Soccer

Every Saturday morning at 6:30, about 35 people gather from the several different homeschool co-ops here to play soccer. I don't know whose idea it was to play soccer on a Saturday morning at 6:30, but, bright and early, we all drag ourselves out of the house and head for the soccer field about 10 minutes away. Even though I'm half asleep for about an hour, by the time we stretch, run, and do some drills, I've warmed up. We split into two different games - the adults down to middle school and then the elementary kids. The field we are playing on right now is in front of an elementary school and is made out of a lovely combination of sand and crushed shells. I'll never complain about falling on a grass field again! Any fall, no matter how small, tends to produce blood. But, besides being way too early, way too cold, and slightly painful, we always enjoy Saturday mornings. Soccer is right up our alley and is a sport that we have some talent for. Soccer is one of the biggest sports here in Korea which is ideal for my family.

The little kids play behind the regular field where the adult team plays.

Evangeline and Julianna playing with their many friends here

What do you do when you are outnumbered two to one with no way out? Just grab the ball with you hands, of course!

Caroline getting ready to have her feet slide out from under her and then take the boy out with her at the same time.

The elementary kids

Susanna takes on one of the dads in the older game

Gabe was considered one of the "dads" - probably because he's taller than most of them.

What Korea Looks Like

This summer, my family spent a month on the road traveling accross the U.S. and Canada in our pop-up. It became a joke that wherever we went, no matter how much of a drought they had been in, we would bring rain (if we stayed more than one night). Well, Korea has been no exception. After we arrived here, it rained non-stop for about a week and a half!

So yesterday afternoon, when the sun finally decided to shine, we all decided to take advantage of the weather and take a hike on one of the mountains behind our apartment complex. Ruth and Jonathon Willing (the Willings are another American family working here with us) came along with us, too.

Coming from Florida, the mountains here are definitely something different. Korea is 70-80% mountains, and as you can see from the pictures, in between each mountain another city rises up. Most of the tall buildings you see are actually apartment buildings - ours is 17 stories tall. It's funny you can live right in the city, but just 5 minutes away are mountains surrounded by gardens and rice patties.

The view from the top of the mountain (when we finally got there)

Our apartment building (510) overlooking gardens

We are all settling back into our life here in Suji, South Korea. The adjustment has been much easier the second time around, and we have not had all the many surprises that rolled our way when we came to Korea last September. After a 12 hour flight from San Francisco, my family and all of our 32 suitcases arrived at the international airport in Seoul. We were picked up from the airport by a bus - after last year, I think they realized just how much luggage it takes to move our family!

The map on the back of our airplane seats. After about 10 hours of sitting in a crowded airplane, trust me, seeing the Korean peninsula appear on your screen is a very welcome sight!

Two days after we arrived was the wedding of Brad Voeller to Lee Joo Young (last names come first here in Korea - there's a good oxymoron!). Brad is the director of Family Mission International which is the mission organization that we are working with over here.

Tuesday was our first co-op. We are now leading co-ops on both Tuesday and Thursday. Tuesday is elementary/middle school, and Thursday is high school. Every Tuesday, our family teaches Character, English, and Family Discipleship (for the parents). On Thursdays with the high schoolers, we are teaching Worldview, English, Biology, Leadership, and Family Discipleship. Tuesday night one of the families in our co-op took us out to a Chinese restaurant where we had beef, chicken, black noodles, squid, tofu, rice, kimchi, chop-chei, and fruit just to name a few. It was a very nice restaurant that we all enjoyed (except, of course, I don't really prefer squid...Gabe says it tastes like chicken!) While the parents were talking, Noelle taught us how to make chickens with our napkins - it was quite entertaining :)

Julianna, Noelle, and Evangeline

Our high school co-op has about 25 students in it, many of whom speak English fluently. They are using an English Biology textbook so that can be a little confusing sometimes. Try attempting to explain metabolism, photosynthesis, and eukaryotic cells to someone who doesn't speak your language - it's not easy! We do have help from our translaters though. I'm looking forward to the day that I am fluent enough in Korean to explain those concepts, but at the rate I'm going, it will take years :)

Studying biology during high school co-op

When we are not in co-ops, our time is spent doing a lot of the normal, daily things we had to do in the U.S. except it's all Korean style now. That means sorting our trash into nine different categories (pigs don't eat eggshells so eggshells do NOT count as food trash), driving as if the world were going to end in five minutes (optional red lights, speeding down the wrong side of a 6 lane highway with oncoming traffic heading straight for you), grocery shopping at Costco where you push your carts onto escalators that take you to 6 different stories, practicing with chopsticks so you don't drop your noodles into your lap when you go to eat with other Koreans (we're actually pretty good at it by now), working on learning the language, doing schoolwork, hanging up laundry, sleeping on floor mats, and cooking meals.