Today was a great day. We LOVE Vietnam! We love the people and the culture and all that the city is showing us. We love walking everywhere and I think the Vietnamese women really like my husband because I catch young girls taking his picture (or they think he’s some kind of freak—who knows?). Anyway, we woke up about 6am this morning and got an early start. Our hotel has a GREAT breakfast. I had traditional Vietnamese noodles with beef which were wonderful and a whole different taste for breakfast. After breakfast, we met up with another adoptive family and shared a cab ride to the Ho Chi Mihn Museum.
What an incredible place with so much history and surrounded by beautiful grounds including a 1000 year old temple. After this, we walked around the block and somehow got in the middle of a Japanese tour group. Because they thought we were part of the group, we were shuffled in by guards and brought into the grounds of the Vietnamese Presidential Palace (like the White House in the U.S.) We were cracking up because #1, we did not look like we went with this particular tour group (but no one questioned, so we persisted on), and #2, we were hoping we weren’t put on a bus and sent back to Cambodia or something . Anyway, the grounds and palace were beautiful.
Ho Chi Mihn was a great character and has such an interesting history. We have both been so amazed at how revered he is in Vietnam. We never could get to the Mausoleum which contains his remains, but we’ll try that another day. Once we left Ho Chi Mihn land, we traveled to a quilt store run by French folks who employ pregnant Vietnamese females to stitch quilts. We bought two quilts (one we took with us and another we ordered) for the baby and we picked out some goodies for the grandmothers back home. Their things were absolutely beautiful (and cheap!).
We laugh here because the denominations of money are so different. Approximately $1 US dollar is $15,000 Vietnamese dong. Therefore, when we cashed out $100 dollars, we were instantly millionaires (we got 1.5 million dong!). It feels so good to have what you think is so much cash. Our breakfast bill came this morning and it was like 98,000 dong. I thought to myself that we needed to budget a bit better until I realized it was like seven dollars??? I love this system! The taxi rides are $1 and we bought the kids (yes I said our kids plural) matching t-shirts and picked out a little Ho Chi Mihn t-shirt for the Bird which were dirt cheap. We cannot wait to send him back to his Free Will Baptist School in a communist party t-shirt (at least his Grampy will be happy).
Lastly, we have been trying to get ourselves mentally prepared for tomorrow. We should meet this little lady about 10am on Wednesday the 23rd of January (that’s about 10pm on Tuesday in the States). We basically meet her and then we are taken over to what is their court system to have a ceremony and then legally she is OURS forever. That sounds so wonderful and yet so surreal at the same time. We think we are actually VERY close to choosing her name. People have thought for months that we’ve known her name and just not shared it, but we really have not. We wanted so desperately to choose something that had meaning and yet was appropriate for what her personality might be. We still want to meet her, but I think we’re close (more information to follow on this grand announcement). We want to send lots of Love to our son (who we’ve still not been able to talk to) and to all the rest of our loyal followers. Please be praying for us as we start a whole new wonderful chapter of our lives!
What an incredible place with so much history and surrounded by beautiful grounds including a 1000 year old temple. After this, we walked around the block and somehow got in the middle of a Japanese tour group. Because they thought we were part of the group, we were shuffled in by guards and brought into the grounds of the Vietnamese Presidential Palace (like the White House in the U.S.) We were cracking up because #1, we did not look like we went with this particular tour group (but no one questioned, so we persisted on), and #2, we were hoping we weren’t put on a bus and sent back to Cambodia or something . Anyway, the grounds and palace were beautiful. 
Ho Chi Mihn was a great character and has such an interesting history. We have both been so amazed at how revered he is in Vietnam. We never could get to the Mausoleum which contains his remains, but we’ll try that another day. Once we left Ho Chi Mihn land, we traveled to a quilt store run by French folks who employ pregnant Vietnamese females to stitch quilts. We bought two quilts (one we took with us and another we ordered) for the baby and we picked out some goodies for the grandmothers back home. Their things were absolutely beautiful (and cheap!). 
We laugh here because the denominations of money are so different. Approximately $1 US dollar is $15,000 Vietnamese dong. Therefore, when we cashed out $100 dollars, we were instantly millionaires (we got 1.5 million dong!). It feels so good to have what you think is so much cash. Our breakfast bill came this morning and it was like 98,000 dong. I thought to myself that we needed to budget a bit better until I realized it was like seven dollars??? I love this system! The taxi rides are $1 and we bought the kids (yes I said our kids plural) matching t-shirts and picked out a little Ho Chi Mihn t-shirt for the Bird which were dirt cheap. We cannot wait to send him back to his Free Will Baptist School in a communist party t-shirt (at least his Grampy will be happy). 
Lastly, we have been trying to get ourselves mentally prepared for tomorrow. We should meet this little lady about 10am on Wednesday the 23rd of January (that’s about 10pm on Tuesday in the States). We basically meet her and then we are taken over to what is their court system to have a ceremony and then legally she is OURS forever. That sounds so wonderful and yet so surreal at the same time. We think we are actually VERY close to choosing her name. People have thought for months that we’ve known her name and just not shared it, but we really have not. We wanted so desperately to choose something that had meaning and yet was appropriate for what her personality might be. We still want to meet her, but I think we’re close (more information to follow on this grand announcement). We want to send lots of Love to our son (who we’ve still not been able to talk to) and to all the rest of our loyal followers. Please be praying for us as we start a whole new wonderful chapter of our lives!
