Week 48: Giving Thanks

Wow! I can't believe it is December already! My last month of this project. I am giving thanks for that today! What a load off it will be. I have enjoyed it, and I am glad that I did it, but it will be a relief to be done!

Day 324: Celebrated Thanksgiving with a good group of friends in the afternoon. My chitlin let me take their picture before we headed off to dinner.

Day 325: Eric's baseball team won the championship game on Saturday. More about that here.

Day 326: Finished off the Thanksgiving leftovers. Yum!

 Day 327:  Finally cooked the squash that I had been using as a decoration--everyone around here uses it as pumpkin, so I cooked it, pureed it, and froze it for the day when I have time to do something with it!

Day 328: It just isn't Christmas to me without gingerbread lattes, so I had to make my own gingerbread syrup. It's delicious! Even better than the pumpkin spice syrup I made for the fall! You can find the recipe here.

Day 329: The cheerleaders recruited the kids to help them with the tunnel before the varsity basketball game. It turns out Cade was not the best candidate for the job, but he did provide a lot of laughs!

Day 330: Rode the bus up to the Hyatt to take another bus down to school for my first Crossfit Bootcamp. They've got Christmas lights up at the Hyatt!

One more week of classes and one week of exams before Christmas break!! (Not that I'm counting...)


To see others' photo projects, check out the links:

 www.styleberryblog.com

Thanksgiving Weekend

We had a great Thanksgiving weekend, and I hope you did too!

We went over to a friend's for dinner in the afternoon--the pregnant one is our hostess--makes me feel guilty!

And then we went home to decorate the Christmas tree.

We finished off the evening with Charlie Brown Thanksgiving found on YouTube--doesn't get much better than that!

Saturday morning, Eric headed off early to the baseball field for the championship games.

Our high school chaplain also plays on the team with Eric, and he sent out an email to the entire staff about the game last week, so we ended up with some fans to keep us company and help us cheer!

The sun kept us much warmer this week than last week, but it was still pretty chilly after the first couple of hours.

Thankfully, the first game was an interesting one--and they won 4-2 with Eric pitching all 7 innings.

The second game they won by mercy rule after the 5th inning. It was 12-0 and Eric pitched the first 4 innings. He was a happy camper; he still hasn't fallen down from his high actually!

Of course, they play in a "beer league", but because our chaplain doesn't drink (and has base access), he brings A&W root beer to celebrate with!

Here are the "church guys": the guy on the left is the one who got them into the league and the one on the right is our chaplain (also the dad of Kennedy's best friend which makes these games much more enjoyable!).

And here are the stats, courtesy of the team captain's Facebook post:

I'm not sure what it all means, but if you actually read it, then you probably understand it!

Week 47: Food

I hope you had a great Thanksgiving! In spite of the fact that the theme for this week is food, my only picture of food this week is the packages of flour that I picked up at Costco this week. We celebrated Thanksgiving on Friday, so it actually falls into my set of pictures for next week. We had fun with lots of American friends, Korean-American friends, and a South African-Canadian! Lots of good food, too!

Day 317: One of the trees in our apartment complex. Most of the leaves have fallen off by now.

Day 318: Saturday afternoon baseball. A cold one, but at least they won!

Day 319: I've been loving all of the leaves outside behind our apartment. About an hour after this the ajushi had come by and swept them all up!

Day 320: Goofball snuck into our room after bedtime. He's looking a little guilty...

Day 321: When we get home from school, the house is spotless. Within about 5 minutes the kids have covered the living room in papers and toys, though!

Day 322: Listening to a story at play group. He's the chill one in this group.

Day 323: Only in Korea would they sell flour in small, individual packages. At Costco.

We set up our Christmas tree on Friday night, and we're counting down the days until we leave for Thailand already!

To see others' photo projects, check out the links:

 www.styleberryblog.com

Family Picnic

Ha! So, I thought I'd throw in a random post from last summer just to keep you guessing!

I've had this post sitting here for about a month with the pictures all ready to go. Just haven't had time to put down any words. Well, any words aside from those going on my students' essays or exams.

So, last summer after our great trip to Sun Valley, we went to the Carlson family picnic in Tacoma. 

We had rolled into Lacey at around 5:00 in the morning after driving all night. We slipped into Eric's mom's new house and all went straight to bed for a short nap.

We got up around 10, took showers, and we were on the road again!

The kids (big and small) had a ball playing in the backyard with their cousins, and I had fun taking pictures with all of the other DSLR-packing moms!

There was even time for some very serious games of badminton.

A Carlson family tradition, of course.

Oh, how I miss warm weather and green grass! And family, of course!

Week 46: Harvest

At least you can't say I didn't warn you! It has been a very busy past couple of weeks for me. I'm still in the middle of this Indian literature unit, which is really interesting, but I haven't read these texts since I was in community college--a long time ago. I think my favorite part is that Cade has started playing "Ramayana" with his Legos. What a goofball!

Anyway, I did get a good friend (I mean amazing, spectacular, selfless friend) to help me grade the set of in-class essays that I had. I am just about to finish grading the set of essays that I have, we only have two more texts to read before the end of the semester, and I should have some time to write my semester exam by next week. Hallelujah!

Day 310: It's hard to believe that it wasn't much more than a week ago that we could go outside without coats, gloves, and scarves!

Day 311: Hard at work. Playing with Legos.

Day 312: Walking to the subway station. Already, most of these leaves are gone. They were beautiful while they lasted!

Day 313: Pepero Day was technically on Sunday, but some of my students still brought me chocolate on Monday. Yes, the Korean version of KitKat, "KicKer", does taste pretty similar to the real thing!

Day 314: One of my friends heard about an international women's bazaar, so we loaded up the boys and headed to check it out. They lasted about 2 minutes inside before we headed over to the palace to let them run around.

Day 315: Busy at school. No picture.

Day 316: Cade has been getting up early lately. I sent him to his room for a time out and when I came back 5 minutes later, this is how I found him!

Yes, we do still have a daughter, too. Maybe next week I'll be able to get a picture of her!

Happy Thanksgiving! Our week isn't much shorter--we only get Friday off for Thanksgiving--but we'll take what we can get! We're looking forward to a day off, some good company, and a great attempt at some American food. We will be missing all of our family, though! Have a wonderful holiday!

Week 45: Happy

I knew last week that beginning again this week, I would be insanely busy--even though I only taught two days. I just wrapped up another unit and collected essays on Tuesday, as well as in-class essays on Thursday. That's just my way of saying don't be surprised if I'm not around much until I'm done prepping this unit. (Which will probably be about the time the unit ends--at the end of the semester!)

Day 303: I was so excited to finally use my new crock pot! I am so excited to have a crock pot again! Chicken tortilla soup.

Day 304: Beautiful fall leaves at Eric's baseball game. It's amazing how different the colors are a little farther out towards the edge of the city.

Day 305: Leftovers of brie and persimmon sauce. Delicious!

Day 306: It still feels like we're at school even when at home. Cade worked on his flash cards while I worked on unit planning.

Day 307: Busy at school. No picture.

Day 308: Kennedy started a new after school activity: arts and crafts. This is her ant house creation. (Eric took the picture, hence the flash.)

Day 309: Finally got out my camera to take a picture of the fall leaves. (So busy this week that I didn't even edit--all images are SOOC except for watermark.)

The good news is that I have Thailand to look forward to at the end of the semester! I can't believe it's only about six weeks away; I can't wait!!!

To see others' photo projects, check out the links:

 www.styleberryblog.com