Annyeonghaseyo!!!

Annyeonghaseyo!!!

Friday, December 28, 2012

Oh, right, we have a blog.

Not that I am super concerned with updating our blog, as most of the people who once upon a time read it while we were in Korea were readers due to the distance... which now most of those faithful readers are within driving distance, so I appologize to those who are not and were looking forward to updates. Life... it gets a little busy as I am sure we are all familiar with. Life... it is still moving at a high pace since our return to the States. For almost the past two months, our little family suffered from one ailment or another, mostly the stomach flu and colds. The stomach flu/bug raced through our home not once, not twice, but three times. Corin suffered the brunt of that in carrying the "load" THREE times in the course of five weeks. Poor kid. Hank got hit twice and Taylor and I each got it once. The first two weeks of the bug were fast and furious. I was pretty well SICK of laundry by the time we finally chased it out of the home with lysol, apple cider vinegar and acidopholus. The things you do to feel better. :P With the now "behind" us, I can tell you of some of the latest and greatest additions to our routines. Taylor just finished his first semester of Seminary!!! Whoop! And he did very well at that. I just finished my first semester teaching refugee preschoolers! Whoop... I think I did well! ;) What?, you knew nothing of this preschool teaching job I speak of?! Well, I shall fill you in then. I started teaching with a non-profit organization in the area that works with refugees and proclaims Christ all at the same time. Pretty cool, right?! Well, I get to be a part of it. I am working with 2 1/2- 5 year olds mostly from Sudan, Eritrea, Ethiopia and recently Iraq. The kids are adorable and are doing quite well with memory verses, ABCs and 123s. We do a lot of coloring and playing outside rather than indoor games and crafts considering I am still a little afraid to give most of them scissors as the class often ends in some sort of WWIII... typically amongst the Sudanese girls. Eeek. I had a few that would not speak one word and gave me blank stares in the beginning. I thought originally it was due to their lack of understanding the English language, but as the weeks progressed they all slowly opened up and the two that were mum little ladies in the beginning are now my two chatty Cathys. :) Most of them now love to give me their goodbye hugs at the end of class and I get to see them two hours a day, three times a week. Lots of sweet hugs in my life right now, including my own boys! Speaking of boys... what do I do with them while I teach?! Corin is actually in my class, he tends to be my little helper and helps set an example for the other kiddos... most of the time good. ;) Hank goes with us too, only he toddles around with babes his age in a room down the hall. All-in-all, it has been a great experience. I never would have said I would enjoy teaching preschoolers, but in retrospect... it's not so bad, especially when you see them learning more about Christ and getting excited to "see what happens next" in His story. Quite rewarding. You can check out more about the non-profit, For the Nations:Refugee Outreach at http://ftnro.org/. Feel free to get with Cameron or Kaitlyn about volunteering or even giving. :) So, what are the boys up to now? Let's face it, you are not here to hear about Taylor and I... ;) Corin is a spelling MACHINE. He is now reading three to four letter words and sounding out words to attempt to spell them on his own. Like for instance, his word tonight... Zebra. He said it "ZEE-BRUH". He spelled it " Z-B-R-U." Not bad, not bad. :) He had the sounds down, poor kid has no clue the innumeral amount of rules for spelling and grammar ahead of him. He loves playing outdoors, anything superhero/spiderman/superman and still claims red as his favorite color. He is coming off the sugar high of the holidays and is readjusting to a normal diet... aren't we all. Hank... well, diet has never really been in his vocabulary. He is still a tank. :) An adorable little tank. Still a happy little fellow who loves to play with cars, balls and boy can that kid dance! He has progressed to a cantor and giggles joyfully as he and Corin run laps around our enormous livingroom. He too loves the outdoors but it is hard to say if that is a love of the outdoors or a love of eating dirt... it's a toss up. In other news... we got an amazing looking Korean cookbook for Christmas and are looking forward to spending more time grossing out our housemates in the kitchen! :) Our housemates that we STILL actually really enjoy! 6 months in and we are not even close to regretting our decission on community living! So to sum it all up... God is AMAZING. :) LL