The day before the Big Day

Doug reaching for his money at the market - me telling him what to buy - different country, same routine!


Woman cutting a yet-unidentified fruit

Norah and Cocoa taking a break from walking in a park

Sweeping? Raking? leaves in the park

Impromptu restaurant around the corner from the hotel


Monday we were up by 6:30 (you know, typical day for us – ha ha) and out walking around early. We thought it was busy yesterday, but it was crazy today! The hotel did not have an adapter for the computer (thus the late posting) and we had to wait until today to buy one at the “electricity store.” The front desk wrote down the address and said they’d call a cab for us. It turned out that the store was literally around the corner from the hotel! We felt so silly for taking a cab. Maybe we still looked weary from the jet lag and they didn’t think we could handle the few meters from the hotel to the store! Well, we showed them and walked for a long time all around taking in the sights. We found a market and bought some fruit as well as a few snacks for Norah who seemed to be melting from the heat.

Loan (our agency’s representative here in Vietnam) came around noon and we signed a bunch of papers in preparation for tomorrow. It took over an hour and Audrey kept Norah entertained the whole time, which was great. We found out that Luke is about 20 lbs and likes to eat lots of baby cereal. Loan says he’s a happy little guy (yeah!) and is quite active (uh… wait a minute – we must assimilate him into the Lazy Bones Family). After paper signing we ate at a yummy vegetarian restaurant in the touristy part of town. And then Audrey and I went to pick up a few groceries. We had a quiet (and a little Zombie-like) dinner by the pool at the hotel and most of us had an early night to bed again. I stayed up until 2:30 AM (yes, that’s HCMC time) finishing some work that had to get done that should have been done before I left. I know, I know, not so smart of me, but those who know me well are just shaking their heads knowingly right now. I’ll be in tip-top shape tomorrow, given our start time….

Loan gave us the choice of going to get Luke at 7:00 AM on Tuesday or 10:00 AM. I think Doug’s really excited because he chose 7:00 AM without missing a beat!

We made the decision that we will leave Audrey and Norah in HCMC for the day and go get Luke in Ba Ria-Vung Tau. The drive could be as much as 3 hours each way with a lot of paper signing. Luke also has scabies, as do the other children in the orphanage and we’d rather not expose Norah and have to treat her. She’s been having a bit of a rough time and the new-found familiarity of the hotel with its pool, playground, and play room seem likes like a better place for her to be. We should be back by 5:00 PM so plenty of time for meeting her baby brother and bonding then.

Talk to you next time when we’re a family of four (plus Audrey, who we like to call our Aud Pair – sorry Kyle, Sophie, and Rick – I think she might have to live with us now!).