Christmas

I am again experiencing technical difficulities, so I will keep trying to post a photo here and there to try to finish this post. These two photos are of our little cafeteria area outside our door where we set up for our Christmas dinner.

This is the kids as we were getting ready to go out to dinner with one of our Korean students. We went out for Indian food it was good. They were excited.

Here is a clip of Gracie. I will be adding more as soon as I get my photos edited. I am having technical difficulties at this time. So I will at least get this up for viewing and add as I get things done.

Christmas Tree

This is our little tree. There is a story behind this tree...We have been trying to find something for our little place to make it seem Christmas'y' for the kids. We have looked around, and there are little trees like this at some of the big stores already decorated and they cost over $30! There is no way I was going to spend that kind of money-especially when they are decorated already with decorations that I wouldn't necesarily choose. I've colored pictures of Nativity scenes and hung them and put some lights up, but I wanted something more. So, yesterday, I was going to buy some wrapping paper and make a tree to hang on the wall and decorate it. But I couldn't even find any paper that was good for it! So I went to this little 'dollar' store down the street and couldn't believe it when I found the same tree as in the big store, but it was one thousand Won, or in our thinking, $1!!! Then, they had little tiny strings of lights and decorations. I don't like just any decorations, I like things really pretty simple and kind of "country" style. But there has been nothing like that here in Korea. All the decorations have been really colorful and shiny. In this little store, there was a set of little pinecone ornaments...PERFECT!!!!! So, we decorated with one little tiny string of lights, pinecone ornaments and silver bows. I think it turned out pretty cute. The kids were so excited. And the whole thing cost me 5,000 Won, or less than $5!!! God is good! For the joy it brought our children to decorate it and have it up, I think was put in that little store just for me to find! The photo above is with the flash. The photo below is just the Christmas lights.

Here is the big picture. You can see how tiny it is on the television. Maybe I'll put a really big tree skirt around it to cover the TV since we never use it anyway :)

Here are the kids decorating it. They did a good job. I went back later and rearranged a little, but they didn't know.

Pictures of the River Trail

I took photos when I went for my run at the river one day this week. I tried to put them on in the order that I usually walk, but I can never seem to get things right for putting them in order on here.
This photo is where the river meets another river and the trail goes underneath the overpasses. Not the best part of the trail.





These birds and others are part of what makes my time on the trail more enjoyable and sometimes endurable. If I focus only on them and their antics, I can forget that I am in the middle of the city. :)

Right now, the river is really low, so there are all these places where there are exposed rocks and "sandbars" around for the birds to hang out. This photo has a couple of little ducks and another little crane.

Here's another photo of a bunch of different duck and cranes. The river had just been lowered, so they are now able to eat off the bottom of parts where the water had just previously been 10 feet deep or so.

This is the same shot, but with the background in it. What you see behind is part of Expo park, kind of like a science center, and new apartment buildings. Behind me, where you can't see, is more apartment buildings than you can count!

This is one area where there was an inflatable "dam" that was about 5 or 6 feet tall. They let the air out and now there is very little water compared to what there was before. Usually there are bunches of birds here too, but they moved downriver to the place where I took the last photo above.

Another one of my 'beloved' cranes. They are really funny and shy. They fight with each other often.

This is another shot like the first one at the top. It's where the rivers meet. There's so little water flowing right now, you can't really tell there are two rivers here-or even one for that matter. I am guessing that they are controlling the water that is leaving the dam and just holding it back for now. I don't know all the whys or hows, just guessing.

This is a photo taken after getting out from under the overpasses. To the right you can see part of the neverending rows of apartment buildings. This little river has more dry ground than water right now, and it's pretty dirty, but it still has a nice walking trail that goes for a long way.

This is another shot from a different perspective of the Expo park area and the new apartments over there. We live on the side where the photo is taken from. About a mile or so from the river.

More birds in a now-dry section of river. The day they really dropped the water level, I went out and as I was jogging along the trail and passing newly exposed areas on the edges of the river, I would look down and see fish of all sizes that had gotten stranded. They were flopping around and had no chance of getting to water. It was awful to watch. At one point, I tried to step down the concrete walls of the riverbank and onto the riverbed to try to throw a few back to some water that was nearby. But when I put my foot down on the river bed it started to sink. I decided that wasn't the best idea. Good thing I didn't have my new running shoes yet! The smell of this river is really pretty bad though. Even before the fish started dying from being stranded. I had a sick stomach for the rest of my run because it was just really awful to see all those fish helplessly flopping around and 'suffocating' to death. The birds hadn't discovered this yet, so they couldn't even put the fish out of their misery by eating them. Uggghhhh! I am looking forward to heaven so that there will be no more suffering and no more death! Not even of the little fish!

This photo is taken looking down river from the area where I usually take off for my run. There's a busy road across a "grassy" area and up the hill to the right of here. That road runs all along the river on the right side. There is another busy road on the other side of the river as well. It drops down enough that you can't really here alot of road noise. If you just look down, you can almost forget where you are. Of course, all of the garbage and dead fish and birds that you see along the river don't make it the best scenery either, but I take what I can get.

This is one of the inflatable dams half-way deflated. I was glad that I got to see this process in action because when I went by the next day, it was finished deflating and if I hadn't seen this stage I would have thought it was just completely gone. But it's not. It's flattened out in the bottom of the river bed. You can barely see it unless you know it's there. In this picture you can also see the wall and the way the river area is dropped down from the road. The roadway is at the top of that bank on the other side.

Well, I hope this gives a good idea of what this area is like that I have been telling some of you about. I am thankful that we haven't really had typical winter weather because I have been going down there most days with jogging pants and a very lightweight long-sleeved fleece top. It's been very comfortable. On other days, it's nearly unbearable because the wind is so biting cold. But the good days have definitely outweighed the bad, which is unusual for the month of December. Who needs a white Christmas, anyway? I keep telling myself that. :)........

They're Eating It!!

As I have shared with many of you, I have had a really hard time getting the kids to eat much lately. They just aren't hungry for the good, hearty food that will help keep them healthy and growing.
But I decided to take on the task of making a good vegan pizza. Of course, to make it really well, I decided to make two different kinds of "cheese" sauce. I make the kind that is shreddable and the kind that is spreadable. I made a whole wheat crust and covered it with all kinds of veggies.
I didn't know how well it would go over with them...
This is the pizza in the oven.

These are the happy kids eating the first pizza that came out. I had three very small pieces of this pizza, and they ate over half of it in one sitting.

I think they liked it. We've decided this will be a once a week thing. Maybe we'll get Peyton's cheeks to round out again!

Thanksgiving

We had ourselves a nice Thanksgiving meal on the Sunday after Thankgiving. We had friends come to our home from different schools in different cities as well as many friends from the same city-Daejeon, but different SDA schools. There are 4 different schools here in Daejeon.
Don't know who took this shot or why, but it shows the action in the kitchen anyway.


Here's me looking over the spread checking to see if there is anything missing and taking a deep breath before everyone digs in. :)

Here is all of the food. Looks good! No turkey, much to the dismay of a few. But I made them some vegan loaves to take the place. :)

Here is the group we began with. More people joined and trickled in for the next hour or so.

This is Moises, Winston, Shane, Mary and Gracie.

Here are the cooks(and Grace).

Enjoying the meal and the company.

More friends, and good food!

Enjoying the good company!

We had a really nice time and enjoyed the time to fellowship and have a "traditional" American meal. We missed all of our friends who had originally planned on coming and had things come up at the last minute, but we understand that those things happen. Hope to see you all again soon!

More bread and a Juicer!!!

Oops, I forgot to rotate this photo before I posted it. This is the two loaves of bread I got to bake this time with my new baking pans. The really big loaf is from the new pan I got at a kitchen supply store. It's actually a buffet "serving pan". It makes a really huge loaf of bread! I am so excited. I got it for only W5,ooo! About $5... I can make two loaves and it should last a week or more! This is the pan all by itself!

This is our new juicer we got from Costco this week. It's not as impressive as I was hoping for, but we knew that for $100, we would get what we paid for. It doesn't pull as much juice from the fruit as it should. I feel like it wastes too much. But it is really good for getting the kids to get more fruit (and veggies) in their diet and they don't even know it! They are just excited because they are getting juice. Now we just have to keep enough fruit in the house to make the juice.

Bread Pan!!!!!

Since finding good bread is nearly impossible here and when we do it's over $4 a loaf, I decided to start making my own. With the cost of whole wheat flour I guess is probably costs 1/3 or 1/2 the price of buying it, but I am really having fun making it. Today I got a really good deal on some whole wheat flour. I got 4,250 grams for $12. Actually, it was W12,000. :) Anyway, I have been adding many things to my bread. I have been grinding my own flax seed, millet and brown rice. The brown rice is a little corse, but it works in the bread. I also have been adding soy bean powder, and pumkin and sunflower seeds. Millet grinds pretty nicely and adds a nice nutty flavor. The bread is really hearty and heavy. We really like it. This is a photo of some rolls of dough that I baked in a nice round cake pan. In my later morning classes I have many ladies enrolled. I have been asking them if any of them have seen bread pans in the stores because I have had such a hard time finding them. So far I have been unsuccessful, so all of my loaves turn out wide and kind of flat. Today one of my wonderful gals brought me a bread pan and this round cake pan. They are really great! I came right home and baked a batch this afternoon! The pans are amazing! The silver one doesn't seem to be teflon, but the bread came right of it! It is my prized possession right now. I asked her where she found it and she said, "Near my home." But didn't offer up any other information. I will work on getting more info out of her later. For now I am taking her a loaf of fresh bread to show my appreciation.

This is the lovely and amazing bread pan before I even took the tag off. I had to take a photo of this momentous occasion. :) It looks smaller than a normal sized bread pan, but it's not really.

A view of Daejeon from Above

This Sabbath, I got together with some teachers from another one of our schools here in Daejeon. Their church took us out on a little outing. We were supposed to go hiking to some mountian, but there were too many of us to fit in the van, so we ended up going to this hill behind the Pastor's apartment building. It was a short hike, not what I was hoping for, but the view from the top was interesting. This is looking down one side of the mountain. These are the miles and miles of apartment buildings. And this is just one part of the city where we live. Remember, most of those tall buildings are nothing but apartments. Again, I get claustrophobic just looking at the photo! This is Fred, one of the new teachers at Seodaejeon. This is his first term in Korea. He is a funny guy!

This is me...

Here is the view of the other side of the mountain. I like this one much better!

More of the other side. It's still city, but nothing like the first photo!

"Hiking at Donhoksa"

Last Sabbath was our last day to rest before this new term started. This term is a very busy one with no days off, and only two weekends without duties. So we decided to head to the mountain for some relaxing time hiking and being out in nature. Boy, were we surprised when we got there and had to dodge people all the way up the trail. It was like being in an amusment park with no rides. The "line" never ended! But the scenery was really beautiful and we got to see a Buddhist temple that was started in the 6th century! There were buddhist "nuns" there and everything. They shave their heads, so the kids kept saying, "What is he doing?" everytime one of them walked by. We also saw people who came there to worship. They were really bowing down to idols in the temple. It was a good lesson for us to share with the kids. Most of these photos don't really need much explaination...

Under one of the eaves of the building...

This is the temple where people were worshipping.

This was some of the beautiful fall scenery we got to see. What's amazing is that there are no people in the photo!

If you look carefully there are people in this photo :)

By this point I had carried Grace on my shoulders for quite awhile and we were debating whether to keep going because the trail got steeper and it was large rocks that made up the path. But not only that, there were still so many people to dodge! And they didn't move out of the way for me even when I had Grace on my shoulders. They just pushed right through and I was going uphill! And, there's no 'right side' when you are on a sidewalk or stairs or hiking trail. Everyone walks where ever they choose.

This one gives a good idea of what it was like all the way up and back! It makes me claustrophobic just to look at this photo!

This was over the path at the beginning where the trail was still really wide and paved. I thought it was really pretty with the trees all around it.