Thursday, March 12, 2015

I quiet possibly may have had my worst night sleep ever last night!  Yup!  I went to bed around 930/10ish and was still WIDE awake at 2am, but like, uncomfortably awake.  My legs felt really restless and I was just not a happy camper.  When I finally did fall asleep I was waking up every 20 minutes or so. I didn’t take a sleeping pill because I was so tired yesterday that I thought I could have been tired FROM taking a sleeping pill and/or since I was so tired Id sleep well!  Ha! That backfired.  Anyway tonight I will definitely be taking something.

We stopped at the coffee shop as I definitely needed a little help this morning and then hopped on the #3 and we were on our way! 

When we got off the bus there was a little iced coffee stall (I look for the word sua which means milk in Vietnamese and that usually means iced coffee with condensed milk…heaven).  So anyway I decided I wanted to try some of hers (along with some pepto bismol since I really don’t want to be sick).  I pointed to what I wanted but she actually spoke some English!  She asked where I was from, if I went to the orphanage every day, and something else that I had no clue but I answered yes.  Hopefully “yes” was an acceptable answer.  Anyway her coffee was DELICIOUS and 1/3 the price of the coffee shop, so I hope she’s there next year because I will definitely be a repeat customer (assuming, of course, her stuff didn’t make me sick.  “Street food” is a dangerous game).

I may have had the best greeting ever from Cap today – I wish I had it on video.  He saw us coming in and starting laughing and got the BIGGEST smile and starting running (as best he can with only being able to use half his body) toward us.  It was AWESOME!  He grabbed by hand and we RAN back to the big room…I THINK because he wanted to tell Dorothy we were here.  And then he pointed to the strollers and started getting everyone in order so we could go out.  Thoung needed to put away his things, Dorothy needed to get organized, etc.

The majority of the kids were in the new clothes we got them – which was AWESOME – and VERY thoughtful of Yen!  We gathered our crew, Cap, Dorothy, Thoung and some mystery child a worker put in our stroller and got ready to head out.  Cap yelled for Bob who was walking down the hallway to get his butt ready to go outside!  Oh and Katrina came as well!

We got our group to our usually spot down the other end (it’s secluded and quiet) and got ourselves set up.  I think Cap just grabbed the iPad out of the backpack and brought it to Dorothy, who LOVES the App “cut the rope” and is actually pretty good as she understands the concept but when she cant figure it out she grabs me and half the time I cant get it either!  The kids LOVE having a speaker plugged into their “device” (there were VERY few pictures today as our iPhones became on of the things they played with) and once of their favorite things was an app that has animals and modes of transportation and when you press it it makes the sound.  They LOVED it!  Thoung mostly loved when Mom would make the same sound (or try to) as the app, he was laughing so hard!

I decided to take on George II again for mealtime.  He seemed unhappy and was complaining for a bit and kept pointing to where we keep our backpacks.  He sometimes sounds like he is speaking (although I cant really tell) so I had no idea what he wanted.  I remembered he really liked the books of pictures of years past we had, so I grabbed him one of those and he LOVED it – all smiles!  I think at this point Cap and Dorothy had the iPhones, but since they needed to eat I went to grab the phones to play some music for George II and he LOVED it!  He knows twinkle twinkle so we hummed that a bit as he ate (very slowly, but he ate).  Then Bob was hanging around so I found, not just Gangman Style, but the MUSIC VIDEO.  Heaven, Bob and George II LOVED it.  At this point most people were finishing up so I thought George II needed to speed it up.  The kids usually get a fish/rice combo in one bowl and a broth in the other, which sometimes I mix to make it easier (the fish/rice is REALLY dry).  Today we didn’t get the broth but milk instead and since George II was really slow because it was so dry I mixed in a little bit of milk to make it easier (or so I thought).  He was NOT impressed and clearly gave me a look of “I am not eating that”.  Sorry George II.  He ate about 2/3s of his bowl AND he was happy to drink the milk so I figured that was good enough and tried to cover up his bowl so the ladies wouldn’t see J

After some clean up we got everyone on the little mats for naptime but had some fun with the iPhones before they went to sleep.  The animals/modes of transportation was a huge hit (George II was laughing up a storm) and Cap loved the motorbike (he would go, vroom vroom) and the bus/traffic (he would go, beep beep with his hand on a horn). 

Yen also took a lot of pictures so I am excited to see if we make her FB page!  We had great goodbyes and got lots of hugs and kisses and waves from all the kids!

Goodbye hugs from Cap!

I had another fab shower (I don’t think there is such a thing as a bad one after time with the kids) and some food and was hoping to take a nap since I barely slept last night!  I still couldn’t seem to get comfortable, my legs hurt, my hips hurt, I literally felt like a 90 year old lady!

It did feel really nice to rest, but I was almost more frustrated that I wasn’t sleeping!  Oh well, hopefully tonight I will be out like a light!

We headed out to 4 P’s Pizza for dinner!  We had been once in the past and really liked it so off we went!  It was delicious and pizza was a welcomed change from pasta ;)

We then made our way via taxi (my hips are SO SORE – I need to learn to squat like this).

Not a whole lot, although there is now a Burger King (so Scott you can join us next year and feel at home) but other than that it was the same craziness of last year.  It was funny because we both realized we hadn’t seen so many non-Asians since we arrived!
to the backpacker’s district to do a walkthrough and see if anything had changed.

After exploring we made our way to Chill Skybar.  They have a great rooftop open air bar and its fun to see the traffic below.  They try to be high end (dress code, velvet ropes, guys who man the elevators) and last time there was a huge fiasco because Mom wasn’t wearing the appropriate shoes so they gave her some loaners that were far too small…you get this picture.  THIS time we came prepared with “special shoes” AND made reservations and were treated like the high society we are!

We had a nice night just watching the traffic go by but then were ready to head back as we have an early morning tomorrow!

We have tried, whenever possible, to spend a day or two someplace outside the city before we return home.  As I think you can tell from my blog, it’s crazy here and both physically and emotionally draining.  So, we love to have a day or two to decompress before coming back to the grind!

This year we chose a resort outside of Hue, which is about an hour’s flight north of Saigon!  I think we are both excited to see a new area and to get out of the city for a few days!