On the way home!

Here's one last picture with our friends and hotel-mates, Nick, Becky, and Lya. Then we have pictures of the Hanoi traffic on the way to the airport! It's quite amazing.

Yes, we are just about to get in a wreck with that green car!

A woman walking her bicycle (with pineapples) right down the middle of the street

Note that in this picture we have buses, cars, motorbikes, bicycles, and cyclos!

This is a street we crossed on foot every day! Scary!

Bottle on the way to the airport.

Finally, our Visa!

Here we are at the US Embassy in Hanoi, getting the baby's Visa! Yea! We were expecting a scary "exit interview," but were only asked one question. It was something like "Is everything in these documents true to the best of your knowledge"? Relief. Now we can go home!

More hotel room pictures

Here are some more pictures we took in our hotel room, later in the trip. You can see that the baby is getting happier and smiling more!

Ready for an outing

With his doggie

In his new sandals

Hope daddy doesn't get mad when he sees this one!

Standing! Now he can do this all by himself (if he holds on to something)

Sitting (now he can do this all by himself!)

Bald spot....it's almost all gone now!

Here's me packing! I was so ready to go home that I started packing about 3 days before we left!

Another outing--Vietnamese Museum of Ethnology

Vietnam has over 70 different ethnic groups! We visited a museum that told us all about them. It was very interesting.....the best part was the outside display that had life-sized houses that different groups lived in. Here's their website: http://www.vme.org.vn/aboutus_history.asp

Vietnamese tourists who wanted to take a picture of us!

One of those houses I mentioned above....

Bag made of some sort of animal (reminds me of Ayla's medicine bag)

This is a bicycle with fish traps all over it. Someone actually rode it when it was full of fish!

Some official appointments

Here we are at Eddie's medical exam. He had to pass the physical in order to get a Visa for the US. On the same day we were able to pick up Eddie's Vietnamese passport. Yea! We were so excited to be making progress!

On the scale (it looks a little strange because I had to "crop" his you-know-what out of the picture!

His weight!

Being measured

Listening to his heart

Eddie with his new passport! Yea!

Tam Coc Photos

This was the best part of the day trip! It was absolutely beautiful. We took a boat ride through the countryside and into 3 caves. Unfortunately, it got really cold and rainy and we weren't prepared! All we had was one tiny blanket for the baby. He was stressed out from the trip and didn't eat all day. Finally, in the middle of the boat ride he decided he had to eat RIGHT THEN! It was so stressful then (I felt like an awful parent), but now it's funny thinking back about how we were trying to make a bottle in the middle of a river....the formula powder was blowing everywhere in the wind.

Our stressful feeding-in-the-river incident

Woman rowing with her feet

Inside the cave, looking at the entrance

Boat going in to a cave

Nick and Lya

Getting read for the ride! It was cold, but at least it had stopped raining!

PS. I figured out how to add more than 5 pictures!

Our first big outing!

Here are some pictures from our first big outing. It was long (2 hour drive) but beautiful day trip to Hoa Lu, the ancient capital of Vietnam, and the Tam Coc Grottoes. Here's a bit of information about our trip: http://www.footprintsvietnam.com/destination_tamcoc_hoalu.htm. Apparently I can only add 5 photos per blog entry, so here are pictures from the Buddhist temple at Hoa Lu. I'll post pictures of Tam Coc on the next entry.

Around Hanoi

We spent lots of time around Hoan Kiem Lake in the Old Quarter of Hanoi. It was just a few blocks from our hotel, and a lovely break from the crowding of the city. If you went early in the morning, you'd see people doing yoga, taking exercise classes, playing badminton, walking for exercise, etc. It was so interesting! You can read about the lake legend and see a few more pictures here: http://asiaforvisitors.com/vietnam/north/hanoi/hoankiem/.

The lake at night

A restaurant on the lake

One more hotel pic--he's reading about Vietnam!

First few days with baby

The baby's still asleep, so I'll keep posting! Here are some pictures of our first few days with the baby. We stayed in the hotel a lot for bonding and so we wouldn't overstimulate him.

Here Eddie's visiting with the two kids who cleaned our room every day. They were so sweet and loved talking to Eddie!

Playing the upside down game

Reading

In the carrier with daddy

Our first night with the baby

Hi all--

I'm still going through our trip photos and slowly getting them posted! Here are some from the first night with the baby. I can tell how much he's grown when I look at these pictures--he looks so small!

Here we are at a restaurant in Da Nang. Our agency facilitator ordered for us--real Vietnamese food. It was good! We were all pretty tired as this was the end of a really long day and our flight was delayed. Finally it left around 9:00 PM.

When we got back to the hotel it was almost midnight but he was wired....he wanted to play! We got out the toys and he played and played and rolled over and over them. Then his head hit the mattress and he was out! Probably a really stressful day for the poor guy, though you couldn't tell much by looking!

Here he is sleeping. We just looked at him for a long time....so cute!