The Roberts in Korea

Becca and Sarah

Becca and Sarah are the dynamic duo! (at least in the eyes of their parents)  They are both doing great in school, making friends, being good friends, embracing new experiences and adventures and growing up (too quickly) into two wonderful and beautiful young ladies. 

Last month Sarah was awarded the "Bridgebuilder" award at the elementary school which is the equivalent of being chosen as the 5th grade Honor Student for the month.  Recently, Sarah auditioned for a part in an upcoming elementary musical/play and she got the lead part!  We are proud of her and look forward to her performance in the program in February.

Last week, Becca was nominated as a candidate for the student body class office of 7th grade student council representative.  Becca posted campaign posters throughout the campus and gave a speech before the entire Middle School and she was elected!

Every Tuesday afternoon the middle schoolers take a break from their regular class schedule and attend a middle school chapel service.  In these services the  students sing worship songs led by the middle school worship band and listen to a message about how they can grow in their walk and relationship with God.  Becca is a member of the Middle School worship band.  She practices every Monday afternoon and either sings or plays bass guitar each week in the band.

Food Unit Kindergarten

Dina and her kindergarteners are definitely not going hungry.  You have seen their Azuma Kim Bop adventure but that was just the beginning of Mrs. Roberts' food unit.  Dina taught her students about Thanksgiving and then they began the planning and preparation for the Thanksgiving Feast.  The class compiled a shopping list for the feast  and then went on a field trip to Home Plus to buy the items for the feast.  It was quite an adventure.   Dina's kindergarteners piled into cars driven by parents and  headed to Home Plus.  The parents and kids broke into groups of three and then....went shopping!  A fun time was had by all.  For example, in addition to finding the items on the shopping list each group had to complete a small scavenger hunt.  One of the tasks was to find food that had 8 legs, 6 legs, 4 legs, 2 legs and 0 legs.  All of the groups found a food example for each!  Could you do that in your local supermarket?

The next day Dina and her Kindergarteners sat down to a Thanksgiving feast complete with mashed potatoes, gravy,  turkey (shhh.... chicken) and pumpkin  pie.  Some of her students had never before eaten mashed potatoes!

It doesn't stop there.  On the next day Dina culminated her food u nit with an International Dinner.  She asked each family in her classroom to bring a traditional food from their home country.  The result was a wonderful array of foods.  Some of the foods at the dinner included:  meat and cheese from Switzerland, spring roles from the  Phillipines, Tex-Mex from Texas--USA, grits from Florida--USA, pasta from Italy, pastries from Kazakhstan, potatoes from Idaho--USA, apple juice from Washington--USA, and various other foods from China, Vietnam, and South Korea.

It was a great dinner.  Even the high school assistant principal slipped away from his office to go to the kindergarten room, grab a plate of food and hang with the Kindergarten teacher (rumor has it--he likes her).

Azuma Kim Bap--Kindergarten Fieldtrip

One of our favorite local restaurants here in Daejeon is Azuma Kim Bap.  The food is authentic and wonderful and the best part about the restaurant is the owner, Jay Young Shin.  Mr. Shin speaks excellent English, is a joy to talk to and is a big help to our family when it comes to learning some Korean and other details of living in Korea.  He is one of our wonderful new friends here in Korea.

Dina is doing a food unit in her Kindergarten class and thought it  would be neat for her students to get to "make" the traditional Korean food called Kim Bap.  Azuma Kim Bap is within walking distance from the school so Dina asked Jay Young if she could bring her students to his restaurant to make Kim Bap.  He was thrilled with the idea. 

The fieldtrip was a huge success.  Dina and Jay Young planned the details and Jay Young had everything ready when Dina arrived at his restaraunt with 11 Kindergarteners, a teaching assistant and 8 parents.  The students were shown, step by step, how to make and roll a Kim Bap and then they were allowed to make  two Kim Bap on their own.  The students took their Kim Bap home to eat.  It was a great activity.  The moms that went along loved it and so did the kids.  They are lucky to have Dina as their Kindergarten teacher.  :) 

Moving Day

This past week was a busy one as we moved from one apartment building to another.  TCIS leases the staff apartments and our apartment (Hansup 111-1002) lease ended in March of 2007.  There is often the chance for the school to renew the lease for another two years.  However, our apartment sold two weeks ago--so we knew for sure that we were going to have to move in March. 

TCIS learned from the realtor that another apartment for lease in Hansup was coming open in just a  few days.  We decided to make the move now and have a solid lease on the apartment for the next two years.  We moved to an apartment that is two buildings away from where we were currently living.  So now we live in Hansup building 115, apartment 902.  The apartment is on the 9th floor and has a nice view out towards the South.

At 8:00 a.m. on Tuesday there was a knock at the door and a team of four movers converged on our apartment.  They packed EVERYTHING!  They opened up the window to Becca's bedroom and ran a lift up to the tenth floor window.  Every bit of furniture was loaded through that window, taken down ten floors on the lift and packed into a truck.  The apartment was emptied by 11:30 a.m. and they were loading things into the new 9th floor apartment by noon.  At 2:30 p.m. the movers left the apartment and it looked exactly like the one that we left that morning.  The movers put EVERYTHING back in the exact place that they found it.  It was amazing.

What looked like a hassle turned into a blessing--the former tenant of our new apartment left some furniture behind.  The furniture pieces were the exact things that we needed.  Sarah now has a  small desk in her room and an additional dresser.  In the living room we have two additional endtables and in the kitchen/ dining room we have a hutch to store dishes and a new bookcase.  We are thankful for our new apartment.  I will post pictures for Dina's sisters of the interior of the apartment at a later date.

Sarah, nails, softball and such

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines it like this:  "a Korean art of unarmed self-defense characterized especially by the extensive use of kicks".....yes, it is true--Sarah is in Tae kwon do!  Every Thursday after school Sarah is taking tae kwon do.  She is currently a white belt but with every kick, lunge and punch she is moving closer to the BLACK BELT--big sister Becca had better watch out!

Following an intense session of tae kwon do Sarah and Becca went to a downtown manicurist to get their nails done (you can't break boards with shabby nails).

Ryan played in the first annual TCIS high school vs middle school, post- parent/teacher conference softball game.  It was the first time in 10 years that Ryan has played and he posted some incredible stats (2 fly outs and 3 errors).  The great thing about the game is that Ryan's team won! (He is the high school AND middle school vice principal)

Last Saturday afternoon we jumped in a cab and went to Kumdori Land, a Daejeon city amusement park.  It was a sunny but brisk fall day.  We had a good time riding rides and saying "hi" or "hello" to all of the Korean children that come running up to us wanting to practice their English on  foreigners.  The highlights of our time was the double loop roller coaster and our new friend, Najam.  Najam is  an eleven year old boy that we met at the amusement park.  He is from Pakistan and is living with his family in Daejeon for the next year as his father is here on business.  We had a great time riding the rides and talking with Najam and his family. 

It was a great day--we left the amusement park that day reflecting on the amazing sights that we had seen and the wonderful people that we had interacted with that day. God's creation is vast and amazing.  It was a good day.

Cinderella

Early November was filled with practices and performances of the TCIS high school musical/drama of Cinderella.  In the midst of the all the pumpkin carriages, fairy god mothers, step-sisters, glass slippers, ball gowns and bippity-boppity-boo was Becca. 

Becca was one of a handful of middle schoolers that got the privilege to play a part in the high school musical, "Cinderella."  The musical was outstanding!  It was directed by our good friend and excellent drama teacher, Heidi Zickefoose and it involved nearly 200 students and staff of the TCIS community.

Becca played the part of a village girl in the program.  At certain points in the musical Becca sang with the full group, acted in crowd scenes and was even in a scene where the prince's assistant tried the glass slipper on her foot! (it didn't fit).  Participation in the musical was a big commitment for Becca, complete with many nights of practice and some late nights of dress rehearsal and performance  but it was worth it.  Becca made many new friends in the midst of the program preparation and had the time of her life throughout the experience.  The musical program was outstanding! (really, I'm not just saying that because I am her Dad)