Long Day

What a day. I can't even remember what I posted previously so forgive me if stuff seems redundant.

On the adoption front things are finally making sense. We do have a G&R date of the 13th and I am counting down the hours until I get to bring the twins "home" to the hotel with me. It will be a hard weekend, but we are going to visit on Sunday in the morning, I expect it will be a longer visit than we had the last time and I hope to be able to play with them and interact with them more. I say I because Brian will not be there. Our travel agent emailed us to let us know that there was a change in Brian's scheduled flight on sunday and to head straight to the airlines office to work it out. Long story short, Brian would have to leave earlier on Sunday only to arrive home on the same flight (11-12 hour layover in L.A.) or he had the choice of his previous schedule the day before or the day after. So since we have really just been touring, we have decided to send him home a day early. We both miss the older two so much and this way he will be home with them when they arrive home from Florida. It will also give him about half a day to sleep before they get there and hopefully that will help him with the jet-lag that we both dred quite a bit. I am going to miss him. I do look forward to dad coming on Friday though, and only monday will be spent alone as the babies will keep me company from Tuesday on...in fact I have a feeling we will be very busy with appointments and lovin's from the minute I get them! We are hopefull to make our flights home, but I am not going to hold my breath....if we make them it will be picking up the babies Visa's THAT day as the schedule has no room for error. I can not imagine it will be too hard to hit US soil before the end of the year though and ultimately that is my goal...I want to make sure to be home in time to qualify for the tax credits, other wise I might be getting a job!

Adventures for today:
We went a good little jaunt to the airline office, and from there headed even further south to the Bookworm bookshop. A Wonderful little shop owned and operated by a French guy that spoke superb English. I sold him a couple books and bought a couple books (quite activity for when babies are sleeping.) I do hope to go back as he did say how he would like to see the babies. IT's a great place to stop if you are in Hanoi, his shop is very nice and for 50,000dong we got a very detailed map of the Old Quarter. We also stopped at the temple that is on Hoan Kiem Lake to see the red bridge and to go around the little island a bit. The temple was very pretty and has this huge preserved turtle inside it. The story goes something about a great warrior who defeated many invaders and drove them out of Vietnam, however a great turtle one day comes out of the lake and takes his sword to the depths of the lake (it is a VERY murkey lake) and the country enters into a very long period of peace. Hoan Kiem means restored sword, so it is the lake of the restore sword. The Vietnamese believe it is good luck to see a turtle therefor in the lake, and while we were exiting, one popped its head up, a good size looking one too! The people scrambled about to try to see it or take a picture. Must have been a luck day for them, but to me it was simply wonderful to see their excitement as from what I can tell it does not happen often.
Back to the hotel to try to change and arrange who is picking Brian up from the airport....let us know if any of you are interested!
Out for lunch, had wonderful spring rolls (mine fried, his fresh) at a place called Little Hanoi. VERY good. From there we started a little shopping spree. I bought Aoi Dai's for the girls (traditional Vietnamese outfit), smocked embroidered linen dresses for the babies (4 of them for around $24USD total!), Christmas gifts for my niece and nephews (can't tell as I know their mommy is a faithful reader!) and some balls to take to the orphanage for the children there to play with. We brought some of the small pre-packaged candy canes to take to the orphanage as well, hope that they are allowed to have them and that they like them.
It is funny, but they do celebrate "Christmas" here in a sense. There are decorations with Santa, and the store fronts are all done in red and green, with snowy looks to them...but not a single reference to the origins of Christmas anywhere. We do get a kick out of the decor though and I am going to add pics to the slide up top here in the morning. It is 3 AM now and I need to get back to sleep or I will get my sleeping all messed up again.
Jenn