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.