Jennie's Big Trip

So, we've been silent on the blog scene for way too long! In short, Jennie took a 3-week trip to the States for a sibling and spouse reunion on a Mexican Riviera Cruise - Christian and my sister's husband couldn't come, and they were missed! Here are a few of the many activities we did on the ship.

Jennie rock climbing - just about there...and just about out of steam.

Natalie, Emily, mom, Jennie and Micky, step sister, ice skating.

That was an unusual sensation to be skating around while you could see through the windows that the boat was rocking up and down.

I took this photo, so I'm not in it nor is Micky & Briant.

Melissa, Danny & Natalie, Emily, Michael & Maile, Misty & Mark, mom and Briant. So this was our party gang! We had so much fun! ...more to be posted in later blogs.

A week after the cruise, my brother Michael got married to Maile Janiec in the Salt Lake Temple. Yes, this is the cute girl who came to nanny for us in Prague one summer - and saved our lives!!! A year ago, Maile came to Grandma Bitter's house to visit us and see our new baby, Anneliese. Just after she arrived, Michael came over and they met for the first time. They hit it off, dated for a year and got married. They are so good with each other. Here they are exiting the Temple as a newly-married couple. Happy times.

It was great to come home and be with my husband and kids again. I missed them a LOT and was going through serious withdrawls of hugs and kisses from my family. Whenever I was around children, I had to constantly fight the urge to run across the room, scoop them up and smother them with kisses and hugs. Let's just say that I've gotten my fix since coming home!

The Alley

One of my favorite things is to go shopping in the ally next to our house. This morning was a typical Saturday shopping trip, basket on one arm, 2 kids trailing along holding my other hand. I absolutely LOVE it! No matter what the weather, the shops along the alley are bustling with activity, people eating in mini-restaurants, fish and eels flopping around in plastic bins, meat being chopped on wooden blocks, chickens being plucked, fresh tofu floating in plastic buckets. Here is a photo of what we usually eat for breakfast on Saturday morning. It's oatmeal for the kids and I, and bagel sandwiches and fruit for Christian all the other days of the week. Below we have Xoi Gac, Xoi Lac, and Xoi Xeo, wrapped in a banana leaf and a piece of newspaper. Xoi is pronounced "soy" but it means sticky rice...yum!

The Xoi Gac gets its red color from a orange-red spiky fruit that grows here. It tastes sweet and has loads of vitamins in it. It is especially good for children and eyesight. The Xoi Lac is cooked with peanuts and it has dried shredded pork on top and a nice little dipping pile of salty/semi-sweet roasted chopped peanuts and sesame seeds. The Xoi Xeo is yellow sticky rice with slices of dried cooked "mung bean" on top and fried shallots. It's all so fun to eat.

A funny thing that happened this morning was I asked for them to cut the bones and skin off of my chicken. They laughed! Every person around the butcher table laughed too and continued to say - she doesn't want the skin and bones! They humored me and the second the pile of skin hit the "parts tray" (nothing is wasted), someone snatched it up - what a find! I'm sure it will be the talk of at least a few kitchens tonight.

Everyone in the alley watches us come and go. We're regulars there and many people call out, "come buy from me." Many people ask what nationality I am, how old I am, if I like Hanoi, etc. Today a cute white-haired woman with pretty eyes asked me if I spoke French. I replied that I spoke a little and we had a nice little Vietnamese-French conversation. It was cute and it reminds me how lucky I am to live here.

Mom's Musings About Kids

I'm planning on posting some Easter pics, but not yet. Here are some things worth noting that have happened in the past few days.

I explained to Xander today that he could have one piece of candy now and held it up in my hand, or he could have 2 pieces of candy in 15 minutes. I showed him how long 15 minutes would be on my watch and asked him if it was a long time or a short time. He said it was a short time. So, I asked him again what he wanted and he said "One piece of candy in one minute!" I could tell by his answer that he thought he had said the best answer. He turns 4 years old next week, so maybe we'll try this little test again when he's a bit older. The study says that 4 year olds who will grow up to be successful children will choose to delay gratification.

Driving in the car with Xander...

Xander "Mom, does Heavenly Father have a cell phone?"

Mom "No"

Xander "Does Jesus have a cell phone?"

Mom "No, why do you ask?"

Xander "How are we supposed to call them?"

Mom "We say a prayer if we want to talk to them."

Xander "Oh" - didn't seem too impressed that gadgets, flashing lights and beeping noises weren't involved.

Unrelated to this. I asked Xander to say the blessing on the food for dinner.

Xander "My blessings don't work"

Mom "What do you mean?"

Xander (serious face) "They don't work"

Time for another conversation about prayer. He has said this about bedtime prayers that his "prayers doesn't work." Guess we haven't done a very good job resolving this concern yet.

Anneliese is becoming more mobile. She loves roaming from one no-no to the next, which keeps mom constantly on her toes. New no-nos include:

- The toilet, and today she discovered the toilet paper roll - wow! That was a lot of fun.

- The garbage can! Ew! She stands up, reaches over and grabs whatever she can and throws it onto the floor. Then she happily sits down to play with her new toys. Today she was busy shredding a banana peel into tiny bits when I found her (in Vietnam the peels are thinner than in America) - double Ew!

- Mom's purse, primary bag, and bookcases are favorites to empty out.

Emma just started a soccer class in her after-school activities. She was excited, but said that all the boys in her class complained that she had never played before. The coach put her to work kicking and practicing to be a goalie. She was so excited that she was able to stop all of the balls that came her way in practice. Way to go Em!

Tonight at dinner Emma asked if she could have her own iPod.

Mom "What? I don't even have my own iPod! I have a Shuffle that I got when I turned 30."

Emma "Well, at least can I have an iTouch?"

Mom "We're done with this conversation."

I'm thinking what music does she think she's going to listen to? Disney?

Every night before Emma goes to bed she asks me or Christian to tell her a story when we were little. I told all the favorite ones months ago, but she still asks every night and it's forcing me to delve deeper into my past to recover little tidbits of my life. I really should write down what I tell her so that I can remember 20 years from now. It's been a good exercise.

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.