Cherry Blossoms Galore

This week's highlight is brought to you by the wonders of the spring season.  How much more Asian can you get than pagodas and cherry blossoms?  Since a picture is a worth a thousand words, I'll let our cameras do the talking this time.  These photos were taken in Gyeongju, South Korea.  Trevor and I had the pleasure of being accompanied by Trevor's friend from work and his girlfriend.  We had a lot of fun spending time together and enjoying some great spring scenery.  Sorry it's a ton of pictures. Happy scrolling!

There are many old style Korean buildings in Gyeongju and the ones at this park were all lit up at night.

I especially love the reflection from the water!

 

The cherry blossoms were perfectly bloomed for our weekend trip

Peace! When in Rome....

Tree after tree with blossoms galore lining the entire road

Sightseeing can be tiring!

This is what happens when the wind blows.  We were lucky to see the trees in full bloom before a spring storm mangled many of the flowers

Between destinations there was a lot of heavy traffic so sometimes I got bored in the car

It's even better in person if you can believe that!

I love my husband!<3

If serenity could be capture in an image.

Anybody else's biologist husband scout for frogs at every pond? ;)

Swan boats on a lake lined with blooming cherry trees.  How romantic :D

Sometimes we're silly

Nothin' wrong with a few selfies, right??

My little monkey husband!

I'm pretty sure we started a trend of people sitting on branches to get cute pictures

We had a photo bomber!

What a stud!!!

They are so cute together, don't you think?

Asia.

Great kings or war generals are buried under hills to show their greatness.  The bigger the hill, the greater your legacy. 

Really though, what other word than stud?

All 4 of us together.  Great company and beautiful scenery.

He's so strong! 

Thanks for stopping by!  Stay tuned for our next post!

This is the park by the lake where there was live music, tons of people, little food carts, and places to rent various modes of transportation.

There were a few cool parents who rented remote control cars for their toddlers and dressed them up like high rollers.  Super cute.

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter everyone! Spring is beginning to show and the world is slowly waking up from its winter slumber. I love spring time for two main reasons. It means winter and the horrible cold is starting to leave and I love flowers. I'm very excited for next weekend when Trevor and I are going with a friend from Trevor's work and his girlfriend to the cherry blossom festival! It will be so pretty!

I want to make this weeks post fairly simple. We haven't had many grand adventures lately so it works perfectly. We have just spent some time trying to enjoy the beginnings of spring and being able to wear jackets instead of coats. One trip we made outside was to the bamboo forest by the river here in Ulsan. It was very relaxing despite the increasingly harsh wind once we exited the forest.

I love the first couple of weeks of spring and Easter weekend because it makes everything seem so bright and rejuvenated. This makes me happy because it allows me to remember the joyful and most beloved parts of the Easter holiday. If you have a few minutes for an amazing reminder please watch this video about why Easter is so important.

I know with a surety of heart that Christ lives and that because of the pains and afflictions which he suffered, we can find great happiness in this life and have eternal life. It is sobering to contemplate on his afflictions, but my favorite thing is to feel the joy knowing that he overcame the grave and lives again. We all have this same opportunity and our choices in this life help determine the kind of life we will have for eternity. I am thankful for a loving husband who shares these views and we are both striving as a married couple to live up to the potential of the atonement. We are certainly far from perfect but that's why the atonement is so great because we have a chance for repentance and to better ourselves every day. May you find peace and joy in the Easter season as I have this year.

Already March?!

Whoopsies! I guess it's been a little while since I posted and I dearly regret to keep you hanging not knowing all the details of our oh so exciting lives ;).  I've mostly been busy babysitting and keeping up with my dance classes.  I'm not entirely busy, I've just forgotten to write. Sorry! But here I am again so don't fret, you shall be entertained once again.

Since last I posted, I've turned a year older (I'm almost a quarter century now!).  I wanted to spend my birthday trying out a Korean craze that we haven't tried yet.  We dusted off our singing voices and hit up a  노래방 (aka karaoke bar).  At a Korean karaoke bar, you rent out a private room equipped with your own individual karaoke system complete with tambourine to keep the beat.  It's a fun idea-you get a group of friends and sing your heart out in a supposedly sound-proof private room to all your favorite songs (yes they had Korean and English songs).  

The only down side was that the music was so loud and the microphones echoed so much that you couldn't even hear yourself sing.  Now maybe that's the whole point but I was certainly done listening to blasting instrumental versions of the songs we picked before our hour was over.  Luckily I had the good company of my friend Janelle and her adorable baby Ryan as well as one of Trevor's co-workers/friend Lee Hyun Joon.  As always, my birthday was great because my husband always spoils me and I got a lot of birthday wishes from all of you on the other side of the world.

Another thing that happened within the past couple of weeks was the first full moon of the lunar year.  Over here, we had a massive bonfire on the beach with live entertainment and fireworks.  It was quite the display and there was a great turnout from the whole city. The bonfire is supposed to represent any of your burdens or troubles from the past year burning away as you start the year out new and revitalized.

Before the bonfire we decided to stop by a restaurant on the beach which specialized in Korean barbecue.  They set out a variety of side dishes and then you order your choice of meat which has been specially marinated.  Then you cook the meat right at your table and wrap it in leaves with rice and your assortment of side dishes.  The meat was incredibly delicious and I would have eaten it all plain if it weren't for the fact that putting it all together made it even more delicious if you can believe that.  If anyone were to come visit us, I wouldn't hesitate to take you there ;) ;) ;) 

Well, consider yourself caught up!  Hope to see your page views next time! :D

Just Chillaxin'

Not much to report on this post.  Trevor has had most of the month off so we have just been relaxing and the biggest adventures we've had recently have been about food.  It's been nice to kind of lay low and not worry about too much.  I guess the main change in our schedules is that I've finally started to contribute to our income!

 I started doing some babysitting a little while ago and met some English speaking moms who told me there were several families looking to put their children in dance classes.  Guess who has a degree in Dance Education??? Me!!! I decided to start 2 dance classes at the clubhouse in our apartment complex to bring in some extra cash.  There aren't that many students in either class but it is definitely still fun and a good learning experience for me to start teaching my own classes.  The toughest part is that since it is for any English speaking foreigners in our complex, there is a huge diversity in the students especially in the little kid class.  Right now there are 2-4 year olds (anyone who has been in sunbeams should have an idea of what that's like) some of which English isn't even their primary language.  To put things lightly, it's been difficult to come up with structured activities to keep each child properly entertained.  I take it as a really good learning opportunity.  To be honest, in a word, it's been exhausting and I've only done 2 classes!  But I am still optimistic about future classes.

Other than that, like I said, our vacation time has mostly been about eating :).  We went to a buffet for Valentines weekend where Trevor ate to his heart's content (anyone who knows him knows he LOVES buffets).  We also went back to a restaurant we both really enjoyed that serves jjim dark (directly translated to braised chicken).  This particular restaurant allows you to customize how you want your meal and we love to have the spicy sauce and cheese on top.  They bring it out in a giant pan full of the chicken, some glass noodles, and sweet potato all covered in cheese.  Tonight, we decided to go out for dessert (cuz who doesn't love that???) and found a Taiwanese dessert cafe.  We got a heaping pile of what I can only describe as really really fine shaved ice.  And by fine I mean instantly disappears in your mouth like cotton candy but frozen doesn't even feel like ice type of fine.  Ours was blueberry and was accompanied by vanilla ice cream and cheese cake.  It was so delicious!!! Our extra income from my babysitting, some tutoring Trevor is doing, and now these dance classes is going to make us fat ;)

Sorry we weren't more entertaining this time!  Maybe next post we will have something super important to talk about ;)

P.s. If you have any advice on how to keep 2 year olds entertained in a dance class for more than 1 minute at a time, feel free to mention anything in the comments :D