Another one bites the dust

Well. It's that time of year again. The month that I broke my leg in 2009 and found myself jobless and money-less in 2010. As a result, February makes me nervous. Although in 2011, my Dad came to spend Lunar New Year with me. Here's hoping for a good one. Keeping in mind that its a leap year, therefore a whole day longer! Ahh! Adding to this is the fact that tomorrow is the first day of said month and it is currently snowing a lot with the promise of getting SUPER cold tomorrow, meaning due to a lack of shovels and plows here, much ice. Yay.  ANYWAY. Things are good here. The puppy class homeroom teacher quit, so my three puppies have been combined with the other five year olds, Elephant class. Now there are nine of them. It's a little chaotic and loud, but it's fun. The part that makes me sad is that  went from having my puppies three times a day to once a day. I miss them. Robot Class is doing SOOOO GOOOD! They behave and speak English and crack me up. These babies are soo funny. Don't get me wrong, they still make me nuts, but it's pretty fun and makes me laugh. A lot. Or want to rip my hair out. Depends. Peter has 19 more work days, meaning I get to train a new guy in that many days. I'm sad that Sparky's leaving and of course I'm nervous about making a new friend and coworker. Congrats to Travy for receiving his diploma from Cornell. I'm happy for you. And a BIG Congrats to Little Man for winning sectionals! Yay! Life's good. I know that I will be heading to the good ole' US of A on June 1, 2, 3, or 4. Things are getting real and I'm getting nervous and anxious about my life and what to do with that. I've been trying to nail down my marketable skills and maybe a passion or two. It's hard though. I've been having a great time with my friends here. I've been meaning to try to get more Korean culture in. I haven't yet. But I think about it. Life's good.

How I run around the ROK on the weekends.

I had some friends over for some drinks and good talks. This is Big Guy Bill holding a 1kg pear and wearing a camo hat I made. This cracked us up for about 4 hours.

Art day in Robot. Jenny and her raccoon puppet.

Sally and Jessica and their puppets.

When I bundle the kiddos up for hometime, Jessica does not like to wear her hood and gloves. To convince her to do it, I call her Jesskimo. Then she laughs and laughs and laughs and it cracks me up. Everyday.

School school school

I think that Bali ruined school for me. Well, not really, but it reminded me how much I like not working as well as how much I miss being outside. We're back in the swing of things and starting to wrap up the year. Robot class is now seven years old and quite pleased with themselves. They have been doing really well lately. Working hard and speaking more and more English everyday. It's pretty exciting. Puppy class is now six years old. There are only three of them now, the twins moved. Sometimes its easier to teach them because there are less, but sometimes its harder. It's harder because they fight a lot and get mad at me a lot. They are just little balls of irrational anger. But they too are getting much better and working hard. These kids crack me up. The school year ends on February 28th. Then we'll have two or three days at work with no kids. March 1st is a holiday I think, so that's cool. Then the new year. Yay. I should be home the last week of May sometime. I'm starting to get excited and nervous about that. Peter is leaving at the end of February and then we'll have a new guy come in. So that's whats up at school. Life is good. Just hanging out and enjoying my friends. Next week is Lunar New Year. So we get Monday and Tuesday off. Yay. I'm not sure what I'll do for that. Sophia is safely in Kuwait with her parents. She's going to teach and travel. Pretty cool. The boys are doing good with wrestling which is also exciting. Email me with updates. I like hearing from people and without Facebook, I feel even more out of the loop than ever. So, do that please. Also, happy 2012!

SaraClark and I sharing a bucket at Plan B. Its a drink that I named. It's called the BangBangBang. It is essentially a long island in a bucket. Its a little bit silly and a lot a bit fun.

BALI! Just pictures and captions.

Ian at our resort at Mushroom Bay.

Sparky at dinner on the beach on our first night at Mushroom Bay off the coast of Sanur.

Following my boys up the beach in search of delicious drinks.

The front part of our resort. Playing camera games while waiting for the boys.

Tromping around the island. Stumbled upon a village.

Following the boys through a village.

We found a cool beach.

Ian on the beach.

Getting ready for dinner. Shorts for Sophia!

Walking to dinner. Possible volcano in the back.

Sunset at dinner.

Sparky's last lunch on the island.

Super sweaty at lunch on the last day of 2011.

Our pool right outside our door. It was raining at the time of the picture.

Reading Sherlock Holmes, poolside.

Camera games. The pool and statue.

Reading Lord of the Rings, poolside. Sweet life.

The island that we spent three days on. It was AWESOME.

After the island, Ian and I went to Uluwatu. A surfer area. We tromped through the woods and found some tigers.

We did a 'home-stay'. This was the view from our porch.

The beach at Uluwatu.

Looking down at the beach.

The place we stayed for the last night in Bali. 

We had a fantastic trip. The weather was wonderful and the boys were great. Bali was super fun. I remembered to wear sunscreen, so I managed to not really get burnt, which is a big step for me. Just a nice tan. We played a lot of cards and read a lot. It was very relaxing and enjoyable. Considering we literally had zero plans for this trip and stumbled upon the whole thing, it was fantastic. We did a night in Kuta, a busy touristy city. Three nights in Lembungan, an island off the coast of Sanur, and a night in Uluwatu. We saw a few monkeys in Uluwatu and millions of geckos and bats all week. Our final night was spent in the air. We got into Seoul at 8am Tuesday. Work tomorrow. Blahhhhh. Happy 2012 guys!! Lots of love!