outdoor illumination

Sorry for the blogging hiatus. I (Bonnie) have been feeling under the weather this break (more stories to come on this in the near future), so we have neglected the blog.

We had a white Christmas in Columbia with my parents, brother, and the dogs. It was really great. Tom and I are now proud new owners of an iTouch and a slingbox. Then we got to celebrate Christmas again yesterday with Tom's family. It's been such a fun time to spend the holidays with our families.

One of my favorite parts of Christmas has always been Christmas lights! The Robertson family has a deep tradition of "outdoor illumination." After Thanksgiving my dad and I would put up Christmas lights around our house (but let's be honest, my dad did all the work). My dad "toned it down" this year because my parents put their house up for sell. Check it out...


I typically dislike these large inflatable objects, but I have to give my dad some credit on this display because he is a pilot so why not turn your front yard into a runway for Santa in an airplane?! Good job dad.

Not only do I love displays at our own house, I love looking around town at what other people put up. Here are my two favorites that I revisit every year:

"The Magic Tree"


All of these were made by hand...very cool!

the most wonderful time of the year

This is a great gingerbread house that Tom's parents bought at a charity auction. It's pretty amazing! Also, the three dogs belong to Tom's parents...Gracie, Daisy, and Max.

got my hair did

Yeah for new hair cuts!
Hank wanted to say hey too.

we made it

I am currently sitting on a great couch by a fireplace in Kansas City, Missouri. Tom would like to note that he is watching football in real time.

This means that we made it safely back to the states. It was an uneventful journey (which is the way we like it). Now we have 2+ weeks to hang out in Missouri. It feels good to be back.

on our way

Last night our apartment turned into a war zone as we got ourselves packed and ready to go home. I enjoy the packing process in some ways...I think I like it because I get to see my husband's heart come alive. This man loves spatial reasoning situations. It's like he views packing bags as a puzzle that he gets to figure out. It's quite entertaining and impressive. I was convinced we needed to take an additional bag but Tom worked his skills and magically got everything to fit and be underweight in two bags. Amazing.

We leave today (Saturday) at 3pm Korea time and we'll arrive in LA on Saturday at 8:30am. I love time travel! From LA we fly on to Salt Lake City and then we'll hopefully get into KC at around 6pm. We're so excited that we get to spend Christmas with friends and family from home.

done

We are officially done grading everything for our classes this semester!!! We have had a grading marathon this week. Tom and I both have five classes and all of our classes had a cumulative final this week. Grades were due today, so we graded 5 sets of exams (2 of the sets were 10 pages per test...what was I thinking?) in about 3+ days.

It was kind of nice because we didn't have to teach this week. Instead we had to proctor 3 exam periods, so even though it was a lot of grading it was nice to only have to worry about grading and not lesson planning, etc. The past three days have looked something like this: wake up, go to school, proctor/grade, eat lunch, proctor/grade, help kids after school/grade, eat dinner, grade (maybe put a movie on the background), go to sleep.

But all the work was worth it because I got done today around noon and then I got to leave school!!! So even though it's a Thursday afternoon on a school day I've gotten to go to a coffee shop with my good friend Kim and do some Christmas shopping. It's a great feeling to have the semester be completed!

Tomorrow we have a work day. Saturday we fly home. We're now half way through Korea Year Two.

roasting by the fire

christmas shopping

Tom and I had a great Sunday in Seoul! We got to sleep in and have a relaxing morning, then we bundled up to head into Seoul.


Our first stop...the Seoul Flea Market. Let's go in!!!


And it was full of JUNK!


And more JUNK...


there were creepy things too...


after that we met Shrek! (donkey was there too)


then we proceeded to do some Christmas shopping!


Overall, it was really fun, stress-free, successful day.

the six foot tree

a real North American brunch

Tom's favorite meal is breakfast. This man loves sausage, eggs, pancakes, etc. The problem is, however, that Koreans do not distinguish between breakfast, lunch, and dinner. They can have kimchi and rice for every meal. This makes it challenging to find a good place to eat a hearty, North American breakfast.

(Sidenote, notice how I am using the phrase "North American." There has been a shift in my thinking. Before I moved here I was very American-centric, but now I have all these Canadian friends and despite some minor differences (they say "mum" not "mom" or "zed" instead of the letter "z") their culture is fairly similar to America's. Thus, when I refer to how my life is back home it has become more appropriate to say "North America" so I am more inclusive. Just food for thought.)

In our quest to eat a satisfying breakfast we have found the "Big Rock Brewery." It's a Canadian brewery that has an amazing brunch on Sunday mornings. Tom and I went with the Leigh family from school and we ate so much delicious food. They had everything...a person making omelets, bacon, sausage, french toast, muffins, coffee, cereal, I could go on. What is even more exciting is that in a week from today I can have a legitimate North American breakfast because we will be home in Missouri! Here's to breakfast and to North America!

i love christmas trees!

surprise!

My friends sent us a Christmas package! It was full of fun surprises to bring Christmas JOY to our lives.

The first thing I noticed when I opened the package was a card that said JOY! This has been my prayer for my life the past couple of weeks...that I would live with joy. It's been a hard working, challenging semester and I'm learning how to fight for joy in my life. It helps when you have great friends fighting with you.
One of my favorite gifts was a little tree!!! I decorated it with the ornaments that were provided and put it on my desk at school. They even provided a scented thing (what do you call those things?) that smells like pine!
The antlers that came in the package have been a big hit.
The kids just can't stop wearing the antlers. I love it.
Thanks friends! A big thanks to Jim and Jean who also sent us a surprise Thanksgiving package earlier. We didn't take pictures, probably because we ate the contents too quickly.

Less than two weeks to go until we fly back to America for Christmas...
I can't wait.

my weight

I spelled that right. I'm talking about my weight not a long wait. When I was home over the summer I packed on some weight. When I got home I was around 206 lbs. By the time we left to come back to Korea I was at at least 230 lbs (106.25 kg) if not a couple more pounds.

Side note: Is that a testimonial to the state of the American food industry? Or is it a testimonial about my eating habits? Probably a little bit of both. I totally binged while home and the food I binged on was probably not the most healthy for me.

Proceeding... one crazy thing about being 6'6" is that I can hide 20 to 25 lbs okay. But my wife did tell me at one point "you are looking a little pudgy." So I decided I wanted to try to take off some of that weight. I can't say that I did a whole lot other than try not to eat as much crap (ice cream, sweets, and such) as i normally do. Yesterday I got on the scale an weighed in at about 96 kg (211.65 lbs). I was pretty pumped about that. Today it was 97kg (213.85 kg). Another crazy thing about being 6'6" is that you can fluctuate like 4 pounds a day.

All that to say I lost some weight and am excited about that. Ideally I'd like for hang around 210 lbs. Now if only I could get in shape...Yes, that means I lost like 20 lbs. And yes, I know my feet don't fit on the kiddie scale.

"look what you did you little jerk"

This is a great/horrible quote from Uncle Frank on Home Alone.

Now that Thanksgiving is over it is time to start celebrating Christmas! This year we bought a fake tree and two stockings. I am sad we couldn't cut down our own tree this year, but that's just not an option here.









The stockings kind of look like kidney beans, but the Christmas decor is very limited in Korea. You just take what you can get. It feels really nice to have some Christmas cheer around the apartment.

a momentous day

Happy Thanksgiving!

Last year Tom and I didn't really celebrate the holidays while living in Korea for a couple of reasons: 1.) we were so excited to be in Korea that we didn't feel the need to be over the top in our American celebrations. 2.) We kept telling ourselves, we'll only be here two years...there's no need to buy decorations, etc. if we're not going to be here too long.

However, after living in Korea for a year the Korean excitement has weaned and our American pride has grown. Additionally, we extended our contract by signing on for another year in Korea, which means we will have lived in Korea longer than any other place as a married couple. So it's time to make Korea more like home and part of that is fully embracing the holidays.

This year to celebrate thanksgiving we invited our friends Andy and Lindsey, Emily Light, and Kim and Eddie (our neighbors) to come join us in making a thanksgiving feast.

It was a momentous day. It was the first time I have ever hosted a Thanksgiving meal. I've always had thanksgiving with family and have never had to take on the thanksgiving cooking responsibilities myself. I was pretty excited about it.

The day started off with some cooking tips from my mom (and then I had to call her for advice two more times throughout the morning). Then it was time to start the festivities. We started out the day by making homemade noodles (think dumplings).


It was then time to make a pumpkin pie. We couldn't find evaporate milk so we had to make evaporated milk. I was pretty nervous about it but it turned out okay.



The finished product:


Lindsey helped me make some mashed potatoes!


Emily helped in finishing the noodles.


Kim made some amazing chicken and biscuits. Check out this spread...


The food was awesome.


Desserts too!


After the meal we napped, worked on a puzzle, decorated for Christmas, and watched Home Alone. It was a great day and a day of firsts. First time hosting Thanksgiving, first time making homemade noodles, first time making a pumpkin pie, first time owning a fake Christmas tree (sigh)... We're very blessed.

Hot Pack

feeling better

Man, H1N1 sucks! I thought it was just like any other flu; not so. I was struggling on Sunday. I had a fever of 102 and was all achy and sore and snotty and coughy and... you get the idea. Miserable. Well, Monday I stayed home from school and progressively began to feel better as the day went on; probably because I just laid on the couch all day and streamed (watched) live NFL games. It was a bit of heaven for a sick man.

I stayed home today (Tuesday) as well and continued to progress nicely. I've been fever free now for around 36 hours. I think i will probably go to school tomorrow if I still feel alright when I get up.

Thanks to everybody that has been sending me thoughts and prayers. I got this email from a guy on my basketball team. I thought it was entertaining:

Hey Mr Meyer!
We missed you on Saturday :(
we still won both games though aahha
wish you were there!
how are you feeling?? do you have swine flu??
:(:(
get better soon Mr Meyer!!
I LOVE YOU!!

SO-AND-SO #15, starting small forward for GSIS Knights/ Mr Meyer's def fave students of all time


I found that very encouraging and humorous.

an unwelcomed visitor

Tom has H1N1 (or at least we're pretty sure).
He feels pretty miserable and he'll be taking some time off school. Pray for his health and for a speedy recovery.

We went to see the doctor today (thank you, Jesus, for sending us an English speaking doctor), and Tom is on some medications. They did not test him for H1N1 but he has all the classic symptoms: fever, headache, exhaustion, etc.

Ironically, our school is getting vaccinations for h1n1 tomorrow...

basketball update

Yesterday we played two basketball games. It was a bitter sweet day; the girls lost both while the boys won both. Tom had to miss the game because he woke up with a fever. We're worried he may have h1n1.

The boys are playing really well. They're aggressive, communicative, and unselfish on the court. I think they're going to have a great season.

On the girls side it's bit of a different story. While the boys are returning almost all of their team from last year, the girls have 5 returning players and out of the five we are missing the two girls that scored 95% of all the points last year. So this is a rebuilding year. The girls are great kids because they're so eager to learn and their coachable. They are just so raw and new to basketball. Even after two weeks of practice and extensively teaching basketball terms they still do not know where to go when I saw "go down on the block." Here's another example...

Me talking to a player: "I'm putting you in right now because I need you to play on the block in the zone. Beth (made up name) isn't playing their spot correctly so I want you to go in there and make sure that you defend the area near the block."
Player nods her head, starts walking to check in and turns to me asking: "So what number is Beth guarding?"
Me: "It's a zone! You don't guard a girl, you guard an area."

I can't really get too mad at the girls because they just haven't played basketball before. But it can be so frustrating at times because they are so inexperienced and lack aggression. Sigh. I hate losing, but I am trying to keep the mindset that this year is not about the wins/losses it's about building athletes, giving these girls a sense of confidence, molding these girls into basketball players and people that sacrifice and love well. A ref came up to me yesterday and complimented me saying the girls had great sportsmanship. It was one of the highlights of my day.

there's a monster in the basement

victory

We had our first basketball games today. Both teams won!

The girls won 20-12 and the boys won 47-27.

It was a great night and a good start to the season. The girls actually were down at half time 12-8, and we came back to win it. And if you check out the final score you'll notice that the other team did not score the entire second half! I am so proud of the girls and I'm really enjoying coaching.

The boys also did a great job. The guys came out with an early lead, having an 18-0 run at the beginning of the game. At half time the score was 30-9. All of the boys got a lot of playing time and the team looked strong. (Good job Coach Currey--former boy's coach--of laying a solid foundation last year.)

We have two more games tomorrow that should prove to be more intense competition. We'll let you know how they go and we'll try to post some pictures.

Home

Home seems to be a relative term these days. Tom and I live in Korea, yet when we refer to going to America we still say, "We're going home." In the past 6+ years I have lived in 5 different places: Lathrop (the dorm at MU where I lived with a witch. really, she was a practicing witch), the Theta house, a duplex with my buddies Mary Kate and Heather, a duplex with Tom (2 years), and now Korea. This makes the concept of home rather confusing.

I have to say though, when I think of going home I think of 603 North Brookline Drive, Columbia, Missouri. See below.
When I was at the very end of second grade my family left St. Joseph, Missouri and we settled into Columbia. And I had lived in Columbia all the way up until last year when we moved to Korea. Columbia is a great town and I loved growing up there.

But times are changing. I live in Asia, my brother lives in Kansas City, there is really nothing to tie my parents down to Columbia anymore so after years (yes, years) of contemplating it my parents have finally decided to put their house up for sale and move. The house was put on the market about a week ago. My parents aim to sell the house and then move to the Kansas City area. My dad is a pilot and he wants to be closer to the airport so he can lose the two hour commute each way to and from work.

I have mixed feelings about the house going up for sale. More than anything I support my parents and as long as their excited about the move then I am too. They are always so quick to serve and do what is good for others, and I think its great that they've made a decision that will be good for them. I say "mixed feelings" only because it will be a little sad that Columbia won't be "home" anymore. That house on Brookline has been our home base for a long time. When my brother was in between moves (he has moved more times than me) he would always camp out at my parents, when Tom and I needed to crash somewhere before we left for Korea we stayed in the basement, and when Hank (our dog) needed a new home after we left for Korea he had a spot to stay at 603 North Brookline. It's been such a great place to call home.

But I feel excited about the future...I feel excited for my parents to have a fresh start and a new adventure, I feel excited for the new family that will get to move into 603 N. Brookline, and I'm excited to see where Tom and I's next home base will be (for now, Korea is our temporary home).

If you know someone looking for a house in Columbia, Missouri, I know just the one...

the end is in sight

As of today I have exactly one month until we are done with first semester and we will be back in America. Tom (loving excel like he does) created a calendar that starts today and ends Dec. 19th, which covers all the time we have left in school. I took the calendar and filled in all the major commitments I have until the end of the year, as well as, what I need to accomplish in my classes before school lets out for break. Two predominant feelings have emerged...

1. Dang! I need to hustle! I am behind in my classes and I have so much to get through before we leave for break. There's a lot of work to get done.

2. The end is in sight!!! I just have to push hard for another month and then we'll get to: see family, look at Christmas lights, hang out with friends, drink Kaldi's coffee, go to the new HyVee (grocery store in Columbia), watch TV that we understand, eat Christmas cookies, play with Hank...I could keep going.

Have no fear, feeling number 2 is definitely overshadowing the pressures described in feeling number 1.

Here's to endurance, perseverance, and joy.

Student absence

Everyday we get an e-mail from our high school secretary with a log of the days absences with the reason for absence. Sometimes the reasons are normal. Sometimes there is a little too much information provided. Sometimes they seem totally lame. Take a look at some of the highlights and you can decide which is which:

Chronic disease
indigestion
period pains
cold sore in mouth
coughing
Enteritis
Illness from fatigue
spine ache
stomachache, throw up
Allergic rhinitis
sickness-diarrhea
Her Japanese friend came by her home during weekend, friend went to hospital due to high fever, she has no fever now but just in case she need to separate from group of peaple.
Tardy Excused-Due to waist ache he will be late/ 10:58 in
Tardy Excused-got finger hurt
Tardy Excuesed-went to see a doctor due to abrasion
Sickness,Convulsion of the stomach

Just so you know those are verbatim; copied straight from the e-mails we receive. Diarrhea, period pains...too much info. Absent for a cold sore...really? And that one about the Japanese friend...we know the girl. She made it up to get out of Spiritual Emphasis Week.

Hope you found some of those entertaining.

Thanks

Just want to say thanks to everybody that has sent Bonnie an e-mail or posted a comment recently. It has been a hard time for her (and us) with the new load that she has been asked to carry. Your notes of encouragement have been heard and received with joy (and even some tears). We really are so thankful for all of the loving friends and family that we have around us both in America and here in Korea. We really feel like God is going to use this time to grow us and mature us so that is exciting (and scary).

On a lighter note. I killed the car for the 4th time today. I left the lights on while we were at church. Arg. Gonna need to get a new battery if I keep this up. At least our friend DJ was there to provide some juice to get us running again. We used it as an excuse to drive out to a drive-thru McDonald's (rare here) that is about 15 minutes from our school so we could charge the battery. We didn't drive through because the line was like 15 cars long but I did enjoy my McChicken and Bonnie went for the cheeseburger.

perfectionism: friend of foe?

This post is a departure from our usually light-hearted ramblings. But it's been on my mind and I wanted to share...

I am a perfectionist. I always have been. In school I wasn't the smartest kid, but I always wanted to do everything well so I worked hard and was successful in school. In basketball I wasn't the best athlete but I wanted to do my job on the court correctly so I busted myself day in and day out to play hard so I could be a quality player. When I reflect, these are just small examples of the pattern that has dominated my life: a quest for perfection.

And in some ways this has been a very beneficial thing. It has led me to be successful and has allowed me to earn respect from my peers. I like doing things excellently.

However, this is where it gets ugly...we are not perfect people. No matter how hard I try and no matter how much I work I will never be perfect. Most days I don't realize this because in my little bubble of self-controlled success I seem to be keeping everything together. But over the past week or so I've seen the really ugly side of being a perfectionist (dare I say, the sinful side of it).

As of this week I have new responsibilities at school. I am now the head basketball coach and I am also teaching a new higher level history course. Now four out of five of the classes I teach are all different; two of which I've never taught before, and add to all that coaching basketball Tuesday-Friday (and most Saturdays). This is a lot. I'm overwhelmed and burdened.

In my heart I truly believe that it's going to be okay. God does not give us more than we can handle. I can do this. But in my mind I'm going crazy. Why? Because now there is so much on my plate...so much I can't control...so much that I feel incompetent in that I just keep asking the question, "How can I do all of this excellently?" And the answer is, I can't. There is no way I can do everything at the level I want to because there just isn't enough time in the day.

In this situation I am really realizing how much all of this is out of my control. And I am struggling to come to terms with the fact that I won't be able to do all these things perfectly on my own. Thus, I'm scared. I am scared of failing, scared of not being good enough, scared of letting go of the illusion that I can do it all well on my own. Perfectionism is showing itself as my enemy.

I know Jesus is in this. I know God is in control. I know that this situation is revealing how much I find my worth in success and what people think (I hate that that is true). It's just hard. It's hard to let go of perfectionism, it's hard to not fear failure when you've done so you're whole life....I guess life lessons are just hard. But I know in the end its worth it.

Following Jesus is not easy, but it's worth it.

vultures

Tow trucks here are like vultures. We have a very busy 3 way intersection right outside of our living room windows. Cars on the through road regularly run the red light and end up T-boning cars making a left turn onto the main road. I kid you not there is probably 1 wreck a week (or more) at this intersection. We have personally witnessed 2 in the past week and we aren't here (and awake) more than 5 or 6 hours a day.

Well there was one of these T-bones yesterday right after I got back from my grad school class. About 10 or 15 seconds after it happened Bonnie says, "wonder how long it will take the first tow truck get here?" 45 seconds later there is 1 tow truck on the scene. One minute! Amazing. With in 3 minutes we see this scene. What is missing from this picture?
If you said an ambulance and/or police car you would be correct.

Within 7 or 8 minutes we see this:
5 tow trucks and finally 1 ambulance on the scene of a 2 car wreck. Vultures. The cops never came from what we saw. Sometimes they do...sometimes they don't. We hope we never get in a wreck here. We would have no clue what to do.

The sweet potato saga

When we went to visit our friends Andy and Lindsey they made us dinner one night which contained some rocking baked sweet potatoes. They were so good! We enjoyed them so much that we made a point to make some ourselves.

Trial number 1: Bonnie had gone to the store a couple days before and purchased some sweet potatoes. We decided that this night we were going to make them. As we were cleaning them we realized that they seemed to be a little more purple then we were expecting. We decided to cut one open and when we did it was bright purple throughout (see below). There was no white/yellow center. Apparently Bonnie purchased some strange purple sweet potato that looked a heck of a lot like a normal sweet potato.

Trial number 2: We actually got sweet potatoes this time and identified the purple root culprit so as to not make that mistake again. We decided to microwave them like we do for our normal baked potatoes. Two problems. We neglected to fork them and cooked them about 2 minutes too long. The result was a rubbery mess. One of them even slightly exploded.

Trial number 3: A delicious success. That's right. It's so fresh it's steaming.

fall, please don't go!

In honor of my favorite season, here are some pictures of fall! This above pic is a fall arrangement I got to be festive.

Below is an apple crisp! I got the recipe from Lindsey Patton and it is a fantastic fall treat! I will use this recipe the rest of my life. As you can see, we demolished the apple crisp in just the first sitting.



It was a rainy fall day on Saturday so Tom and I put together a puzzle. Normally I am not a very patient person so puzzles aren't my thing, but this was a surprisingly relaxing activity. At times I have an addictive personality so once we started the puzzle we couldn't stop until we finished. We finished it in two sittings on Saturday. That sky was hard--too much of one color!
Today was a frigid day. It was the first time in months that I dreaded being outside because it was cold. Goodbye Fall. We will miss you. Feel free to stay longer.