Wednesday in Hanoi

So I have to say that since I have been over here, I've found a lot of things:

• I can't keep my days of the week straight
• I never know the date
• I think that dinner that costs more than $3.00 is too expensive
• I've learned that I never really forgot all those barney songs. Some kids channel is mostly all that I have on over here, and I find myself subconsiously (sp?) singing along with them all....

Chloe has been a very good baby today. We practiced crawling today. I put her on one side of the bed, went to the other and tried to call her to me. She really WANTS to crawl, but most of the time just ends up crawling in place. But with much effort, frustration, and tears, she made it over to me. It took her about 10 minutes, but she did it! And she was really excited when she did!

So, did I mention that everyone tells us that Chloe is older than she is? Well, I asked Thuy about it, and she explained to us that most babies from orphanages are more developed. They have to learn to play with themselves, entertain themselves, feed themselves (hold the bottle), so they naturally develop faster. Most Vietnamese babies are very spoiled by their parents, and their parents do everything for them until they are much older. So just because she is more developed, doesnt' mean she's older. Although she probably is, just not by much.

Anyway, I found that interesting.

We go pick up the babies' passports tomorrow. We go for our first embassy interview on Friday at 1:30. Our medical appointment will be either Monday or Tuesday. Our second interview will probably be Wed or Thurs, and then the Visa would be issued the NEXT day by 4, meaning Thursday is probably the earliest we could leave, getting back Friday. Possibly we won't be able to leave until Friday... Of course this is all best case scenario...

Being Alone...

So I've almost made it through my first whole day by myself with the baby. I think you guys might hear from me more now, as when Chloe is napping, I don't really have much to do...

So today we went and applied for the babies' passports. This part of the government seems VERY efficient, more so than the US!!! Four families went to apply for the passports and we were in and out in about 10 minutes. Nice! Then we went to get the babies' pictures taken for the Visas and medical exam. That, again, took maybe 10 minutes. So we got everything done, and including travel, in about 30 minutes. I think that's the fastest we've done anything so far. We spent about 30 minutes earlier this morning doing paperwork. So we're done with all paperwork!!!!

So I thought we would have been more adventurous as far as eating goes. But really, we've been quite lazy. We basically have our two main staples, and then a few we throw in every once in a while.

Today I had cashew chicken for lunch. For dinner, a club sandwhich, french fries, and an apple crumble tart thing. Pretty good...

I talked in another post about how much I love the pineapple here. I try to stay stocked up in it. Chloe and I went for a walk today and got some more. While the lady was cutting it up, we got pounced on by the lychee lady. She unpeeled one and had me taste it. It was pretty good. You just peel the outside off, there's a seed on the inside like in an avocado, and the fruit that surrounds it is like the texture of a grape.

So the lady offers me this HUGE bag and tells me 20,000 dong. I tell her that's too much. Not the money, the amount of fruit. So she splits it up and hands me about 1/3 of the fruit...I ask her how much...she says 10,000 dong. (At this point, I'm wishing the pineapple lady would get done). I offer her 7,500 instead. She says no, 10,000 dong! I tell her to forget it and start to walk away. Pineapple lady hands we the pineapple and we start to leave. I still have the money in my hand and the lychee lady starts following me, hollering something. I turn around and she takes about 4 of them out, shoves the bag in my hand and snatches my money. I guess I can't complain too much, as it cost approx $.45, but I'm pretty sure that I just got ripped off by the lychee lady. I paid the same amount for these things that I paid for the AWESOME pineapple...

But what do you do???

Back to the post topic...being alone. We bought a stroller, so it's nice for going on some short walks with Chloe. We keep them pretty short, as she doesn't like being in it for long. But mostly I'm just hotel bound. (And Mark thought HE was stir crazy being in the room...) The other families here have been awesome, helping out whenever they can. I've had every meal delivered to my car, visits, help lugging my bag around, etc. So that is totally awesome.

Chloe is constantly crying...the only thing that soothes her is if I am standing up walking around with her, or feeding her. Most of the time only the bottle works. I feel like I am WAY over feeding her. But she throws up so often, I'm not sure if the bottles count! She also regular spits up. I've considered whether this vomiting is due to overfeeding, but I don't think so, as she's been doing it from the very start, and we've only been giving her 4 oz at a time.

I guess its unfair of me to say constantly. It just seems like constantly. She's such a funny baby. She's either REALLY, REALLY upset and crying, or she REALLY, REALLY happy and laughing. She's so adorable when she's happy. (She's adorable when she's not too :) ) I think we'll have a lot of real good bonding time.

So Chloe's "birthdate" is 01/02/2007 . Thuy elaborated that by birthdate, it simply means the day that they were found abandoned...they don't try to estimate the baby's age. For example, in our group, there are two babies' whose birthdates are two days apart...they are both just 3.5 months. But if you look at the two babies', they are so obviously further apart in age. So its possible that one was abandoned right after birth, while the other baby was taken care of for awhile.

Everybody (vietnamese) seems to think that Chloe is older than what she is as well. In about a week or so, she'll be about 5 months old. I really have no basis to say whether she is or not. She is small, especially in comparison to all but the little 3.5 month old baby. Some of the clothes that were too big for Chloe were too small for the other bigger 3.5 month old baby. So who knows... I just thought that was interesting.

Anyway, I'll end with a few pictures of the day:

Advice Needed

For the most part, Chloe is a very good baby. She has her moments, but nothing out of ordinary. She likes to be held ALL the time, and not just held, but held while you are standing up. Otherwise she'll scream. But she's getting better. I think she's just used to all the attention right now and likes it!

What I need advice on is this...

Chloe throws up after every time she eats. Its always either one of two consistancies: Completely clear liquid, sometimes with speckles of formula in it, like the water completely seperated from the formula; or thick and pasty, like the formula without water. Notice I am saying she is vomiting and not spitting up. The stuff smells like vomit--you know acidic and gross??? I was thinking she might be having a bit of acid reflux, but the problem is that she doesn't seem uncomfortable or cranky while she eats or after. When she throws up, she doesn't seem uncomfortable either. Its the vomit smell that has me curious. I guess it's more of a convenience thing right now, as no bib or outfit can be used twice. When you calculate how often she has a bottle, and it happens everytime she eats, you can see that it really adds up. And it's always the vomity type stuff, not regular formula spit up. I can definitely smell the acid in it as well, so I'm curious why its not hurting her little throat...

I'm wondering if it might be something that goes away when we switch her to her new formula...

For now, we've just been feeding her more upright and trying to keep her upright for about 30 minutes after eating. It helped a little, but the problem is still persisting. But maybe this is normal in some babies...not sure...

Anyway, feel free to offer your thoughts....

Random Stuff

So Chloe has been really good about sleeping through the night. She'll wake up a few times for a bottle or diaper change, but in all, she usually sleeps about 12 hours at night. Notice that I said usually. She's been up since 6 am today! I'm trying and trying to get her to go back to sleep so that I can take a shower, but doesn't look like that's going to happen. (Her going back to sleep, not me taking a shower)

So yesterday's G&R definitely did not happen exactly smoothly... We were supposed to be ready at 830am for a G&R at 11am. At 830am we found out that it was postponed and that we would leave at 11am. At 11am we were told it was delayed again, now we leave at 2pm. At this point I didn't have much faith that it would happen...but the van showed up! So we all piled in and made our way to the province.

Did I mention that it was SUPER hot and SUPER humid over here??? Well, it is. So we FINALLY get to the department of justice and Thuy tells us that we all have to wait outside until they call us up...no waiting room. And by wait outside, I don't mean in the van with air conditioning, I mean OUTSIDE. So that was fun...

We finally got called up. We started out by filling out some paperwork, signing some forms. The guy doing the ceremony definitely wasn't happy with us...he lectured us about how by law, they have so many days to process the paperwork and that they were actually early, not late. When you tell that to people who have just been sitting in country for 2.5 weeks, it really doesn't mean much...

They asked us if we changed our minds about the adoption, we of course said no. Then they have us the signed adoption decree. That means that Chloe is officially ours, according to Vietnamese law!!!

So today we are going to go apply for the passports, visas, and have visa pictures taken. I think we are back to expediting the passports...we'll see.

Well I gotta run and try to get a super quick shower. Love you all!

FINALLY...G&R!!!

First, I wanted to apologize for the lack of updates. We were supposed to have our G&R on Monday, the 14th. As you know that didn't happen. But we finally had it today. So basically we spent two weeks in country accomplishing not a single thing, procedural wise. Meaning now is when our "in country" time starts.

We have had Chloe since Friday, the 18th. We shouldn't have had her before the G&R, but we got her on a medical pass. She definitely has her fussy moments and she's been pretty congested. I also think she's teething. So basically the last week and a half has been spent waiting for news each day on a G&R, waiting for it to be meal time to go and eat, and then waiting for it to be bedtime. Therefore, I really didn't feel like I had anything that I could post yet. We wanted to wait until the actual G&R to start posting about Chloe.

IN GENERAL

Chloe has definitely kept our hands full. We've spent the last week trying to develop eating, napping, and sleeping routines. And let me tell you, this child will sleep through ANYTHING! Jackhammering, bumpy roads, horns, you name it. To get her to go to sleep, I have to take her set of plastic keys and rattle them loud and non stop until she's asleep. The second I start she closes her eyes, and if I stop before she's asleep she'll pop them back open.

She has gotten pretty spoiled with wanting to be held all the time. Her favorite song right now is the Itsy Bitsy Spider. In the time we've had her, she's learned to roll over from her back to tummy. She used to roll over and her arm would get stuck underneath her, but she's finally learned to get it out.

I will post about the G&R sometime tomorrow. We had a rough night once we got back to the hotel. She slept the whole 2.5 hours drive back to the hotel, then was quite upset once we got here and I put her to bed. She probably cried for a solid 45 minutes.

Mark left the department of justice early in order to make his flight back tonight. So I'll be on my own for the next couple weeks.

I'm gonna get some sleep, as I'm all about sleeping when she sleeps. I'll leave you all with some pretty cute pictures. I have to say, I think she's the most adorable baby ever...I am not biased or anything:). She's got the cutest little crooked smile. And it's super cute how she likes to suck on her lower lip. Can't wait for all you guys to meet her! Hopefully we'll make the flight back on the 6th, getting in on the 7th, but that's being VERY optimistic...

This is Chloe after we got back to the hotel at close to 11pm. Not in the mood to sleep...

Day 11 &12

First off, Mark is feeling a lot better. It was basically a 24 hour thing. So that's good.

Again, things aren't progressing at the rate we expected, so I wasn't able to do the substantial update I thought I would be able to do.

Monday: We really didn't do a lot. We waited around until about noon to see if we would make any of our appointments. But we didn't. So we went to the market and did some shopping for groceries. On the way back we bought 2 pineapples from a street vendor. I have to tell you, pineapples in Vietnam are the best ever. They are so, so fresh, I've never tasted anything like them. And the ladies peel and chop them right in front of you. They do it with suck skill that when they take the outside off, they don't take ANY of the fruit with it!!! It's crazy! But it only takes them about two minutes!

After that, we ordered some pizza for lunch. Then we did a little more shopping. That's about it...

Tuesday: Again we waited until noon at the hotel. Then we went over to this dvd store and got a bunch of dvd's to keep ourselves entertained. We went back to our room and watched Chaos. It was was pretty good. We had never heard of it before...It had Jason Stathem, Wesley Snipes, and Ryan Phillipe in it.

Then we took a taxi with the other families over to a mall. We had dinner at an italian restaurant, which was pretty good. I think we'll definitely go back. Did I tell you guys that we had KFC the other day as well???

We came back to our room and watched Employee of the Month and then went to bed.

And again, now we're just waiting around the hotel room waiting to hear whether anything will happen today.

All that being said, looks like Mark is definitely coming back early. I think he'll get into Indianapolis on Tuesday at 3:40 or so...

Day 10-Continued

So it's almost 7pm Sunday night here...

Mark still is not feeling well. He's been having GI issues and has been throwing up all day. He's got a bad headache...I'm assuming from all the fluid loss. Another family gave him something to stop the vomiting, so that's been a little better, he's trying to drink some pedialyte. He hasn't been out of bed all day and we started him on some antibiotics, just in case. We're hoping it's just a one day thing...

I'm not sure what exactly made him sick. Yesterday we had breakfast in the hotel, same as normal. We got carryout from a resteraunt that we've frequently eaten at for lunch, and then we weren't really hungry for dinner, so we got an ice cream cone. If it is food related, it would make the most sense if it were the ice cream cone, but I had one too, although a different flavor. But I also tried some of his as well.

Anyway, hopefully he's feeling well enough to get out of bed tomorrow. I'll keep everyone posted...

Day 10

Well, today wasn't such a great day for some of us...

Mark got pretty sick last night. He hasn't been out of bed all day today. Hopefully he'll start feeling better soon. I don't know if it was something he ate, or what... Because of that, we've just basically stayed in the room all day. I went to the market to get him some sprite and crackers, hopefully he'll be up for eating some later.

So that's all for now...Hope everyone is having a good weekend!

Day 9

Today was pretty much a lazy day. We stayed in most of the day. We had breakfast in the hotel, ordered in for lunch, then just had ice cream for dinner. No real shopping. Today was kind of rainy...

I don't really have much to update, so I'll leave it at that. I'll probably do a short update tomorrow, then Monday, hopefully we'll have a substantial one...

Thanks everyone who is helping out at home, we really appreciate it. Hope Sammi and Raj aren't being too difficult.

We're going to have a lot of organizing to do when we get home for Chloe's room. Going through what actually fits her, etc.

Day 8-Friday

So it's 10am and as far as we know, the G&R is still on! Unfortunately, I think that most of our clothes are going to be way too big for her!!! We'll let you know how it goes and post pictures later...

In the meantime, any updates on Sammi and Raj would be greatly appreciated!!!

Day 7-Thursday

We missed breakfast today and decided to make an early lunch. I was a wimp and just got a chicken club, while Mark had a Bacon Burger. What is a bacon burger, you ask? Well, it's a not a hamburger with bacon! It's actually just a bun with lettuce, tomato, melted cheese, and a lot of bacon!

Afterwards we took a taxi to the museum of ethnology. My camera ran out of batteries while we were there, so we didn't get a lot of pictures. I haven't searched through our stuff for them yet, so I will post pictures later. It was definitely interesting...

Thuy told us that if we take a taxi, we should stick with CP taxi or Hanoi taxi. Some taxis will drive you around for a long time to run up the meter or will try some other scam. So we tracked down a CP taxi and headed out. It was about a 10-15 minute drive. It ended up costing us 80 dong, which is $5. While we were there we saw another lady from our agency who had come out by herself...we decided to split a taxi back to the hotel. When we went out, we didn't see either of those two taxi companies, so we just picked one and went. He ended up charging us 140 dong...twice the price as what we paid getting there!!!! Oh well though, what can you do?

GOOD NEWS! Supposedly our G&R is on for tomorrow at 3pm. We'll head out the orphanage at noon, have the G&R, then take Chloe home with us!!!! Keep your fingers crossed! After the G&R we have to apply for her passport, have two exit interviews, a medical check, and get her visas...then we'll get to come home.

Hopefully not, but it looks like Mark will be coming back by himself... :(

Day 6-Wednesday Morning/Afternoon

Today we got up too late for breakfast. Actually, if you looked at the posted time, we weren't late, but obviously they wanted to close early...


So instead we trekked over to Hoa Lo Prison, otherwise known as the Hanoi Hilton. It was built by the French during their occupation of Vietnam in 1896. It was used to contain the anti-colonial movement among the vietnamese. The site was the former location of a ceramic village.


Once North Vietnam was liberated, the Vietnamese used it as a state prison. From 1964-1973 it was also used to house american pilots shot down over Vietnam. Most notably was Senator John McCain, who was inprisoned there from 1967-1973. It really was quite interesting. Only about a third of the prison remains, as it was torn down to accomodate a hotel...

Here is the entrance:

Uniforms worn by the prisoners
This is how the male prisoners were housed. Their legs are shackled down on concrete.
A Closer Look
These are the public toilets
A better look. You have to squat over the hole... FYI we have encountered many of these during our trip....
Read the Sign and next picture...

These had to have been some SMALL people.

"Head Cutting Machine"
Air suit worn by Sen. John McCain when he was captured.... Random pictures on the way back to our hotel.

Statue of Ho Chi Mihn

Not sure what this is...

FYI-Per another family's blog, our G&R has been scheduled for Friday at 3pm...

Day 5-Tuesday-Ha Long Bay

In the morning we made the trip to Ha Long Bay. We had a good time, although it was a pretty long trip. I can honestly say that we are through will long trips, aside from picking up Chloe. It was about 3.5 hours each way. We don't regret going, but that much driving is really exhausting!

Here are some pictures of the landscape leading in to Ha Long Bay:



There is a fishing village on the bay that you will see a couple of pictures down. You can buy all sorts of seafood from them. What you are looking at right now is squid I believe...

Random pictures from the boat of the bay...
This is a cave that we explored. It wasn't discovered until the year 1994 when two little boys were playing on the bay. I guess a hurricane came through and while they were searching for shelter, they stumbled upon this opening.
This is a view of part of the bay from outside of the cave.

Random Bay pictures:

This is part of the floating village I mentioned earlier. The people live out here and get around by boat. They fish and give tours of the bay for income.

The children that live in this village did not attend school until the year 2000. A group came in and funded the building of a floating school so that the children could attend. I think they attend through primary school. It was either a group from the US or United Kingdom that funded it. The tour guide said that US, but it looks like the sign says the UK.

So we spent about 3-4 hours driving out here, 4 or so hours on the water, and then 3-4 hours back. Needless to say, it was a long trip. But it was beautiful out here and we had a good time.

Barter System

I am deleriously tired right now, so I will probably take a quick nap and then I'll post about our trip to Ha Long Bay.

In the mean time, I wanted to share a funny story.

As I mentioned above, I am super tired, so I don't know if things are just coming across extra funny because of it, but I don't think so.

So, for dinner we went to this resteraunt kind of across the street from our hotel. It had a mix of Vietnamese, Europeon, and Western Food. Mark gets a chicken stirfry thing, and I get prawns in Thailand sauce. I didn't care for mine too much, as the prawns had all its legs, tentacles, etc. Anyway, that doesn't matter, as it's not the funny part.

Our dinner came to 108,000 dong, including drinks and everything. One US dollar is about 16,000 dong. So our dinner came to 6.75. Anyway, we go to pay. Mark hands the girl 110,000 dong. The girl kinds of looks over at me and asks me if I have 3,000 dong. Apparently she doesn't have 2,000 dong to give us in change. I tell her we don't have that change. She looks around for a second, then kneels down behind the register and pops back up and hands us a pack of gum that has a 2,000 dong price tag on it and tells us to have a nice day! So we've now had our first experience of someone bartering with US!

Anyway, I'll post pictures of Ha Long Bay in a little bit! Hope everyone has an awesome day.

Oh yeah. G&R definitely won't be tomorrow. Thuy is hoping for Thursday, but we'll see...

SPECIAL REQUEST

MOM OR JASON

Mark has a library book checked out that was due yesterday, although at the time I'm writing this, yesterday is today for you guys.... In other words, it was due on the 14th. Is there any way that one of you could take it back to the library? Someone's requested it so we can't renew it. It's called Striking thoughts : Bruce Lee's wisdom for daily living. It is either on the dining room table or Mark's desk. Thanks!

I forgot to mention this yesterday. I did a stupid, stupid thing. We (traveling families) were all sitting around this big table counting out money to give to Thuy for all of our fees. I had all my fees in seperate envelopes for each fee. I also had an envelope for the extra spending money, including food and hotel costs. At first everyone was going to expedite the passports, but then we all decided against it since its very possible it won't make any difference. So I had to make some different change for that fee, so I had to get out the spending money. Once I got everything counted out, I gave Thuy our money. Instead of counting it, she just sticks it with the rest of the money that she had collected from the other families. Suddenly I look down and realize that I gave her the wrong stack of money! And I hadn't previously counted how much spending money we had left!!! After a few minutes of trying to sort through who had given her what, I think we were able to work our way backwards and get our money back. I just wanted to kick myself! And poor Thuy! She felt so bad for it, and she wasn't even the one who did it!

Anyway, I think we got all the money we had started with, so it was ok. It's a good thing that Thuy didn't have a bunch of money to make change with!!!

So that's all for now. We are off to Ha Long Bay for the day. Hope everyone has a great night!

Day 4-Monday

We spent most of today doing some shopping. It's been very interesting bargaining with the various vendors. They say that you should ALWAYS bargain. The vendors always quote americans higher prices, and if you DON'T bargain, it makes them take advantage of more foreigners.

Mark seemed to be a street vendor magnet! They followed him and followed him! For example, this lady REALLY wanted Mark to buy a Vietnam phrase book. She quoted him 130,000 dong. We say no, so she says 110,000. We say no again, she says she'll give us the book and postcards for 120,000 dong. Again we say no. She asks us what we want to pay. We try to tell her nothing, but she keeps following us and offering us all sorts of combinations of items for all different prices. That's just one example!

For lunch we stopped at this little place that had all kinds of different foods. Both Mark and I got the Singapore fried rice. It was pretty good. I thought it was pretty interesting that it came with a salad, garlic bread, and two onion rings. Weird combination...

After lunch we went back to the hotel and rested for awhile. Then we walked over to the Somerset to go over fees with Thuy. We've decided against expediting the passports, as we're not sure it will make any difference in the long run.

After meeting Thuy we went over to a marketplace. We did a lot of shopping there as well. They had a dog butcher shop! They had whole skinned dogs! Face, teeth, everything! It was crazy!
From there we went to a mall like place and did some more shopping. On the way home, it started POURING rain. We were really soaked by the time we got back to the hotel. We just ordered a pizza to be delivered to our room and here we are.

Tomorrow we are taking a day trip to Ha Long Bay. We should have lots of pictures so be on the lookout!

SIDEBAR #1:
Certain people don't seem to be answering my emails...I'm a little curious how my Sammi and
Raj are doing!!!

SIDEBAR #2:
I was rereading my previous post and I must make a correction. I was trying to tell you how expensive land was in Hanoi. I mentioned that a 40 sq meter piece of ONLY land coast between 200-300 USD. And it all had to be paid for upfront. What I MEANT to say was 200,000-300,000 USD!!!!


Here are some pictures of our hotel. This is the breakfast common area.

These are some items that we purchased today--items that Mark did not bargain for...
The rest are just pictures of our room!

Day 3-Sunday

First, Happy Mother's day to everyone!!!

Today was made the 2.5 hour trip out to the orphanage. It was very long and bumpy! It was interesting seeing how people lived outside of the city. It's really amazing how simple the Vietnamese live. There were tons and tons of shops and houses all along the way. There were many, many cows and water buffalo's roaming the streets the whole way. Apparently, water buffalo are similar to cats in that they wonder around and then are able to find their own way home!!!

Also, land is VERY expensive in Vietnam. You will notice that most houses are very small, but several stories. This is because of the price of land. In Hanoi, a 40sq meter (430sq ft) piece of land will go for 200-300 US DOLLARS! That the land by itself, not including the house. So they have to build 3-5 stories just have enough room. Out side of Hanoi in the smaller cities it would go for about 100 USD for the land. Still really expensive when you consider that the average income in Vietnam is 300 USD per year! On top of all that, you have to pay for the land upfront, no loans!

Anyway, here are some pictures from our drive:

After the orphanage visit we stopped for lunch at an Authentic Vietnamese place. It was definitely an experience, I'm really glad we went!

This is a picture of the actual building that ate at.

This is what was originally brought out to the table. I forgot to get a picture, but a little later they brought plates of fish.

Apparently you take all this stuff and make kind of like a taco with it out of rice paper. (The bus driver showed us!) Mark wouldn't try it, but I was all about it, as you can see. He made fun of me for eating paper... I guess some of us are more adventurous than others!

This was a type of soup that you put with rice. I loved that the fish still had its fins! It wasn't terrible, although not sure I would eat it on my own.

And last, but not least, we do have baby pictures!

We stopped at a big orphanage first because that's where one of the babies were. The orphanage itself was kind of nice. By nice, I just mean clean and well taken care of. We were taken into this room that was filled with babies on bamboo mats with mosquito netting surrounding them. We didn't see many older children, as I assume that school was in session.

There were these two little boys that just broke my heart though. They were probably both around 5 years old. I assume that one of them never got adopted because he had club hands. The first thing that he did when I walked in was slowly walk over to me and put his arms around me and hugged me! It totally broke my heart. He was smiling ear to ear and didn't want to let go of me!!! The other boy was very quiet and reserved, he just kind of watched what was going on.

After that, we traveled another 15 minutes to the smaller orphanage and met Chloe! She was just so much more beautiful and precious in real life than you can imagine looking at her pictures! I can't even describe how it felt to see her in person for the first time. She is definitely a tiny little thing. Most of the other babies from our group were younger than her, but she was the smallest. The baby from the other orphanage was the only one smaller than her. But she is just the cutest thing, and she looks very healthy. She didn't cry the whole time! She was very awake and alert and looked like a genuinely happy baby.

You could tell that her nannies really cared about the babies. We asked one of the nannies if we could take her picture with Chloe and you should have seen her face light up!

We found out how to pronounce her vietnamese name. It's kind of hard to write, as vietnamese is a tonal language, but here goes. Luong = Lu ah.

I know you guys have been waiting, so here goes!

Mark is a little squinty eyed in the picture, so I'm sure he's going to be thrilled that I posted this, but I thought it was a cute picture of her... :)

Here's a picture of Chloe with one of her nannies.

And finally, the first family portrait!

I think today will be a day filled with sightseeing and shopping. I'll post more later...hope everyone's having a great day!