Christmas '09

This year we were HOME for Christmas. By home, I mean our townhouse in Saigon. This is the first time in 8 or 9 years that we weren't somewhere else on Christmas Day. I can't complain because "somewhere else" usually means a beautiful beach like Pukhet or Koh Samui, but it was terrific to be home for the holidays! I'm heading to the airport in about an hour, but I wanted to post some Christmas pix. (We're going to Angkor Wat in Cambodia. Sooooo excited!)

Happy holidays from our fam to yours!

Mike went to Bali in November for a school trip (tough life!) and brought this awesome guitar mirror for Aidan.

Brenna really, really, really wanted a camera. Santa heard her!

We are lucky to have Mike's brother Dan and his daughter Hannah with us during the holidays. Aunt Lisa and Uncle Andrei sent Brenna and Hannah a fun karaoke gizmo for their iPods!

Aunt Lisa and Uncle Andrei sent Aidan a strobe light, some fun drum stick pencils and these awesome things you stick on your walls and then you can write on them. If he doesn't put them up within the week, I'm totally stealing them! He really wanted a strobe light! Who knew? Apparently Aunt Lisa! We tested it out several times - very cool and very seizure inducing!!!

Grandpa relocated to Sun City, Arizona this summer and sent Arizona State t-shirts for all 3 grandkids. They're styling!

Hannah loves CSI New York and CSI Miami, so we're sending her home with both series for her viewing pleasure. (Que The Who theme music...)

Santa brought Aid Skullcandy headphones. Trendy, but great sound. Those big, Princess Leah headphones are sooooo back in style.

What do you give a teenager who's growing up in Asia? American junk food, of course! Brenna gave Aidan Doritos, Pop Tarts and an AW Root Beer for Christmas. Uncle Dan and Hannah added to the collection. He was a happy boy!!!

Vacation: Intrigue, Deceit and VICTORY!

I can't believe I forgot to post this picture in my first vacation post. Brenna loves to play Spy Alley and I stink at it! Spy Alley is a game where you pick a card that tells you your spy identity - which country you're from. It's a secret, of course. The object is to gather up spy items (passwords, keys, codes and disguises) and make it to your embassy before someone correctly guesses what country you're from. You make decisions to throw people off, etc.

Here's a typical game for me:

1. I randomly pick a card - Germany - and NO ONE sees.

2. I pick up the die to roll for my first roll of the game. I have an empty board and I'm still on Start. I shake the die in my hand like a pile of salted peanuts.

3. Before I even roll the die Brenna says, "You're German!"

4. Now I have to play it cool and not show the shock and disbelief on my face, so I reply with, "Yup, I'm German." or "Why don't you guess right now?" - If a player makes an incorrect guess, they're out. What I really want to say is, "For the love of God, how do you ALWAYS know my identity???"

5. I make it through the game until Brenna lands on the safety spot. This is where players can guess the identity of another player and if they guess incorrectly they stay in the game. Brenna excitedly blurts out, "Mom's German!" and I hand over all my money and spy items to my 11 year old Spy Alley whiz kid.

6. I ask Bren, "How do you always know what I am?" She replies, "I can just tell!" Huh? "You just look German." What does that mean??? Makes me a tad suspicious. Is my sweet, fun daughter a Spy Alley cheater? I don't think so. I've kept control of the spy cards and shuffled and made sure everything was top secret and she still guesses correctly.

Tuesday, December 23rd was a good day. The sun was shining, the air was clean, something magical was in the air and I WON AT SPY ALLEY!!! I was playing with Hannah and Brenna and here's the victory photo I took. As you can see, my opponents were not thrilled with my victory!

Vacation: Part 1. So Far, So Good!

Our 3 week winter break officially began at 12:30 on Friday! Woo-hoo! Mike and I started our vacation with lunch at a local pub with a bunch of other teachers. Then Mike went to get a haircut which includes 45 minutes (or more!) of an incredible head massage/shampoo.  I went downtown with 3 friends and got a foot, head, arm, back massage at Royal Foot Massage. It ended with an awesome back massage that looked painful, but felt great. Ahhh!

Left: Long row of massage gals giving foot massages. 70 minutes of bliss for $7. Nice!

On Sunday night, my friend Laura from SAS came to spend the night. It was so fantastic to spend time with her! Luckily she enjoys playing card games. Brenna is a card game addict and she taught Laura a couple new games. Laura then beat us at most of the games. Geez! We played A LOT of games!
Left: Brenna teaching Laura how to play Rat-a-Tat Cat on our rooftop terrace.

Left: Laura heading back to the airport. She loooooves Vietnam, so hopefully this wasn't her only stay at Chateau Williams!

Last night (Monday night) Mike's brother Dan and his daughter Hannah arrived close to midnight. I thought they would be zombies today, but they were amazing! We went to The Gourmet Shop for breakfast (left).

After a leisurely breakfast and of course a stop at the smoothie stand, I took Brenna and Hannah to get our nails painted. The girls had a lot of choices to make. What color?? What designs??

They watched TV while being pampered. Not a bad life for an 11 & 13 year old!!!

The final result! Christmas trees, snowmen, wreaths, snowflakes. Soooo cute and festive!  :o)  I got french tips with a Christmas tree on each thumb!

In the afternoon we went downtown. We walked around the backpacker area, shopped at Ben Thanh market and went to an early dinner at Quan An Ngon, a delicious restaurant with very local food. The owner took the best street stall cooks and created a restaurant. They all work in their own area. The menu is extensive with both food and drink and it's very cheap. Mike and I love the vermicelli with friend spring rolls and it's less than $2.00.

Steroid Snail Update

Well, I found out that gigantic snails leave gigantic....poop. Hmmm. Not really sure what to say about this. Anyone?

The Snail That Ate Saigon

Yes, Loca is a territorial, yappy dog. But since we've gotten here she's grown accustomed to our little front yard and all the happenings in the hood. She generally doesn't bark when she's out there. She barks when someone right at our gate. This morning she was barking and barking and barking. I looked out the window and she wasn't by the gate. I started to think that maybe someone was IN our yard so I went downstairs to take a look. She was barking at a snail. Ha! What a whimp! Barking at a snail! But this was no ordinary snail, this was a snail on steroids! This was Super Snail! It was huge. Vietnamese people are the smallest people I've ever seen, but damn, they grow BIG snails! I took a picture and held my sunglasses to give it some perspective. I'm not sure it does it justice. From the tip of its head to the tip of its tail, it was about the length of my sunglasses. I've never seen a snail the width of my face!

Terry Fox Run 2009

This morning we did the Terry Fox 5K Walk. Terry Fox was an amazing young guy from Canada who lost his leg to cancer and then ran a marathon, EVERYDAY for 143 days across Canada to raise awareness for cancer research. He wanted to run from the Atlantic to the Pacific, but after 143 days he had to stop because the cancer was in his lungs. What an incredible person! There are Terry Fox runs every year around the world. We've participated in them in Venezuela, China and now Vietnam.




Mike, Brenna, Loca and I did the walk. Aidan wouldn't get out of bed. Geez. Below are pix from the day. Big crowds!

Hot dog! Loca walked for most of it, but petered out about 5 minutes from the end, so Mike helped out. Poor little thing!

Foxy Family!

We went out to breakfast at The Gourmet Shop cafe after the walk.

Expats in the Hood!

I really like our neighborhood. We live in a townhouse less than a mile from school. It's a straight shot to school - we go out of our complex and go down the street until we hit the school, no turns, no bends in the road. But the street we go down is my favorite part of this whole area. There are cafes, restaurants, smoothie stands, massage places and more. It just has a cozy, fun, vacationy feel.

The other night Mike and I were having a little date night. While walking home from the smoothie stand we stopped in to The Tavern to listen to some live acoustic music. A female singer and 2 guys on guitar playing Aerosmith, The Beatles, etc. I love having all this right outside our door.

Below are some pix from our hood. Our little corner of the world that we call home right now.

Mike talking to the smoothie stand folks. We're regular customers!

The friendliest smoothie stand lady. I think she smiles at us so much because she wouldn't have a job without all our smoothie purchases!

One of the many cafes on our street. They hang lights in the trees. It looks festive every night!

Another cafe.

This is one of our favorite restaurants. It's called Vegas and has good food and an awesome salt water fish tank. I'll have to take pix of the tank the next time we go.

Just so you know we really live in Vietnam - here are some grilled chicken feet! Yum! They're a favorite in Vietnam, China and probably other Asian countries. I think I'll pass, thanks!