Easter Sunday at the lake...

To celebrate Easter Sunday, our home church group piled into two vans on Sunday morning to spend a few hours by the lake near Daejeon. It was a beautiful sunny day and we basked in the sun and played in the sand. We also spent a lot of time having fun with Lexi, a cute little dog we are looking after this week. Hannah missed out on this fun because she was up in Seoul at a student spiritual retreat called Vida. We can't wait to hear about her stories from the weekend, too.

Hiking at Seoraksan National Park...

After parent/teacher conferences ended at 3 p.m. on Thursday, April 1st, LeeAnne and Brian dashed to catch a bus to Sokcho so they could enjoy some hiking at Seoraksan National Park in north-east S. Korea. After hearing about the beauty of these mountains for four years, it was time to conquer some trails! On Friday we spent the morning hiking a 4 km. loop that took us to the top of Ullsanbawi and it was absolutely gorgeous - bright blue skies, lots of snow and a death-defying number of stairs at the top made our summit a sweet one. For the afternoon we hiked a gentle 3 km. loop to the base of Bisonedae where we sat beneath the peaks eating dotoraemuk (acorn jelly salad) with fresh mountain veggies. On Saturday morning we topped off our visit to Seoraksan with a ride up the cable car to view some more stunning mountain scenery.

Graduation is coming!

Last week Rebecca's class donned graduation caps and gowns for their big yearbook photo. Rebecca was very excited and spent a lot of time choosing what outfit she would wear for her individual photo. Alas, this makes her impending graduation seem a lot more real!

Quirky Museums in Seoul...

On March 26 and 27 LeeAnne spent some time in Seoul with her friends Sarah and Emily. On Saturday the trio went on a hunt for quirky museums and it wasn't hard to find some very unique establishments. Our first stop was the Tteok Museum which featured two floors of exhibits about the making of traditional Korean rice cakes, complete with a Tteok cafe on the first floor. Stop #2 was, of all things, the Museum of Chicken Art. Indeed, the first floor of the museum was jammed with chicken "art" from all around the world and the second floor of the museum explained how chickens were important symbolic animals in traditional Korean funerals (the chicken is the only animal of the Chinese zodiac with wings; hence, the belief was that it was connected to the afterlife and spiritual realm). The third stop was the Gallery of Sewing Art. Very quirky. It was a great time exploring Seoul and spending time with good friends.