Baby Pictures

We are flying out of Hanoi and headed home tomorrow, Saturday. We had our US Embassy Appointment this morning and everything looked good and so we went to change our plane tickets and sight see for the afternoon. For those of you traveling behind us you will experience how things are really different in the South compared to the North. Landscape being one, but all that wonderful fresh fruit is really only easily available in the South so eat up it is soooo good!

Marcia and Angela, I spent some time tonight sending you each emails with attached pictures of your children and for some reason I cannot send them :( So I have saved them and will try again once I am home. But, Angela since you asked I will upload two of my favorite pictures of your little guy now. (I wasn't sure if you wanted me to post them or not so I hadn't)

Love to you all and we 3 shall see you soon!

Reading help

Hello--just wanted you to know that I posted several times tonight trying to bring you up to date. If you are wanting to keep things in chronological order, to better understand where we are and what we are doing read the last post listed under the date 29th first and work your way up. :)

Ha Long Bay Pictures

Ha Long Bay is one of the most photographed places in Vietnam. Its famous rising rocks come up out of the ocean waters and the Vietnamese story for the rocks is that they look like the back of a Dragon arching out of the waters. I think that parts of Pirates of The Caribean were filmed in Ha Long Bay. It truly is gorgeous!!

Typical fishermans boat out on the Bay. They cook, work and sleep on board this boat.

Ha Long (HOT!!!) Bay

Our experience at Ha Long was in the end good, but it is a riot of a story to tell and will take too long to blog, so here are some pictures. We are once again in Hanoi. Tomorrow (Friday) at 8am we have our last appointment with the US Embassy!! Pray it all goes smoothly and then we are done!!!
Our travels have taught us that we are not world travelers and we miss our kids and home very much!! Cambria have a wonderful time on your last day of school, smile pretty and sing loud for your graduation performance. I can't wait to see it on video (thanks to Grandma and Grandpa Rich and Lois) Carisa daddy didn't forget that you are his special girl!! We will try to call you again. Maybe on Thursday night or Friday Morning (for you).
Have to go now--Love to you all, thanks for your comments and prayers. They are working, Caleb is such a good boy and things are moving amazingly quickly for us!

Bringing you up to date

After Caleb's Medical exam and filing his application for his passport we spent one night in HCMC. On Tuesday we finished up paperwork and went shopping at the famous Ben Tahn Market. (I think that I might have spelled it wrong) Anyhow, I can't find the pictures of it to upload for you to see, but it is an experience none the less. People go the market daily to buy their food for the day. They do not have the luxury of large refridgerators and pantrys to stock up on items so if they want eggs and fish for dinner then they go to the market and buy it fresh. So fresh in fact that the fish are still swimming. The butcher pulls it out of a bowl whacks it with a board to kill it and then throws it on the table top to clean the scales off. Some Vietnamese eat frog, snails, and some even eat dog. We didn't see any dog at the market for sale but we did see a mo-ped carrying a cage full of about 6-8 small fox sized dogs headed to sell them for eating! Willow should be very thankful that she lives in America!! Anyhow, we spent that rest of the day waiting for all of our documents to be completed and gathered. By 4:30pm we had them and so Henry took Mark to the local airlines office so that we could purchase a ticket for Hanoi that night! We flew north and arrived at about 9:30pm. Henry did not come, he needed to stay back to meet another family. We were met by his assistant and she took us to our hotel. We were all settled in by midnight! By Wednesday morning we were feeling a little bit better and headed down for breakfast at the hotel, Caleb loves soup for breakfast, actually for most meals! So we loaded him up with a bowl of egg drop soup and I thought wow looks good until I noticed that the "mushrooms" were not really mushrooms but snail! Aagh!! Mark thought it was good and had a bowlful, I ate toast. After that we looked into tours of the famous Ha Long Bay. We were able to get in on a two day one night trip last minute and rushed up to our room and pack a bag to leave right away.

Couple of Pictures in Vietnam

From our Hotel Room window, the Duxton. Looking out towards the Saigon River at night.

Mark's favorite picture! These guys are painting this store front but they don't have a ladder to stand on. So they have stacked up some paint buckets on top of a stool and the guy is on his tip toes stretching to paint the top!! Talk about persistence.

Medical Exam back in HCMC

Meeting with the Doctor to discuss Caleb's medical health required for entry to US. Caleb weighed in at approx 10-12kg (He didn't want to stand on the scale) He wears a size 12 mo. in clothes and a size 4/5 in shoes and a size 3 diaper. The Dr. informed me that Caleb has a large forehead (this is a wives tale in Vietnam, big foreheads mean big brains = smart) and that with his outgoing personality he would be a very smart boy and do well in school! Very medically sound diagnosis!! But as his mommy I will have to agree he is very smart. He catches onto things very quickly.