Safely in Hanoi

We landed last night safely in Hanoi. Where is all the traffic? It is so different than the crazy, hectic people filled HCMC. We are at the Somerset Grand which is centrally located so during the next week while we wait on Hung's passport, we will do a lot of exploring. By foot. The boy throws up alot in the car. He also has never been on stairs which was interesting to see how he adapted quickly at the Reunification Palace (lots of stairs) in Saigon. He did fine on the airplane and was not stressed at all by the take off or landing. He slept most of the way. He loves yogurt and cucumbers dipped in soy sauce. He is also quite fond of little dried shirmp which taste remarkably like those fried onions in a can that you only eat Thanksgiving on green bean casserole.

Hung is not the boy descibed in the reports. He is not shy, quiet, afraid to talk to strangers, without humor or delayed. He is VERY LOUD. He flirted outrageously with a waitress in the airport where we had lunch yesterday. He was yelling after her to tell her he has 5000 dong (about 35 cents). He has told strangers that his new Dad has very large feet. He loves his handheld leapfrong video game. It is all in English and Spanish but he figured out how to do a very difficult game where he had to take different shapes and click and drag them into a puzzle. His spatial thinking is incredible. He wants to press every button in the elevator, turn the volume up on the TV and constantly picks up the phone (he called the front desk 3 times yesterday and hung up the phone when I was talking to Holt). There have been no tears and no fits yet. Lots of smiles and hugs but no kisses from him except when I asked for one at bed time. He mocked Lily when she was calling "come back, come back" in Vietnamese when he ran ahead of us at the airport. Overall, the adjustment so far is going way better than we could have ever asked for. Marshall and Lily are doing well. Lily is having a bit of a hard time with the green eyed monster and Marshall could use some along time because Hung wants to be all over him. Mrs. Moore and Mrs. Watson - please e-mail me the class Sype address. Marshall has lots to share. He will post to the class later on this blog. More good pictures to come! Wiemanns - Thank you for the simple sign language - it is how we are getting by!!!