Half Way There

We are halfway through Pete's three week trip to Vietnam. I hear from him about every other day by either phone or email. They have moved on from the town where the wedding was to the coastal town of Nha Trang (above). This is just a picture I found on the internet but I can't wait to see his pictures when he gets back (after I sleep for three days that is). He has eaten frog, snake and congealed pork blood but interestingly no pho. He said he usually tries something and then asks what it is. Luckily Pete will eat just about anything so he's enjoying the experience.

So while Pete has been immersed in Vietnamese culture the boys and I have been keeping busy. We have been so lucky to have lots of dinner invitations... and maybe even a few where we invited ourselves :) We are so thankful to have such wonderful friends and family who have been so supportive! This last weekend we rode our bikes to the shops down the street and Nick got his first salon haircut since Dad usually cuts his hair but didn't have time before he left. Luckily the boys have been pretty well behaved and we haven't had any major mishaps.

I'm a little worried that I've started talking to myself but other than that we're doing fine and we're starting to count down the days until Pete returns.

Vietnam - Week One

Pete and his mom and all of their luggage made it to Vietnam. The shot of cortizone into his spine seems to have worked and Pete isn't in as much pain and is able to enjoy himself. I didn't expect to see any photos until he returned but an aunt who met them at the airport took pictures and sent them to Pete's dad who sent them to me.

Luckily Pete has been able to email a few times and even call. We're not sure how often he will be able to communicate when he gets into the more rural areas but it has been nice to be able to keep up with how he's doing until now. A few of the tidbits he has emailed me or told me about.

• His uncles took him to a salon for a hair wash and then suggested he get a shave which included them shaving his forehead and around his eyebrows with a straight edge blade.
• They went to a coffee house which Pete said was in a very poor part of town but you walked inside and it was as nice as a 5 star hotel. A nice meal out for 10 is $35. Based off what Pete has learned that the average worker makes that would be over 10% of their monthly salary.
• My favorite comment from him was in an email which read "Got comments that I use chopsticks well for a Mi and that I'm not as fat as my photos." I'm guessing a Mi is a non-Vietnamese person.
• His uncles keep changing his food orders telling the waitresses not to make it too spicy. Hopefully they'll let up because he would rather experience the real Vietnam, not the dulled down American version.

I love the top photo. It reminds me of a game "Which one of these is not like the other?" That's his mom next to him and then the rest are the family of the groom from Colorado that they are traveling with and then members of his mom's family who live in Vietnam who met them at the airport.

The boys and I are doing fine so far. Noah especially misses his daddy and he doesn't quite seem to understand that dad is gone for three weeks. My mom is coming to stay with us two nights this week so it will be nice to have someone over the age of five to talk to :)

Not Your Typical Day Off

Today I took a PTO day to take Pete to a surgery center in the morning and to the airport for his trip to Vietnam in the aftenoon. Yes, that statement is as weird as it sounds.

Pete has had this trip with his mom planned for several months but in the last few weeks he has been having horrible back pain. He has been going to a chiropractor twice a day for the last week and on Monday he went to a spinal specialist. The spinal specialist recommended a shot of cortizone in his back via epidural. His doctor only does epidurals on Wednesdays and Fridays so this morning he went to the surgery center for his epidural. The epidural went well but Pete won't know for a day or two how effective the shot is in reducing his pain.

So now he's on his way to LAX to meet up with his mom and the other family from Colorado that they are traveling with. Then they have a 1 a.m. flight to Taiwan and then a connecting flight to Saigon. I'm very worried about him taking that long flight considering that he hasn't been able to even sit lately without horrible pain. I hope the shot works and he can enjoy this wonderful trip to see where his mom was born and meet her relatives.

One Year

We have officially been waiting one year for our adoption referral! We turned in our paperwork on April 3 last year and at that time we were 108 on the list and average wait times for an infant girl were 11-12 months. Fast foward one year and the average wait times are closer to 14-16 months and we are 17 on the list. Hopefully I won't be posting "two years and counting" next year but with all the twists and turns of international adoption nothing is ever certain. So for now we wait patiently... ok, maybe sometimes not quite so patiently but still we wait :)

Koumpounophobia

Noah loves hats, gloves, masks, antlers, bunny ears, socks that he wears on his hands as gloves... you get the idea. One thing Noah does not like, buttons. And it turns out, it's a real phobia! At first he wouldn't wear shirts with buttons on them. We thought it was a phase but it's been several months now and it's only gotten worse. Not only will he not wear shirts with buttons but if someone else is wearing buttons he won't go near them. I brought out my button box and apparently he is fine with loose buttons, it's only buttons on clothes that bother him. Now buttons has come to signify anything he doesn't like. He recently asked me to turn off a song on the car radio because he didn't like it and it "had buttons in it."


You know, of all the odd crazy things that I could and probably will experience raising children, I can live with a phobia of buttons. It just makes Noah that much more unique.

Hepatitis, Malaria and Typhoid, Oh My!

If you can't read the invitation it's because it's in Vietnamese... for a wedding in Vietnam... which Pete is going to. He's going with his mom who is related to the bride and is close friends with the family of the groom. His mom hasn't been back to Vietnam since she moved here over 35 years ago so it's going to be quite an experience for both them. They will be gone for three weeks (no, that is not typo) to attend the wedding and to travel throughout the country visiting family. Pete doesn't speak Vietnamese but he has traveled a lot and he can sleep anywhere and is willing to eat anything. He leaves right after Easter so for now he is busy getting ready which includes visiting the travel doctor and getting shots and taking pills. They also bought a water purifier so hopefully they can avoid any illnesses while they are there and just enjoy this once in a lifetime trip.

Apparently the wedding is at 4 a.m. (still not a typo). Apparently that is the hour at which one gets married in Vietnam. We finally bought a new camera and we also bought a camcorder so that Pete can capture all of the amazing sites.

To Change or Not to Change

That has been the question. For a few months now we have been unhappy with some of the changes at Noah's preschool. Not we need to pull him out to immediately unhappy, but more that it just wasn't the right fit for our family anymore. However, I was still hesitant to move him because of so much uncertainty in the coming months. My job isn't exactly stable at the moment and we are hoping to receive a referral sooner rather than later which means two trips to Ethiopia. On top of that was not wanting to have to deal with weeks of dropping him off crying as he adjusted to the change. Finally, we decided to go ahead and move him. We don't know what the future holds so we have to go off of the information we have today. Well, I'm happy to report that we made the right decision! We went for a short visit before his first day and he hasn't cried once at drop off. In fact he's run in each day with a smile on his face. His new preschool just recently opened so he's one of the first students in the program. On his first day they did a planting project that related to a story they had read. The second day he came home with this freezer strawberry jam he had made. Most important is that he is happy and we feel so much better about where he is spending his time away from us.


We are also thankful that Nick loves his Extended Day Program that he attends in the afternoons after kindergarten. Below is a picture he painted there. He said they had a video with someone demonstrating how to paint this picture and the teacher would play a little and then pause while the kids did each section. Do they have that for adults because I want to try!?