Good Evening Vietnam

It's nearly 10 p.m. and I'm pooped. Both kids are asleep and went down themselves from exhaustion tonight. Still feels weird saying kids. Someone in the elevator told me yesterday that my kids are beautiful and I had to hesitate for a moment. For four years, I've been focused on one kid and it's a bit of a brain exercise to think in the plural now.

Speaking of elevators, the male incarnation of Eloise at the Plaza (a.k.a. Max at the Melia) did a very naughty thing today. While he was on Tom's watch, he escaped from our room and decided to ride the elevator by himself to the 3rd floor and back. The good news is he came right back and didn't get off on the third floor (where the outdoor pool is among other things) or go anywhere else. He loves to push elevator buttons and if he doesn't become an engineer, he may get a job as an elevator dude though he hates wearing hats.

I'm not entirely clear yet on the story and am even less clear on how Tom managed the situation but I do know that when I came back to the room, the first thing Max volunteered to me was that he had done a very terrible thing. He told me what he did and frankly, my first reaction was to laugh as it was all in the past tense and nothing bad happened. But I restrained myself and told him not to ever do it again. We've now taken to bolting the door closed but it's a matter of time before he figures that out too.

We took Molly for her first swim today. She was very brave and thankfully the water is warmer than Betty's pool. She didn't cry or scream and just seemed to take it all in. After 15 minutes, she was even kicking her feet a wee bit. We fall deeper in love with her every day and are charmed by her big smiles and giggles.

The Vietnamese are very kid friendly and love to touch and hold babies. There doesn't seem to be any negativity whatsoever about us foreigners adopting their babies. The doctor at the SOS clinic told me that he thinks that so long as everything is above board and clean, the Vietnamese people are glad the babies are being taken care of and given new opportunities.

We signed up for an overnight cruise on Halong Bay for Saturday night, figuring that there isn't any paperwork we will need to do in Hanoi over the weekend. We are very excited to get out of the city for a wee bit and I'm hoping that it's a little cooler there. If you're interested in where we are going, check out emeraude-cruises.com.

Tomorrow is our first interview with the U.S. Embassy. I pray all of our paperwork is approved and in excellent order. Please wish us luck because we need it. With any luck, we'll be heading home sometime next week - probably in the middle of the week. While it's tempting to explore some of Vietnam - like going to Sapa, Hue and HCMC - we both realize it's time to come home. Traveling in the equatorial heat with a four year old and a 4 month old is not heaps of fun. And I know we will come back to this area again some day to show Molly her native country, as we hope to do with Max and Korea. Though I'm kind of nervous about people not being nice to him after the indifference we encountered in Cambodia.

The highlight of my day today was buying a bunch of fresh lotuses. The woman, sporting the stereotypical conical hat, was going to charge me 500 dong (just over a quarter!!!!!) but I didn't have any dong so I gave her a dollar and she was beside herself.

Outside, the streets of Hanoi are busy and noisy with lots of cheering and shouting going on. Apparently, Vietnam won another game today in the Asia Cup so there's call for lots of celebration. At first, I thought perhaps there was revolution going on but we hardly have to worry about that anymore.