Last night in Vietnam

He's trying to tell me that he doesn't like rainbows quite as much as I do.

It was meltdown central at our hotel on our last night.

"Mama and Daddy have wronged me!"

Loves his bottle! He's constantly pulling himself up and shimmying his way over to get things he wants, which are usually things he's not supposed to have.

We ate at this great Vietnamese outdoor restaurant where they cook the food next to the tables. The waiters loved talking to Sabian and held him the entire time we ate. It was so nice of them!

Sabian loved the waiters!

at the Temple of Literature-we saw another adoptive American couple with their daughter

they adopted from Vietnam 8 years ago.

Jeff being forced by me to pose by Santa

Monday in Hanoi

Here's our arrival info for tomorrow night. We get home just in time to welcome in the new year as a family of three.
Flight 2458 American Airlines Depart: Los Angeles Intl Arpt (LAX), 6:25 PM Wednesday, December 31, 2008Arrive: Dallas Ft Worth Intl (DFW)11:25 PM Wednesday, December 31, 2008


Today, we went to the Hanoi water puppet show and ate dinner at a Vietnamese restaurant in the Westlake District on the water. We really liked the puppet show. Sabian fell asleep in my sling right before it and we thought he'd sleep all the way through but he woke up as it started and he was pretty mesmerized for most of the 45 minute-hour long show. The puppets were in a big indoor water tank and were operated by puppeteers behind a screen. There were musicians and singers on the side. The water puppets were just so darn cute, for instance, there were jumping frogs, slithering water snakes, dancing tigers, and funny little sumo wrestler-looking boy puppets rowing boats.

Afterwards, we rode through the streets for quite awhile taking in all the sights of Hanoi on our way to dinner. It was the funniest scene with us trying to find something semi-edible to order and then attempting for ten minutes and with the help of several wait staff to understand how to order our food. We were sweating with stress to try and understand why they weren't just simply taking our order, but finally realized after the fourth or fifth person came over to try and translate, that the seafood was sold in kilograms and we needed to decide how many kg of seafood we wanted. And then, they stood over us the entire time as we ate, just inches away! They also didn't have a high chair, in fact, not many places do. When they do have them, they're not the kind we have that are safe. There aren't the right kind of straps to hold the baby in the chair. The other day, Sabian almost fell out of one of these contraptions, and I think the waitress finally realized why I put up so much of a fuss asking for a chair with straps. Don't even get me started on the strangeness of the safety issues here. Our hotel has windows that open up on the fifteenth floor wide enough for a baby to fall out of, yet hair dryers can't be plugged anywhere in the bathrooms by the mirrors. I had to go through a lot just to get a system rigged up by the staff where I could use a mirror as I blow dried my hair. Not that it matters much, because the dryers are such low wattage or output that I may as well towel dry my hair. Aaaahhhh, the conveniences of home! You should've seen where we went to find the baby formula Sabian drinks. The hotel food mart didn't carry it so the concierge wrote down an address for our taxi. The stores are these little tiny hole in the wall places you'd never guess were businesses. Jeff was wandering through this mass of skinny tunnel like alley-ways through a maze of vendors looking for the purple Pediasure can. he came back with it, luckily, because the last thing we need is a baby with an upset stomache on the airplane. We'll need all the luck we can get anyway, just to remember to pack all his necessities in the carry ons.

In a couple hours, we go to the embassy to get Sabian's Visa. That's the last item we need before we can come home.

It's such an interesting culture and country. I can hardly take it all in as we walk the streets and ride through the city. I'd love to stay until Saturday and go to more places, especially Halong Bay, but with a new baby, it's just not going to happen. We've had a great time, especially in Ho Chi Minh City, but it's time to go home and get in our routine there. I feel so blessed to have come on this journey and to have been given a beautiful son who we love more than anything else in the world.

decorating for the new year celebration-they're creating a dragon on a metal form, attaching leaves for the scales

before the water puppet show

After the show, the puppeteers come out from "back stage"

Sunday in Hanoi

Exhaustion has set in officially. We are bushed! Jeff is asleep and I'll follow shortly. We took a five hour nap today and Sabian did too. Now, his schedule may be totally thrown off, but what can ya do? It's hard to get any sleep because the entire city of Hanoi has been partying like it's the end of the world all over the streets in front of our hotel. Even though we're 15 stories up, the noise, honking, cheering, and fireworks, are still extremely loud. They're celebrating a big soccer victory over Thailand. It's been going on for over five hours now and may not end til we wake up, at this rate. I briefly saw the Vietnamese team holding up a trophy on ESPN news on our tv. Never a dull moment here in Vietnam!

We met our agency's Vietnam facilitator this morning at breakfast. She collected a bunch of our official papers and told us that our VISA interview at the embassy is Tuesday. We can fly home after that is complete. We may get an earlier flight itinerary and come home Wednesday. We're seeing if our travel guy can arrange the same flights, layovers and seats on Wed. instead of Saturday.

Tomorrow we're going to an Vietnamese water puppet show and probably Temple of Literature or Museum of Ethnology.

We began to see all sorts of other adoptive families like us. One couple from Ireland, one from North Carolina, and one from Washington DC. There's even more here that we haven't talked too yet. They all had about two weeks time in country before they adopted their babies. We had less than a day. It just means they were able to sight see longer than we were before they got their babies at their various orphanages. They were also shocked how little time we had to get to get Vietnam after we recieved I-600 pre-approval (we had 3 days and they all had a couple weeks). We're all in Hanoi together because it's the last step in our adoption
processes (getting our Visa's from the embassy) before we can all go back to our homes.

I had to dip into the prescriptions we had filled from the travel medicine clinic back home. It seems I may have gotten a bug or had some of the water on accident? Who knows. It's not bad.

Happy Belated Birthday to Grandpa M! Sorry I missed it but I did think of you on Saturday when it was your birthday. We were traveling that day.
*I forgot to mention we had our first little squirter incident with baby boy S. Mommy didn't cover him up on the bed when I was changing him and didn't have the changing pad under him either. Oooopsie daisy!

Look who loves cords, computers, plugs and outlets already. Uh-oh! He's keeping us busy and reminds me of how active Nicholas was at this age. Very curious!

Standing up by himself and looking out our hotel room window with his droopy size 3 month drawers

Just too cute . It's funny because I would normally crop and retouch the photos but we're so tired and short on time, we're just uploading whatever.

streets of Hanoi

at the entrance to the Buddhist Temple at Hoam Kien (sp?) lake

more Hanoi on our walk back to the hotel trying to dodge beggars

Jeff inside the Buddhist temple-It was really interesting and smelled all smoky and filled with incense in the foggy cool weather.

the bridge to the temple over Hoam Kien Lake

Goodbye Saigon, Hello Hanoi.

Well, we are in Hanoi now. Our trip here was fine, except for two little problems...a 5 hour flight delay and one baby related "incident". The first problem was no biggie after all because we had such a nice lounge to wait in for our flight. But the second problem, well...

We thought we had everything timed just right for Sabian-diaper change, bottles and napping. As soon as we got on the plane and began to taxi for take off, Sabian decided to have diarrhea. We were stuck in our seats until after take off! The flight attendant was very nice, offering to help change him and even bringing paper towels to help contain the mess. Thank heavens nothing got on his clothes! We felt bad involving her so we waited until we were in the air. Then, we ran him to the front restroom where the flight attendant was waiting with the changing table in place. We got him cleaned up and the rest of the flight was fine. We even saw some sort of circular rainbow sun spot in the clouds that was pretty cool. ...but after a day of waiting on our flight and packing/unpacking, we were completely bushed last night and even today. We'll write more about our hotel here in Hanoi later, but we must go down for our naps now. When Sabian sleeps, so do we!!!!

The welcome sign at the airport

Our guides from the adoption agency Mr. Tom and Thao

Sabians first plane, it's a big one.


In the lounge waiting.



This is a very nice business class lounge at the Ho Chi Minh airport.

They had a buffet, drinks and Internet.

We found a spot near the fish tank which he loved!

He kept trying to grab the fish as they swam by.

We carved out a nice little area in the lounge.

Moments before the "diaper incident".

Now you know why he is upset, we were about to find out.

Sabian turns 10 months

We spent Christmas night walking around the "mall" near our hotel, then we ate a very quick dinner at a really good Vietnamese joint. It was quick due to a certain someone, not to be named, getting restless and grumpy. So a few pics from last night and today.

We leave for Hanoi in the morning so, we will update Saturday night. Thats early Saturday morning for all you Americans.

Our hotel in the busy 1st district (downtown).

The Lemongrass is where we like to eat Vietnamese food.



The prawns on a flaming dish.

Dad trying to distract the yogurt covered beast. It's not working.

I want these chairs.

Too tempting!

Mom and Sabian outside the "mall".

Now we are talkin'! Sabian took to the drum kit right away.

A very loud and annoying drum toy our guide, Thao, had us buy.

His shirt says, "If you're happy and you know it".........Well you know the rest.

By-the-way... he never clapped his hands.

Ah, now he's starting to settle in.

Ok, this video is shaky because I'm trying to hold the camera ground level. But we wanted to show his mobility.