I have to admit, I have been lazy lately with the updates to my blog. Sorry about that. Ellen and I have been enjoying the holidays and our time off. We were both finished school on Dec. 23rd. Ellen has since returned to school just this past week to teach a winter camp at her school weekdays from 9-12:30 except Wed. I also had a 2 day camp last Mon/Tues, but it was not with my school. Students from Middle school (ages 13-15). It was only two days, but it was actually quite fun, and they put me up for the night as it was a little over an hour away. I've also been tutoring french 2 times a week for an hour each time. One of our friends teaching here had a co-teacher ask him if he could teach french. He thought of Ellen and I. This was obviously a perfect fit for Ellen, but since she was teaching camp already for January, I subbed in.
Ellen and I spent Christmas in Gwangyang ( about 2.5 hours from Mokpo). We stayed with our friends Nikki and Kerry who are both from Edmonton. We were really missing our family and friends from back home but we made the best of it. Before we left though for Gwangyang, Ellen and I opened the 2 Christmas boxes that Emma, Scott, Sharron and Elissa had sent us. We received them in early Dec. and had been waiting to open them. We had Ellen's family on video camera and we had a mini Christmas. Ellen also posed for a family Christmas 2008 picture...or as close as you can get I guess.
Check out our Charlie Brown Christmas tree. This was the only way we could get the two boxes from Ellen's family under our tree!!
Here is Ellen taking out items from the box with Scott, Emma and Sharron looking on through the Webcam. They had written little notes and sweet nothings on the gifts and also so we would know who it was for. I was really excited to get a mop for doing dishes and a potato masher!!!
Christmas 2008 Walpole family picture.
We headed to our friends Nikki and Kerry on the 24th.
Here we are on Christmas eve, hanging out. Kerry has the reindeer ears on the left, then their friend Wendy from China who is teaching in South Korea, you all know Ellen, and Kerry's wife Nikki.
Here is Kerry and his friend Kendall who was visiting from Canada. They are both Really funny guys. They both were stand-up comics for over ten years working with Yuk Yuk's and other shows. They had us in laughing all the time.
Christmas morning opening little gifts we had bought for each other. To my left is Jen and Ed. They are married and from Vermont. Tons of fun!!
Here is Kendall opening one of his gifts. He would always pretend to be sleeping every time you took a picture of him...too funny.
The Lemery's (Jen and Ed) got us some matching underwear. This is all the rage in South Korea. All lingerie stores will have a man/woman mannequins in the window wearing matching underwear. We of course had to show them off!!
Here are the Lemery's looking all cute and festive in the blanket we got for them.
Ed carving up the Christmas turkey (smoked chicken...almost tasted like ham, but very good).
We also had tourtiere (Ellen and I made it from scratch Quebec style). We also had delicious home made perogies. Had tons of treats. Really good.
What's Christmas without a good old game of Haha!! They had their heads on each others stomachs and the first person says: "Ha" then the second says "Haha", the third "Hahaha" and so on. Sounds really easy, but they were like kids...it took them a least 10 tries to get through the whole gang. Silly kids!!!
Laughing and hanging out with friends, it really helped us take our minds off of how much we missed being home this year with family. It was really hard for us, and we really missed being home.
Ellen and I headed back home on boxing day, and really just took it easy. We go to the gym together at least three time a week. We are trying to look our best when we hit the beaches of Australia and New Caledonia in February!!!!
For New Years, we really slowed things down. We spent it in Mokpo, just the two of us. It was great to just enjoy it and not worry about going to a party. We started our evening with a glass of sparkling wine.
My beautiful wife.
We went out for dinner, then went to the old part of town where they had their lights on.
Stopped into a little stylish cafe to warm up and relax while reading some magazines.
Coffees were delicious and even decorated with little hearts that Ellen thought was WAY too cute...of course.
Walking around downtown, there was also a Korean outdoor concert. Nothing too fancy. Here is a group guys just dancing to a Korean pop song. Not singing, just dancing. Likely a local high school dance group or something. We just watched for a short while.
Well...definitely not your typical Christmas, but we did make the best of it. It is great to be on holidays and we are truly relaxing. Ellen does have some teaching to do, which she will finish on Jan. 21st. We will then both be completely on vacation and cannot wait to go to Australia and meet up with Emma and Scott and go visit Ellen's aunt and uncle. We are really excited to visit as its been many years since they have had family visit them and have also recently moved into a new home just outside of Melbourne. Well, Happy New Year to everyone and we missed you a lot over the holidays. All the best in 2009.
