Walk-A-Thon for Blue Dragon

Emma had a walk-a-thon at school last Friday to collect money for the Blue Dragon Children's Foundation, which helps provide education, food and medical support to orphans and children whose parents are in prison. You can find out more information about Blue Dragon at the following websites: http://vietnamstreets.blogspot.com, or http://www.bdcf.org

Here is Emma running (green shirt and blue pants). She worked so hard and she was so proud of herself. As she ran, she kept telling herself "Don't stop, Don't give up, Keep going." Emma ran 10 laps around the track! Way to go Emma! Mom and Dad are so proud of you!!! The school had marked a normal-sized track on the soccer field for the kids to run on.

Thanks everyone who sponsored Emma for this event. She even sponsored herself and used 'fun money' out of her bank for her contribution. She raised a total of $185 USD! Below are some of her classmates showing off the marks they got from running each of their laps.

Super Junior

This is a rare blog posting by Christian. Last night Jennie and I went to a rock concert at the largest stadium in Hanoi. 40,000 of our closest Vietnamese tennie-bopper and young adult friends were all in attendance. The free concert was hosted by MTV, USAID and AusAid (Australian Aid). The purpose of the concert was to raise awareness of trafficking in persons - a really good purpose. MTV has been hosting these Exit concerts all over the world for the last several years to help educate and inform young adults of the dangers of modern day slavery.

Since USAID helped fund the concert, the Embassy got some tickets and we were able to go. I was surprised how sought after these tickets became. We were getting calls from all of our government contacts asking for help to line up tickets. There were several Vietnamese groups that performed - mostly pop, one folk and one good ol' fashioned rock. An Australian singer - Kate Miller Heidke - also performed. She was really good, and thankfully didn't sing her most famous song (if you are wondering what that is just google her name). Luckily, I didn't know until I got home after the concert and looked for a YouTube video of some of her songs.

The real reason the predominantly young female audience showed up for the concert; however, was to see the Korean Boy Mega Band Super Junior (also known as SuJu). They are one of the most well known bands in all of Asia right now and all the young female hearts swooned as they took the stage. It was quite a sight to see 40,000 young Vietnamese scream their hearts out for their very own Backstreet Boys wanna bees. Thousands of the fans had their faces painted and were carrying blue glow in the dark mini light sabers that they waved around to the beat while they danced to the band's music.

What really made me laugh was when the group introduced themselves in Korean (with corresponding screams from the fans) one of the band members launched into a long soliloquy in Korean that no one understood (I assume it was about trafficking in persons). It was pretty funny. Lucky for Jennie, she remembered to bring her earplugs. The music itself wasn't that loud but all the girls screaming made it quite the cacophony of sound. The whole concert lasted about 2 1/2 hours. Super Junior only sang 4 songs, but finished off their performance with their big hit "Sorry, Sorry" (above) which should be renamed "Shorry, Shorry" by the way they pronounce the word. We had a good time, even though we had to sit in our car for half an hour after the concert before we could move anywhere (we were boxed in by thousands of motorbikes). It was truly a Hanoi moment and a pretty good lesson in Asian sociology overall - and a fun evening to boot.

Adventure of the missing tooth

Emma lost another tooth and when she was showing it to Xander, it dropped on the ground and rolled underneath the oven. After a brief outburst of tears, I convinced her to try a rescue operation involving a flashlight and a long cooking chopstick. She took on the challenge and after many determined attempts she was successful and soooooo happy that the tooth fairy could come visit her that night. Please don't look too closely at the lovely crumbs on the kitchen floor.

Saturday morning Emma and Xander made a little Vietnamese specialty with Huong. It is glutinous rice paste with a sugar cube inside, boiled in water with sesame seeds on top. More or less like a gooey, stick to your teeth, eyeball-looking type of thing. We still have some left over in our fridge...want some?

Xander's favorite game in the WHOLE ENTIRE WORLD is hide and seek. I love the way he counts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 18, 16, 15, 18, 14, 17 until he asks "daddy/mommy, are you ready?" and when he gets a yes, he says "ready or not, here I come." He loves to hide where you hid last, and then he gives you clues by saying "over here" and whistling in his cute Xander way (more of a "woo-hoo." And then he is equally thrilled and surprised when you find him in his secret hiding place.

Here he is wrapped up in the curtains hiding (a no-no in our house by the way) and then a pic of him being found. Love you to pieces Xander.

New "Cwock"

Our little guy, Xander has been waking up WAY too early and it's cramping my style! We had a special date yesterday to go and buy a clock "cwock" (as he says it) for his room so he won't wake up too early. I am super pleased to report that it worked this morning - whew! We love the Asian-English printed on the clock. The froggy sticker on the short hand needs to line up with the froggy sticker between the six and the seven. This morning Christian said: you need to move the froggy sticker closer to the seven!

Xander fixing his Tonka truck with his repair tools he got for Christmas. He is blurry because he was working so fast and hard on fixing his truck. We have rules about what things Xander can 'fix' with his tools. He is often asking: mom, is it okay if I fix this? Sometimes it's yes, often the answer is no, followed by a good suggestion.

Group snuggle of Anneliese and Xander with Huong our housekeeper.

Happy Birthday Anneliese

Big helpers in the kitchen, swirling the raspberries in the mini-cheesecakes.

Emma and Xander singing Happy Birthday to Anneliese. You can hear Emma singing in the "baby voice" she uses when she plays with her Littlest Pet Shops.

Anneliese's birthday dinner - she wasn't quite sure what all the fuss was about. Xander didn't want to be in the photo, so I scooped him up anyway. Emma made the beautiful B-day sign.

Anneliese liked the whole wheat pizza better than the cheesecake.

Cheesecake-free and all squeaky clean.

Getting goodnight 'zerberts' from Daddy and showing off all four teeth while grabbing on to his glasses. We love this little pearly smile, and she loves her Daddy's tickly kisses.

Kids...

I have been meaning to post for over a week, but everything has been in Vietnamese on my blogspot page - so frustrating! I've been taking random guesses and clicking on things, but all to no avail. Christian set me straight again last night, so here goes.

I love the things kids say. Here are a couple things within the past week that have amused me...

Xander: "Daddy I want play in dirt with you"

Daddy: "I would love that"

Xander: "Where [is the] dirt?"

Daddy: "I love my little boy."

We live in a concrete jungle. However, we are thinking of putting a sandpit on our balcony. We saw some friends do it and we think it would be perfect on the 3rd floor balcony because it has an overhang, and therefore, precious shade from the sun!

Emma dressed up for school Performing Arts Concert

Family sitting at dinner table.

Emma: "Why do I have so many pieces of broccoli?"

Dad: "You have 6 pieces because you are 6 years old."

Emma: "Then mom should eat 100!"

Dad: Chuckling "Why is that?"

Emma: "Because mom is more than 100 years old."

Mom: Sitting at table, mouth full of broccoli "Wow! That's insightful"

Xander dressed in Chinese outfit at Embassy's Tet - New Years Party

Xander has a new way of expressing gratitude. He has been saying it for the past couple weeks to me and Christian at random times. We'll be playing cars, walking down the street, eating lunch or whatever and he'll say: "Mommy, you're so cute." I love my little guy's compliment.

Dragon Dance at the Tet Party

Emma was home sick yesterday and we decided to walk around and run some errands together with Xander. On the way back home, she said: "I really think that you and dad made a good choice. I mean, you're the bestest parents I've ever had. I really mean it." I asked her what good choice she thought we had made. She answered: "I mean that you chose each other to get married." I thought that was really sweet and again insightful to her more-than-100-year-old mother.

Anneliese eating her first Cheerios in Kenya

Crawling...

We have a crawling little girl! Anneliese had a silly little crawl with one leg out and one tucked underneath her. Fun to watch, but now even days after this movie was taken, she crawls normally and only sometimes puts her front leg out. We love our little toothy grinning girl!