Alice's Birthday!

Alice's Birthday fell on a Friday (June 25) and almost every Friday, Dustin and I take our classes to the playground that is about 2 blocks from school. We started this when what used to be our computer room turned into part of my new classroom when our 5 room school house was transformed into a 7 room school house.

You'll get an update on the merger soon, once I feel like enough as settled that I can offer an un-grumpy opinion about it.

Back to the park... The kids love to go, and we love to sit and watch them play instead of teaching. We make them speak English, which is hilarious to see what kinds of things they say to each other.

"Evan, you go to the slide!" = (Go down the slide!)

"I go... I go.... I go... HERE!" = (I'm coming across the monkey bars)

It's pretty cute.

On the way back, we stopped at the creek to look for toads. Dustin's class is Korean aged 7 (5 turning 6 in America). They are SO much BIGGER than my babies!


After lunch, it was time for Alice's birthday party! Her mom brought lots of goodies, and even though we don't speak the same language, I think we are becoming pretty good friends. Over that last year, I've taught at least one of her daughters (Jasmine first, and then Alice) and she hasn't made a complaint, that I know of.

Normally, other classes aren't supposed to come to birthday parties, but since Jasmine and Alice are sisters, there was an exception for John Teacher's class. Plus, he was missing half of his students that day, so he didn't mind the break either. There would be less to catch the other students up on!

Jasmine, Jessie and Grace from John's class joined us with gifts for Alice:
(Jasmine and Grace are getting soooooooooooo big!)
The birthday girl, so excited to be the center of attention:

Getting ready to receive all of her cards and gifts:
How delicious does that watermelon look? It was.


Jasmine/Alice's Mom, Alice and Jasmine! Koreans are so pretty.


My babies and I (Sunny, Alice, Joshua):

The birthday party kind of extended into our last class because, really, who can teach 3-4 year olds anything after they've played at the park, eaten lunch, and consumed a ton of birthday food. Heck, I was in a food coma.

So instead we danced around, cleaned up the party and had a photo shoot.

My three little darlings (Alice in her new headband from Grace, Miss Korea, of course):

Playing Tummy Ha Ha:

I can't write about this anymore because I'm going to start sobbing. I'm going to miss them so much!

My friend Amanda, her boyfriend, Joe, and my other friend Caroline will arrive in Korea in 3 weeks. I leave in 27 days for Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia with them for 3 days, then we head to Bali, Indonesia for 4 days.

Then, I'll come back to Korea for two and a half weeks to snuggle the breath out of my kiddos. My final departure date is set for August 26. I will fly to Sevilla, Spain to meet my former roommate, Laura, who will have just finished up her summer nannying job. We will tour Spain for about 9 days, and then fly to Dublin on Saturday, Sept 4. Her mom, sister and aunt will arrive in Dublin on Sept 7, for a tour of Ireland that they booked together, and I will head home!

I'm set for arrival in the Fort on Tuesday, Sept 7, 5:10 pm and will DRIVE a car straight to Taco Bell for a HUGE Diet Pepsi and a bean burrito fresco style.

Needless to say, I can't decide which of the above activities to set a countdown clock for, so I'm just not going to do one (But, if I really had to pick, it'd probably be Taco Bell). It breaks my heart to think about leaving, but I'm excited for a lot of things to come, too!

I have a few plans in the works for future foreign adventures. Stay tuned...