Yay!!! Our pictures came!!!

Ok, I promise this will be the last wedding post... seeing as the wedding was 56 days ago. But I just couldn't resist showing you all some of our professional wedding photos. And it is really hard for me, but I'm going to refrain from posting some of the formal group pics. This is mostly because those who were in them will probably see or receive them at a later time. The pictures below are some of my favorite creative or spontaneous pics. Enjoy!

My Husband is the BEST!

A HUGE thank you to all who wrote, sent things, or spoke birthday greetings to me these past few days. They certainly made me feel very special. However, an even BIGGER thank you to the best husband EVER who took me out on a special Birthday Date to help me celebrate the big 28! You're the BEST, Baby!

Yep, that ship behind us is the restaraunt! It's called Treasure Island Restaraunt & it was super cool inside. The food was super yummy as well. Seafood & Steak! It definitely was a memorable date.

And this video was taken right before our after dinner entertainment... aka - going to HomePlus to buy some groceries :) One of our favorite quirks about Korea is that the wheels on the carts here don't just go back and forward. Nope, they SPIN! This makes for much fun when going through crowded shopping isles. :) Enjoy!

Why I'm Here

I love my students. I love when my students live for Christ. I really love when my students come back and teach Bible class.

Eric Chun, who graduated with the class of 2008, came back and preached in Chapel and spoke in all of my Bible classes on August 26.

Below is a snippet of him teaching a combined class of 7th and 8th grade.

The reason why I'm here is rather simple: After Christ got a hold of my life, my passion has been to share him with teenagers--since that is when God stirred my heart up and I received Jesus Christ as my Savior and Lord.

It's always a privilege when I watch as God uses me or uses anybody to get a teenager on fire for God. Eric Chun is such a person. His senior year was one spent leading others into the throne room. It was so amazing to see God work through him. What I love about Eric is that he embodies 2 Corinthians 4:5-7:

5 For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake. 6 For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. 7 But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. (ESV)

It is in watching boys becoming young Christian men and in watching girls become young Christian ladies that I find great joy. That is why I'm here.

Pampered Chef

I have the best home church family EVER!! While I was home over the summer, the ladies of the Smith Center Evangelical Free church threw me a Pampered Chef bridal shower. Well, these last 2 weeks we've had boxes arriving like crazy! One day 4 boxes arrived, then a few days later, 4 more arrived. Then this week 1 more has come! The invoice says that there should be 10 boxes total so we should have 1 more coming hopefully next week. This weekend we had some unexpected time home so I spent yesterday going through all the boxes and putting everything away. It felt just like Christmas! We feel SO BLESSED to have all these new kitchen things. I actually feel that for the 1st time in my life I have a fully functioning kitchen of my very own. It is wonderful! One of the things I love to do most here is fellowshipping with our staff members and this year specifically Eric and I want to have people over hopefully once a week. Thank you to everyone who contributed to our things! We plan on using them well for God's glory!

Here are a few pictures of the 9 boxes and me unpacking them.

And here are a few pictures of everything put away in my tiny tiny kitchen. I was so pleased to find that everything fit!

This is my favorite Pampered Chef item at the moment. The turn-about caddy has made so much extra room for me AND made all my kitchen tools more accessible.

And this last picture has nothing to do with Pampered chef but I just thought it was so cute! I use these small white boards in my classroom almost everyday for kids to work math problems and other such problems on and then show me so I can know if they are understanding quickly. Well, one of the boys in my class held up his board for me to see and this picture was on it in addition to his answer. It made me chuckle and smile so I wanted to share it with you all as well. God Bless!

VIVA LA MEXICO!!!

I figured it was time to add some new photos. Here are a few of our favorites from our honemoon in Puerta Vallarta, Mexico.

Finally some wedding photos!!!

Yay!! I finally have time to post a few of our favorite wedding pics that people have sent us so far. Actually, all of these photos come from Eric's sister, Laura, who took some phenomenal shots capturing the mood of the day. So thank you Laura! We are still waiting for our professional pictures to come back so sometime in the future we will post more wedding pics again. Yay!!! Then later I hope to show updated pictures of our house since we took a whole week to re-do it. We're also expecting our Pampered Chef things to come in soon so after that our kitchen organization will get a make-over as well. Ok, enough talk. Enjoy the pictures! Great friends & family! Some who traveled from as far away as Oklahoma & S. Korea to be with us! This was our table at the rehearsal dinner. Eric & my new sister-in-law, Laura! She gave a great speech at our rehearsal dinner.

Granddad & Grandma Lambert who made ALL of the rehearsal dinner food! Thank you SO much Granddad and Grandma! I will NEVER forget those HUGE smoked pork chops! They were delicious!!!

Aftan helping me get ready.

I love this picture! These are my new niece & nephews, Elise, Kyle, & Jason. They were all in the wedding and did a GREAT job!

My lovely ladies standing all in a row.The men, anxiously awaiting my entrance.

First kiss! Or as Pastor put it... our first "lippy kiss." :) Was it hard to wait? Yes. Was it worth the wait? Absolutely!

Our BEAUTIFUL cake!!! Thank you SO MUCH, Aunt Sheila, for making it for us! It is exactly the way I wanted it to be!

Dad playing his trivia game at the reception to see who knew the most random facts about Eric & I. His prize for each question was a $2 bill.

Us with Bonnie, Eric's Mom.

Zangers! All of us in this picture have the last name Zanger now! From the right are Larry (Eric's Dad), Stuart (Eric's Uncle), Me, Eric, & Grandma Lillian Zanger!

The search for the garter :)

The balloon release! You can't see many of the balloons that the people released, but you can see the amazing tent behind us that we held our reception in. It was SO nice! AND the weather was SO great that day! God surely blessed us for our wedding day. Thank you, Lord!

And we just want to say one more time a big, "THANK YOU!" to all who helped us in any way, shape, or form in making our special day happen flawlessly. We love you all & can't wait to see you again!

Sunday Sermon

I just wanted to brag on my husband a bit :) This last Sunday, our 1st Sunday back in Korea, Eric got to preach at our church! He was a very captivating speaker with a very convicting message. I'm so proud of him! If you'd like to listen to the sermon you can click the link below which will take you to our church's website. From there you can listen. Enjoy!

http://www.songtanbaptist.com/category/sermons/

We're Home!!!

We just wanted to let everyone know that we made it safely back to Korea 2 days ago. We actually made a really smooth transition to a hotel near the airport, spent the night, and then to the airport bus back home to Songtan. So yesterday and today we've been sweating up a storm working to put our house together. We also made a fun trip to the new HomePlus store in our new CAR to get a few home and food items. Praise God for giving us a car that we can just hop in and head down the road in.

We still have a lot of home stuff to do (and thank you notes to write), but as soon as things are pretty well put together here I'll work on getting some wedding & summer pictures posted here. I can't WAIT to show them off to you! Yay!!!

Laurie

We're Married!!!

Our wedding was lovely...thanks to all who came to make it incredibly memorable. Thanks to all who stayed for the reception or who joined us in Chicago for the reception there. It made us happy to share our new marriage with so many friends and family.

God has been good to us in bringing us together, and so all glory and honor are His.

We're looking forward to posting pictures, stories, and stuff about us so that you can share our life while we are in Korea.

We love you all,

Eric and Laurie Zanger
:)