Saturday, July 26, 2008

Home in the USA

We are home. Arrived Thursday. Have been home sick with cold and eye infection. Michael/Son is full of energy, too bad I'm not.

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

It's official

I'm now a mom. We will be flying back to the USA tomorrow night aroun 11:30.

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Grandma & Michael/Son is sleeping

It's Wednesday evening here in Dong Thap. It's not quiet 9 pm and the kids are asleep. Mom went down first.

I was happily suprised to find out Michael/Son was coming back to the hotel with us from the orphanage. We spent the day at the orphanage again. I got a few more photos from the nannies with Son's first birthday. The older girls were kept home so they could spend Son's last day with him. It was the first time we had seen them.

We had another feast at the orphanage. We also tried more wonderful fruit. The grapefruit was much milder than the US versions I've had. The little fruits lychee and rambutans were wonderful.

Around 2 pm Michael/Son was changed into new clothes that the nannies bought him to remember Viet Nam & them by. He was not happy to go into the van away from the nannies. He settled down after about 5 minutes. He liked watching the traffic.

Mom & I took him to our room. We had lovely flowers ther from LSS & Eureka. We got him into the room before the meltdown. After his drinks and snack, he had an accident with the meltdown. Cleaning him up was fun, because he did not want to go into the bathroom and I needed to clean him up and remove his wet pants.

Maggie (sorry I'm not up to spelling her lovely french name, so I'm using the one she we could call her) and Lihn (sp?) were back form there meeting. We all went out to dinner with some others from the Catalyst foundation. It was a lovely meal with lots of courses.

Yes I tried mouse. It actually wasn't bad. So those mice at work better watch out of I'll get a recipe. There were many other courses so if you don't like mice, don't despair.

Quynh let me borrow her computer again. So after getting Son/Michael to sleep, I figured I 'd try and update the blog. The blog works better than email at this location. I do one thing on email and then it shuts down. It happens on both AOL & Yahoo, so I think it is the connection.

Well, I better get to bed, tommorow will come too soon.

Friday, July 11, 2008

Off Until August

Bye have a great July.

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

UP & Running

YIPPEE! I have access from home again! It only took 3 tech lines and 2 installation cds to get this sucker working. I don't know it it's Vista, Dell or even me that was causing all the headaches, but it works!

I also tried loading my Quicken 2003. It works! I thought it was a long shot, but worth a try since I have 4+ years of data stored on it. Hmm maybe I'll try my old print shop program also, but later I think.

2 more work days to go. Today is the doctor's and my folks for packing experiment 1. Then work. Tomorrow nothing scheduled yet, but it's early yet. Friday we pick up visas and print out tickets. Saturday we fly away.

Connected again & Hotels booked

Well it took 2 cd installation disks and 3 different technial help lines to get me up at home, but I'm finally connected again. The speakers are acting weird but I can live with weird or no sound until I have the time and energy to trouble-shoot that. I think it's just cheap speakers.

I tried loading my old financial software onto the new computer and it worked. Yippee! I didn't want to learn another program if I didn't have to.

Onto the exciting stuff. Our reservations for hotel/apartments have been made. We get to pay the lovely bill today. We will be staying in the Cao Lanh Guest House while in Dong Thap. It's very reasonable, think YH (youth hostel) prices. In HCMC (Saigon for the older crowd) we will be at the Somerset Chancellor Court. And in Hanoi we will be at the Sommerset Grand. I googled them, they look lovely. As the family joke goes - definately Rotary Style. They are apartments with washers & dryers, full kitchens, the works.

Our visas, my mom's & I will be ready sometime late Thursday. We will be picking them up on Friday. I have the day off. Today I get to go to my doctor and try and get a prescription for scabies, etc. Mom & I are playing with luggage this morning also to see what fits.

Two more days of work and then I'm not due back to work until late August. The last time I was away from a job that long was when I quit my job in my late twenties to go back to library school. I took a 4+ week trip camping, hostelling and visiting relatives trip before school started. Wow time does fly. Italy in 2001, came close with 4 weeks off, that was lovely also.

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

77 Days the wait is over

Now I just need to survive the dash to get ready.