Teachers’ Day 2017

This is my 3rd year celebrating Teachers Day. This is a day full of thanksgiving for teachers. Parents give lots and lots of flowers and students give some of the cutest cards. You definitely leave school feeling appreciated and loving your job. Students write cards asking you to be their teacher again next year and students from previous years expressing their love for you and how much they miss you as their teachers. Basically you feel LOVED!

This year, I am part of the event planning team. I am also the leader of events. So I was in charge of Teachers Day, which we combined with Thanksgiving. So we started the day with an assembly. At the assembly our principal shared about Teachers Day and Thanksgiving. And then we watched a video made by one of our talented teachers : https://youtu.be/e2LJ9RsgjPc. We ended the assembly with parents giving teachers flowers and students giving teachers more flowers. Basically you can never have enough flowers on Teachers Day :).

In the afternoon, we had a staff vs students volleyball game! I had brought back fabric balloon covers and we played balloon volleyball. It was chaos! But controlled chaos! Our students and teachers had so much fun! I love this part of the event, when students and teachers have fun playing together! It was so much fun to referee the games. The students had so much fun, they were asking to play again and again. I kept score but in the end the points didn’t matter, just the fun that was had!

By the end of the day I was exhausted. I was tired after the assembly in the morning, but after the games I was exhausted. Barely able to stay awake for the staff meeting after school. LOL. I am so thankful for such a great school, full of extraordinary students and outstanding teachers. Thank you Lord for this blessing in life!

The students’ cheering section (well part of it!) 

Birthday Abroad

​On Tuesday, April 19th I turned a quarter of a century old! I was a little anxious and nervous to celebrate my birthday abroad, but God really blessed me with great friends here!

I also drove with 3 people (including myself) on a motorbike! 

My birthday celebrations started on Friday. After school my roommate and I went with our coworker to our usual Pizza Company dinner. Then we went to meet up with our friends to get our hair washed. My friend Melody made a brownie for my birthday and we took it with us to the salon. At the salon we talked and got amazing head messages and devoured the brownie :). Here, you can go to a salon and get an hour long hair washing. Yes and it only costs $1.50! It's absolutely amazing!!! I think I have fallen in love and now no longer want to wash my own hair. I could just have someone else wash it for me. LOL. Just kidding, but it was really nice!

On Saturday, I finally went to the Ethnology museum. This is the museum that everyone talks about and you can walk in real houses from different tribes around the country. After the museum we went to Joma for lunch (probably one of my favorite cafes). Then my roommate and I went to a new mall to meet up with a friend from work and her husband. Basically we went to this mall to have Dairy Queen because it is one of the two places that we know to have DQ. After the mall we went to a worship night. This was an answered birthday wish :). God gave me the best present ever! Time in his presence. It was a great time of worship and then there was some awesome fellowship. What a great birthday present!

Sitting at breakfast at Saint Honores.  

On Sunday, my roommate and I had to take our motorbike to the shop because we had 2 flat tires the day before. But this gave us the opportunity to have breakfast at this amazing French bistro called Saint Honores.  After breakfast we went to church and then to lunch with the young adults. For lunch we went to Z Pizza and because we spent so much money (like $50 for 14 people) they gave us 3 free gifts (2 selfie sticks and a draw string backpack). Only in Asia :). After lunch a couple of the young adults went to play an escape game. Basically it's just like the breakout games in Lexington. However this was harder because the clues were in two languages. We didn't break out but it was a lot of fun! I love the people God has put in my life. They truly made this a great day. Then that night, Jen treated me to a movie (The Jungle Book) and ice cream at our local theater. It was another great day in my birthday celebrations!

Z Pizza with the amazing HIF Young Adults! 

Motorbiking it :)  

Our group and the beautiful BaVi mountains! 

On Monday, I joined my roommate and coworker along with 3 local friends, we went to an ancient village about an hour and a half away. We took motorbikes, which was actually a long time but it was so much fun! You get to see so much more when you are out in the open! Once we got to the ancient village we walked around and saw some really old building. It's really cool to see things that are older than America. :). After the ancient village we headed home and then met up with another friend for dinner at a place called Chops. Omg another good burger place. I had a chicken burger with avocado and Brie. O M G. Amazing! I can't wait to go back!!! LOL

Eating some Vietnamese food at the ancient village!  

Dinner group at Chops with my birthday dessert (another brownie!)  

On Tuesday, I went to school and was overwhelmed with all the love I felt from my coworkers. One of my coworkers even got me a card and had everyone sign it! It was so sweet! Then after school my roommate and I joined our friends at the Marriott for dinner! Another O M G moment! The French Grill at the Marriott has some delicious food. I finally got some French onion soup that was just amazing!!! And Jen and I split their signature burger. Then for dessert the chef made me a brownie! What?!?! I was totally spoiled and showered with love!

One of the many desserts I was given at the Marriott :).  

I loved having such a busy weekend filled with so much love and blessings. God has surrounded me with so many friends here. I can't imagine any other way to spend my birthday abroad.

Young adults! So thankful for this group of people. So glad God put them in my life and that I got to spend my 25th birthday week with them! 

Girl's Night

Last night was the last night I will probably get to hang out with some of my friends. We try to get together on Wednesdays so yesterday we just had some fun! This group of awesome ladies went to Cheesecake Factory for dinner then we did the Breakout Games!

The Cheesecake Factory was delicious! We got to the restaurant at 6pm but we didn't get seated until 7:30pm. Crazy busy! This place has been open for over 6 months and it still has super long waits throughout the week and even longer on the weekends! I know 6 months doesn't sound that long but Lexington has tons of restaurants. It makes you think that everyone in Lexington (all 310,000 people) decided on the same place to eat dinner (exaggeration maybe but it is what it feels like). But the food is so delicious it can sometimes be worth the wait! 

We scheduled our breakout game for 9pm so we had an hour to eat. Let me tell you it is difficult to rush the Cheesecake Factory. We decided to go back for dessert (Cheesecake of course!) after we broke out! So at 8:30 we left Cheesecake Factory to head to the Breakout Games! These are so much fun! You have 60 minutes to solve problems and open safe and locks that lead to new clues in order to find the code that opens the door! It is something you definitely need to experience if you want something fun to do in Lexington (www.thebreakoutgames.com). We all wore red lipstick for our breakout game! Oh yeah and we broke out of Casino Royale in 46:55. Yeah we are awesome!!! #redlipsociety 

As our reward for our awesomeness we went back to the Cheesecake Factory for dessert! YUMM!!! Also everyone reapplied their red lipstick (from the breakout game) and made-out with my new leather journal, made custom by WildGrace Workshop (www.wildgraceworkshop.com). This was definitely a great way to spend time with friends I won't get to see for a couple of years.

Oh yeah, I bawled when I realized this was probably the last time I would see most of them before I leave for overseas! Time is ticking by way to fast! I'm not ready!!! But I know God has some exciting adventures for me and the team! I can't wait!!! 

*pics posted in the gallery*