Another Sunday night

It is hard to believe this is our 6th Sunday in Vietnam. Time flys when you are having fun??!

We had a great weekend. It started with happy hour on Friday. The usual gang got together (minus one who took off on a weekend adventure) for some wine and play time. The boys love it and well, the adults do even more! We headed across the street to a little Italian place. There is never anyone else in there so the boys pretty much take over.

On Saturday we went to a HOUSE for lunch. I know that doesn't sound like a big deal, but when you have eaten nothing except restaurant food (and crackers, baguettes, ramen and m&m) for this long nothing could sound better than a home cooked meal. One of the dads of the group grew up in Hong Kong. A buddy of his from then now lives and works in Hanoi (still following?). The dad isn't here any longer, but his wife and mother in law are so the 3 of us plus our two boys went there for lunch. The family has 2 girls and invited another expat family with 2 boys over as well. A great lunch of fried chicken, mashed potatoes and salad was the menu. I was so excited to have salad I couldn't even put dressing on it! Great conversation and play time and we passed most of the day.

Today - Sunday - we did the Red River boat tour. It is an all day event that started with us being picked up at 7 this morning. The boat leaves a little before 8 - I think there were maybe 20 people on board including our 3 families. We sat up on top in the fresh air, it was a very nice temp for boating! We cruised down river for quite a while. There wasn't a ton to see - the area around the river is not very built up once you got about 15 minutes or so into it. There were a lot of small boats doing some sort of work but we could not figure it out. It looked like they were pulling water into the boat and the dumping out black water. Who knows, but they looked very busy! We stopped at two different temples that were pretty cool. Part of me is now feeling "hey, you have seen one temple you have seen them all" but they really are very beautiful. The last stop was at Bat Trang, which has a huge ceramic market. They had tons of bowls, vases, tiles, knickknacks - in all sizes and shapes - for very good prices. I held off buying as my arms are pretty full for flying and I am not sure how the items would survive being checked in. We got back to the dock a little after 4, a long but very fun day.

Trey pretty much melted down once we got back - I guess up early, no nap and little lunch (but lots of crackers and oranges) aren't the best combo for a little one. Live and learn - it was totally worth it (I will let you know if I still think so after how he sleeps tonight!).

Fingers crossed that we will finally get our approval and be able to head home this week.

Enjoy the weekend!