to start with the 30 seconds on, 30 seconds off one and if it was too easy than she could move to the 45 seconds on, 15 seconds off (the one I do). So we both started on our runs. She started at the same pace as me, but on the program below me. We did our first 20 minute interval run, but I usually do 2 or 3 before I'm done. I slipped away to get a drink before I started my second session and when I came back she had started a new program, which I thought was awesome. So I got back on my treadmill and, of course, glanced over to see what she was doing. Turns out she had moved up to the same interval program as me AND had also increased her speed a little faster than mine. I started my program as I normally would, but quickly had my competitive side kick in. The thought 'if she thinks she can run faster than me and me be ok with that, than she doesn't know me very well' and I moved my speed 3 notches more than her and finished my workout. Did I prove anything? No. Did it feel good? Heck yah it did!!! I know it's silly, but I had a lil smile realizing that my stellar and perhaps silly competitive drive was still kicking around half way across the world :)

This weekend should be fun. I'm planning on spending Saturday with Amanda Sawatka and her son Alexander. We're going to go to a movie on base and then I'm gonna spend the night with them. Amanda's husband is out of town, so we're gonna have a lil girls night with Alexander... lucky boy :) Sunday I'll prob be at the Roger's house AND Lori texted me today to let me know that a package from the Tolman's has arrived, so I will be opening that on Sunday (note: Lynz you need to be around your Saturday night ok ok). The Rogers were lucky enough to get some of the special Lynn Hill's chocolates and PJ immediately had the idea that he wanted to learn how to make them and do so during Christmas break. So I'm assuming that I will be spending some time over there trying to help in any way I can. I'm sure I will be wishing that I had paid a little more attention while mom was busy preparing for chocolate season. I must say though, I think I've got the rolling and dipping part down. My many days sitting on the freezers eating oranges gave me more than enough experience in those departments :) After this week, I have 3 more days of work and then it's holiday time!!!! I can't wait!!

Two Arms and Two Legs... What Could It Be!?!?!

So about a week and a half ago, I got an email from my papa giving me details about the Christmas packages that would be arriving for me in the next week or so. He also added that he had put in a special present in for me and proceeded to give me a few hints including:


1. It has two arms and two legs


2. It has something to do with hunting


3. You can't see it in the dark


4. It has something to do with PJ Rogers


5. Its origins are from the jungle


And maybe a couple more on top of these... but I really had no idea. You see, dad and I went rabbit hunting in the dark last year and so I had rabbit hunting stuck in my mind and I thought he was gonna sent me a picture of a rabbit or something, I dunno. So I opened my package today and...
I know it's hard, but you see those sexy legs.... yup that's me... with a gigantic camo shirt. I told dad I've lost a lil weight, not gained :) jokes... He knows me best and knows that I LOVE big T-shirts and sweats!!!


No it's not a tree... it's me!!!
I was looking for an evil lil wabbit to shoot... no luck so far.. but I'll keep looking!!
I still haven't opened the rest of my gifts... nope.. still got a couple more weeks till that happens, but I'm super stoked and very thankful that my fam loves me enough to send me some SWEET pjs and some delicious chocolates!!!! I know, I'm spoiled!!!

Werewolves, Birthday Dinner, and Thanksgiving Dinner

So this past weekend was stellar. It started out at school on Friday. We took our kids to rice cake factory and we learned how to make rice cake from scratch. My kids were so good and they loved it. They got a little messy, but we had a blast and their cakes looked so awesome after they decorated them. There was also a camera crew there and they ended up interviewing some of us. That's right, Korea tv star coming up!! :)

Liz and I had a lot of fun on the bus... Liz is a newer teacher and it was very apparent on this bus ride as she was continually turning around making sure all the kids were sitting back in their seats and yelling at them if they weren't. She will learn quickly that it's much easier to have a lil nap on the bus and let the kids be kids. She is an awesome girl and this weekend I was able to spend some more time with her as we went to 'a movie' (I'll get to that later) and went and hung out at Starbucks for a while before Hayli's birthday dinner on Saturday night.

Now for the movie... ahhhh... we went to New Moon.. Amanda, Liz and I... first of all.. I am in love with Jacob. All I want for Christmas is Jacob :) Ok but for real.. this movie was unreal!! I will definately be seeing it a few more times while I'm here. It was soooo much better than the first one and I LOVED the first one. We acted like teenagers and loved being all giddy about it. I even had goosebumps. If you haven't seen it, you should. Dad, I dunno if you would enjoy it quite as much as me... but I LOVE LOVE LOVED it!! Ok moving on...

After the movie, Liz and I headed to Itaewon and went to a bookstore and then to Starbucks to waste some time. It was fun getting to know Liz on a different level. She's a Canadian chick, but an east coaster... I made it clear to her and hopefully convinced her that the west coast is where it's at and that she should be looking to moving that way after her contract :) She's a lot of fun and I'm sure we will be spending more time together before I leave.

We headed to meet up with the rest of the crew for Hayli's birthday dinner at a bbq restaurant in Hyewa. It was quite the group of girls. We had a lot of laughs and some of the girls were flirting with our lil waiter guy. I still don't understand the attraction to the skinny, short Korean boys who wear tighter jeans than most girls... BUT I guess that's what some girls like... I dunno. :)

Here's me, Heidi (from our China trip), Hayli and Jackie (from SLP)

And here's... I dunno the one on the left, Jetoni (SLP), Jill (slp), Blisse (slp), Liz, and in the back is Mallory (slp)

So it's very apparent here that they could care a less about Canadian holidays. They mark us all as Americans. This weekend we had a Thanksgiving dinner over at Mitch's house with all the singles. I made it VERY clear to everyone that I had already celebrated my Thanksgiving and that they all missed it and should be very sorry and I think a few of them really did feel bad :) We had turkey and potatoes and dressing and buns and so other goodies. I must say it was no Lynn Hill Thanksgiving dinner, but it still tasted pretty darn good.

Here's me mocking Shaun's napkin bib. He needed it though as he is a messy eater. He's from Australia and is a super fun guy.

And here's John Johnson and I. He was baptized back in September and is from Utah. His family is FLDS... intense. He's a pretty cool dude and leaves for Germany to serve in the army for 2 years.

Anahita and I were trying to make a 'full' face. I just started laughing and was trying to hold it in.... so cute I know :) Anahita is also Canadian and got baptized about few months ago and is engaged to a guy back home. They're planning on getting married when she goes back. She has the coolest eyes and is sooo sweet!

And here's Mitch and I. Mitch has kind of taken the 'father' role of our singles family as he is a little bit older. He is divorced and has a young teenage boy back home. He is dating Angela Hur, who is a girl in ysa that was here when Lynz was over here and they seem to be getting pretty serious, so we'll see what happens there. He has opened his house to the ysa every Monday for FHE and Sundays we have meals over there. It has been a great blessing to have someone so willing to open their house to the singles and in such a great location.

All in all it was a super duper weekend!! And next weekend should be just as fun. We have district ysa conference, so we'll have all the singles from the district come out for Saturday and Sunday. Should be fun and hopefully we'll see some new faces from branches that are a little farther out.

Life is sooo great! I feel so blessed and happy right now!! 3 more months to go and my time in Korea is quickly slipping away. I am going to continue to make the most of it and have a blast while I'm here!!! I'm getting very excited about Australia. I leave the night of the 25th and come back the 3rd of January. WHOO HOO!!!! It's gonna be stellar!!!

Amaya's Birthday and More Fun!

So this past weekend was pretty fun. It was Pj's daughter's, Amaya, birthday this past weekend and so they had a birthday party on base. PJ was quite the entertainer with the kids and they loved him. Amaya looked so cute and we had a great turnout at the party.

They had a ballooon lady who made a bunch of cool looking balloon animals and they also had a face painter who did some pretty amazing faces! Here's Jaida with her face painted. Kind of hard to see, but it was pretty cool. Please notice my hair.... it is getting longer... DAD for you! :)

And here's BJ, Lia, and Jaida riding on the mini merry-go-round at the hotel. Lia is sure growing up fast and is really starting to show her own personality. BJ is an awesome gal. She's the girl that is living with PJ and Lori for the year and we have got to be good friends. We were put in charge of ordering the pizza and handing out the bowls of dessert.

After the birthday party, I headed over to the Sawatka's. They're a young family in our ward. There's Mark, Amanda and little Alexander. He is such a cute boy. He's 3 years old and is hilarious. They invited me over for dinner and to stay the night and ride to church with them the next day. Amanda and I made some homemade maccoroni and cheese with ham and beans. It was a delicious meal and it was fun to get to know the family a little more. After dinner, Amanda introduced me to some amazing cookies that tasted like... well Christmas. We couldn't figure out what else they tasted like, but they reminded me of Christmas. They don't taste like sugar cookies or shortbread, just Christmasy :) I will definately be getting the recipe and introducing ya'll to them when I get home!! :)

Sunday was good. We had district conference and President Ucktdorf spoke. It was mostly directed to Koreans, but still great insight for all of us too. They have really been stressing the need for Koreans to come back to Korea and marry and raise their families here as it will make the church stronger in Korea. A lot of Koreans are staying in America or Canada after their education and either marrying an American or starting a business over seas. So hopefully they listen to the prophets words and come back to their homelands.

Other than that... life is great. School has been awesome! I am loving being with my kids. The Korean teachers have seemed a little bit uptight. Not sure what's up with them, but I found out that Elisa has handed in her resignation and will be done the same time as me. That may be part of the reason the Koreans have been a little different. I have booked my flight to Australia and I am PUMPED!!! I have always wanted to go there and it is weird to think that I will be there in a month!! And that's about it for me.

Some Fun and Goodbyes

So last week I was invited to go to Young Joo's graduation concert. Young Joo is the girl I was introduced to by PJ and she was baptized a few months back. She is a super sweet girl and it has been fun getting to know her while I've been over here. I also have had the opportunity to get to know her younger brother, Young Moon also and he is officially my Korean adopted brother! He is such a fun and stellar guy!! We have a lot of fun when we get together.

The concert was really good and it was so interesting to see all the different instruments. It was a really cool experience!!

This past Tuesday, some ysa friends and I went out for Chinese food for Diana Sargent's farewell dinner. She's going to Germany to spend some time with her parents who are over there. We will definately miss her!! She's such a great girl and I've had a ton of fun with her.

Here's Diana, Rebecca, Ange, and Mitch. Sidenote: Ange and Mitch are dating :)

And the other side of the table... Gina, Maureen, myself and Amber.

School this week has been great!! Not as busy, so it's been nice. PJ is feeling much better from his little swine flu issue. This weekend we are switching church buildings, so this Saturday we're going to be packing up our stuff at Seodaemun chapel and moving it to the other one. I'm excited for the joining of our two brances, but I'm also a little hesitant. I love our branch and how close we are. I feel like because a lot of us don't have our families here, we have had to depend on each other more and it has made our branch a very close knit branch. The military branch all have their families and lives on the base, which is very similar to living back home. I think having us join with them with be a blessing for both branches. I think it will make my calling a lot easier because all the ysa will be together!! Other than that life is pretty chillax. So there's your update.

Halloween

Welp my two weeks of working 6 days a week is over!!! WOOT WOOT!! I have come to the conclusion that I am not a 6 day kind of working girl!! :) This week was not all bad though.. it was actually a great week.. just a tiring one also. I had some highlights to my week and one of them occurred this past Thursday when a few girls from church and myself went to a dance/play show. It was called breakout and it was acting/dancing and comedy. It was great and we had a lot of fun. We went out for dinner and had fun chatting. We were a little late for the show so here's a pic of Maureen Cahoon (a fellow souther Albertan) and I being sad that we missed the beginning of the show.

And here's the lil crew... Maureen Cahoon, Ange Hur, Sara Bridge and the coolest girl... me :)

We also got to have a Halloween celebration on our Saturday working day. The exhaustion was intense, but my kids were stinking adorable and we had a lot of fun carving pumpkins, trick-or-treating to other classrooms, going through the haunted hallway, and sing Halloween songs. Here's Elliott and Annika showing off their pumpkin gunk. Elliott was Harry Potter and Annika was a princess.

I was dressed as an 80's workout girl..... ya I dunno.. it's all I could put together in the time I left for it... the kids thought it was great :) Here's Danny and I doing our angry faces!! My lil studly spiderman!! He's really turned into a sweetie.. always makes sure he gives me a kiss on the cheek and says "see you tomorrow Kristen teacher"

I was trying to get pics with all my kids individually... Camilla kept following me and jumping on my back when I would squat down to get a pic with the other kids... so I stood up and she just started giggling... this is my 'Camilla... what are you doing" face... she gets it a lot.... followed by me snatching her up and giggling right along with her :)

Hayli and I.... she was a superhero of some sort... left over costume from last year...

My little Harry Potter and Camilla... I swear I took 20 pictures trying to get her eyes open... she, of course, just kept laughing and not keeping her eyes open :) But look at that smile of love while clenching onto my legs. This reminds me of when we went through the dark haunted hallway... she was holding my hand and started yelling at me to pick her up... long story short.. I ended up climbing through the tunnel with her on my back :)

This is Jackie teacher... she was kinda going for the shrek/fairy look.... I dunno :)

After work on Saturday, I went and met up with 20 other singles to celebrate Gina's birthday... We went and ate at On the Border... delicious TexMex food. Here's Diana Sargent and I. She borrowed Gina's bday glasses for our pic.

Sunday was great. We found out that the 2 English branches are combining starting on the 15th of November, so that'll be interesting and exciting. The weather is getting much chillier and I'm not sure if I'm quite ready for it yet... but I've learned the weather here changes VERY quickly and it's a very apparent change. One day it is very much fall and the next it is winter. The same thing happened with spring to summer and summer to fall. Kind of nice to know for sure how the weather will be each day rather than guessing by hour like back home! :) Life is still great as ever and it looks like I may have found a buddy to go to Thailand with me too!! Very exciting. Cristy Duce is planning on making the trip at Christmas time too.. so we've made contact and we'll see if we can work something out!!!

Fun Day at School and Stellar Sabbath

This past week was... a busy one. We worked a 6 day week and I was pooped by Saturday night. I've been a bit negative this week with complaining about work and how I've been slackin at the gym and today I realized... AGAIN... just how blessed I've been. This week was actually a great week. My kids were so stellar. I look forward to seeing my Pooh Bears every day and I never though that would happen. This week we've swapped classes, so I teach Pooh Bears second period rather than first and it really has made me miss seeing them first thing in the morning. But I always got a big welcome for second period. I know they love me and I just can't get enough of them these days!!
So on Saturday, we had a make up day for one of the days we had off from the swine flu scare. We got to take our kids outside and have a tug-a-war and make some goodies in the classroom. We had a lot of fun and here are some pics.

Cordelia was showing me how to bow properly in battle haha

I'm smiling in this picture, but I actually was feeling really competitive, so I helped my side out a bit. I couldn't help it, I've been so deprived of competition, I have to depend on the games we play with our kids to get my competitive kick for the day :) Oh and we won by the way... not that you ever doubted :)

We were killing them at this point, so I decided to back off and just cheer them on haha :) Elliott is looking quite intense in this pic... that's what I like to see :)

We're gonna have to work on Annika's competitive look... but doesn't she look adorable... what a cute jacket.

Best of 3 tug of war... my kids were getting focused and yes we won again!! :) They make me soooo proud :)

Dale stuffing his face while DannyS decides to play with his food.

I gave them cookie cutters to cut their sandwiches into cool designs.. they loved it!! This is Ginna admiring her perfect cut.

Annika stuffing her face and still looking cute as ever.

So on Friday night, all the preschool teachers went out for dinner at a great restaurant. I can't remember what the dish is called, but you get a big kettle put on a burner in the middle of your table filled with water. You can either choose seafood or beef. I chose beef. Then you get a huge dish of different salads and a huge plate of beef and onions and mushroom and you put it in the boiling water and cook it and eat. It was delicious! After you eat that, they bring you noodles to cook in the now flavored water. After you finish the noodles, they bring rice and little veggies and you make porridge. I was way to full after the beef and veggies, so I didn't eat the noodles, but I had a little spoon of the porridge and it was delicious. I'll have to go back and not eat as much veggies, so I can save room for a little of the other two dishes. It was a lot of fun going out with the teachers. Hayli got a pic of our table, but I haven't got it yet, so I'll post that once I get it from Hayli.

Today church was sooooo stellar. It makes such a difference when I pray before church to feel the spirit. In sacrament, they talked about the atonement. It really hit my hard and I just felt sooo great. After church, the Knuden's (senior missionary couple) invited me over for dinner as they had an investigator from Canada coming with the missionaries. I was more than happy to go as the Knudsen's are amazing cooks and are great company. It was the topping to a great day. The spirit was so strong through the whole meeting and I had the opportunity to share my testimony with Alex, the investigator. He is from New Brunswick and is a bit of an odd fella, but very kind and easy to talk with. He wants to be a comedian... his dream job. He loves pink panther... the real movies, which gave us something to talk about and I also found out that he is taking judo classes here in Korea. How cool is that!?!? I would love to get back into that and see how I woudl do and if I remember anything from my past judo experiences. He is reading the book of mormon and is very smart. The only thing that is holding him back is that he doesn't know if God really exists. He prayed tonight with us and I feel like he is feeling the spirit but is not aware of it. I feel like he is expecting a bright light to fall upon him and God come and tell him it's true. We talked about this and how the spirit works in small and simple ways. I think this was a new concept for him and I hope and pray that he will receive his answer soon. The Knudsen's are such a neat couple. I love spending time with them and chatting with them. They also took a picture with all of us, so when they post it on their blog, I'll snag it and put it up.

All in all.. I've had a great week with an absolutely stellar ending. This week I'm going to be more positive and quit taking advantage of the little time I have left here. Here's my plan so far... Monday.. work then FHE, Tuesday... go Halloween shopping with Hayli, Wednesday.. tutor Ben, Thursday... go to some show with some other ysa girls, Friday.. go to a Halloween party I was invited to last Sunday, Saturday... work and sleep, Sunday... have another stellar Sunday and then we have break the fast and a stellar fireside at the Rogers home... whew.. it's gonna be a busy week, but I'm ready. I'll start each day with prayer and a good work out and hit the hay early and it'll be a stellar week!!