Excitement is in the air!

It's been an exciting month of April of sharing our wonderful engagement news to family and friends. The weather is warming up too here, which only means more adventures and sports activities outside.

Keith has his big Jeju Ultimate Frisbee tournament this upcoming weekend on the most popular beach, Jungmun, in Seogwipo. All the frisbee players (around 100 from the island) will be provided with food, a hotel, shirts and entertainment for the weekend. I will join and cheer my man on with friends as we spend the weekend on the beach and all celebrate Saturday night.

There is so much going on right now that it's hard for me to sort my thoughts. We have midterms coming up at my school in two weeks, which means this semester is ALREADY half way done! Wow, I can't believe how fast time flies when you're having fun. My 2nd grade (8th grade) students just went on their big week-long school field trip last week. It's similar to "outdoor ed" that they offer in US middle schools (I still remember exactly what we did and how much fun we had during my trip in middle school). The students went to the mainland of South Korea for camping, hiking, etc. with only a certain amount of selected teachers. Although my co-teachers had wanted me to tag along on the trip, it was not possible because I had a few 1st grade (7th grade) classes that I had to teach, along with some other projects to work on. So, I had a whole week of LOTS of office time, since most of my students were gone all week. You could say it was a little boring but I definitely caught up on lesson preparation, wedding planning and starting my big trip project.

For this project, I am making a movie using windows movie maker for each country Keith and I visit. For example, I add my best pictures, videos, some music and descriptions to our trip to make it into a dvd. I made one of these videos for me and Keith's 6 month anniversary as a gift to Keith. It turned out great and there's so many fun ways to make the movie look professional and artistic. It's VERY time-consuming, but the end result is worth it. I hope to make a movie for Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand and Korea before the summer, so I can bring it home and show family and friends who would like to learn about these countries we visited.

Our professional wedding photo shoot day is coming up on May 22nd. It should be a fun weekend, since we have off that Friday for Buddha's b-day. The photo shop package includes me getting my nails done at a salon that Friday...how fun! We also have off for Children's Day, which is celebrated here in Korea on Wednesday, May 5th. That will be a good day to run errands...I need to go to the dentist, and hopefully shop with some friends here for wedding jewelry and shoes.

Today, Keith and I will pick up my engagement ring (I had to get it re-sized a little smaller) and I hope to also get Keith's wedding band at the same jewelry shop. Luckily, a co-worker in the office knows a trusted family member who owns a very nice jewelry shop in ShinJeju, the next city over.

Soon, we will have our guest-list finished to send home to my parents, who are being so generous to send out all of our invitations. I need to plan our pre-wedding party here in Jeju soon. Like I had mentioned, we hope to have a casual get-together during the day on July 10th with friends and co-workers at a park/beach where everyone will bring a dish and we will have snacks, drinks and celebrate. The party will then turn into a big bonfire/camping out on the beach until the sunrise! It should be a great weekend and a nice way to say farewell to many of our new friends here on the island who are not renewing their contract.

It's nice to know I already have my wedding dress (which I was fortunate to find while visiting Thailand), that our wedding ceremony and honeymoon is booked in Samoa already, and that most of our flights are all booked. We only have to still book the flight home to Chicago. The tickets are very expensive right now, so we are hoping to find a good deal soon!

Japan is another trip we are starting to plan. Since we have a whole week open for vacation during the last week of July, before leaving for Samoa, we are thinking about taking a short week trip to Japan...the central region. Taking the ferry from Korea is only about $140 or so (for a nice cruise ship style), so with the flight to the mainland, it shouldn't be very expensive to get to Japan....then it's only the expenses in Japan, which we have been warned will not be cheap! We want to hike Mt. Fuji, Tokyo, Osaka, and the areas nearby. Hopefully our plans to travel there will be successful, and if so, our summer will be truly an unbelievable mesh of traveling experiences!

It's just insane to think that by August, I will have a husband, a new last name, will have visited about 6 new countries this year, and will have completed my first full year of teaching (which I absolutely LOVE)! What an amazing way to kick off my adulthood! :)

Well, I have to teach in a few minutes but wanted to get a bunch of random thoughts and excitement off of my head so that I can TRY to concentrate at school...we'll see if it works!