Another year older and shallower in debt...

Wednesday was Michael's 31st birthday.  It was also our 3rd anniversary.  How time is flying by!  I sound like an ajumma (Korean word for older lady).  But anyway, I am here to brag about my amazing husband.  I love Michael Preston Rains more than anyone else on this earth.  And, if you know Michael well, you know that life with him is rarely boring.  Actually, it's the complete opposite.  Strange things always happen when he is involved.  I blame it on the ADD.  haha  Anyway, so despite the crazy things and sometimes seemingly annoying things that have plagued us, I mean happened to us, over the past 3 years of marriage, I am still very thankful for my husband, very much in love with Michael, and am so thankful that he feels the same way about me.  Don't worry, nothing strange happened to us that day.  It was a surprisingly normal day!   So, Michael planned for us to go to eat at a galbi restaurant.  Galbi (pronounced kalbee) has quickly become my favorite food here in Korea.  You sit at a round table that either has a gas grill in the middle or just a pit and they bring flaming hot coals and set them in the center for you to cook your food.  It's a Korean barbecue restaurant, and the food is SOO good!  He took me to downtown Suji to a galbi place that I hadn't been to yet, and it was delicious.  Oh, yes, something disappointing did happen, now that I think of it.  I brought my camera and was SO excited to get some photos of us on our anniversary eating galbi, and as soon as I turned the camera on, the batteries died.  And emotional me actually shed a few tears over it. but Michael helped me get past it.  We ate a delicious meal, walked around and bought some new shirts at a place that was having a 2 for 1 deal, and then had to get back to go to work.  

When I got home from work (Michael works until 9:30, I work until 11) we decided to open our gifts.  I gave Michael a full-sized ironing board!  Yeah, so romantic, huh?  Michael is obsessed with having his clothes completely wrinkle-free and since we don't have a dryer to tumble press our clothes, we had just bought a little cheap one that sits on the floor.  So now he can stand and iron the wrinkles away every morning!  I also bought him tickets to go see the Suwon Bluewings play at World Cup Stadium.  They are the best Korean soccer team and play only about 25-30 mins away!  So we are excited to go see them.  The other nice gift I got him was a new watch.  This is the 3rd watch I have bought him in our 3 years of marriage (actually, I think one was when we were just engaged), but I think he has finally decided that he will wear it and take care of it, partially because we don't have cell phones yet and he gets tired of asking me what time it is.  It is very nice, and he likes it.  I got him a few other little odds and ends, including tortilla chips and salsa that I found at Lotte Mart!!  We ate it all in 2 days.  Yum!

Michael's gifts are what I want to brag about.  I think I mentioned in the previous post, with Smill Woman, that he bought me a bunch of art supplies so I can spend some time working on my artistic side that has been so repressed all these years of school and teaching.  I found some old drawings that I had done in high school when we were moving to come here and showed them to him, so he decided I needed to work on developing that creative side that rarely comes out of me.  I forgot how much I loved to draw, and that I was actually not too shabby at it either!  Then comes the best gift ever! My favorite painting of all time is called A Young Girl Reading.  I have always loved it since like 10th grade or earlier when we had to do an art report, and I did mine on Jean Honore Fragonard. Then last week one day I had to go to a shop by my school to get some passport photos taken and I saw the painting in the window of the shop next door, and I told Michael all about it. I never thought anything else about it but he got one of his co-workers to go with him and help him haggle for a lower price, so he got an awesome deal on it and I was so surprised!! It's in a really ornate/gawdy frame, that doesn't really go with our little apartment, but who cares. I am happy! 

Here's to another year!

~Leslie