May Flowers - Always 2 there are

Always two there are (Always two views there are, too)
Things have been real busy around here and I always find myself adding more work to my daily routine that is already too busy.  I've also been lacking sleep a lot due to some small illnesses where I had to be the one taking care of people and then I also got sick.  We've done a lot of traveling (8 countries now since we left) and writing in my blog seemed to be the last thing.  It's so much easier to upload to FB and Instagram with a few caption and update everyone that way.  But writing can be so fun when you've got a moment or two and this blog post I started a month ago and I'm vowing to finish it soon.
To start my post today I want to point out how different we write from person to person about the same experience.  Take a look and you'll see what I mean.   

In Dan's version:

Thuan and I took a day date down to Phu Ninh Lake a little south of Tam Ky. In true romantic fashion, I hadn’t taken the day off of work, so a few times we sat around as I pulled out my laptop and coded some stuff. Turn about is fair play, so that night she taught her English classes while I walked around Tam Ky. One of her aunts and a cousin-in-law showed up afterwards and we ate dinner with them and then got on a train back to Da Nang.

In my version: Yes we had to occasionally work but we took off without the kids, which in itself is always a nice date.  We kayaked lake Phu Ninh, had a nice kids free meal together and while he worked I sat in a nice comfy chair, had my passion fruit mango smoothie and closed my eyes to the nice soft wind blowing my hair around.  We took some really nice photos that had people go wow and then I taught 2 classes at night, ate with my aunt and cousin and then went home after all the kids have gone to bed.  It was blissful.

See more pictures of this trip on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/p/BiV_1WmhbY9/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet

 Phu Ninh lake's main attraction had ziplines, paddle boats, kayaking, canoeing, resort style cabins and lots and lots of cute places purely made for pictures, a photographer's dream.  Most of these were taken with Dan's phone.

From Dan's Newsletter: As the weather has been warmed up for a while, we all went to a couple of water parks. Both are about an hour away and both times we went with our friends the Halls. The first was up on the side of a mountain in a valley with gorgeous views of the surrounding jungle.

The setting of this natural springs park was breathtaking.  Surrounded by mountains it boasts serenity and fresh air.  Exactly what we needed living in the city.

We had a fun full day in the sun.  Each of us walked away with a nice tan, hmm maybe I got a little too dark.  The kids are looking more Vietnamese now but everyone around us love looking at them because they are so different.

Dan participated in the dragon dance they put on.  Ok not exactly, he got to hold the dragon head and moved it for a bit.

One water slide was made of marble and designed to look like an east Asian dragon (you plop out of its mouth at the bottom). Debrie was turned away for being too small. Robert’s only an inch or two taller than me and maybe only 15 pounds heavier, but they had him stand on a scale and turned him away. They gave Reena and me protective headgear to wear and she went down with no issue. Only a ¼ of the way down I slammed up against the marble wall so hard my headgear came off as did my glasses. I was able to get the headgear back on, but never found the glasses. They let us look around the bottom for about 15 minutes (thankfully the park wasn’t busy) before I gave up hope. I have contacts but got a new pair of glasses a few days later for real cheap.

There is a fun art museum we discovered. It’s all just paintings on the walls and floors but from certain perspectives the art looks like it’s 3D. We took lots of pictures and the kids had a great time. We took like a hundred pictures here but here a few just to give you an idea.  The museum is 3 stories high and covered in art wall.  Never seen anything quite like this in the States.

I think this one where we all fit in the traveling bag is my favorite.  Often time when traveling we are reminded that 4 is the perfect amount of kids we could possibly do it without having to split up because hotels generally only allow up to 6 in a room. 

The kids started some classes. Reena and Brie both joined a drama class. They enjoy it a lot especially since all of the kids there speak English. Most of them are Viet, but a few are some variety of westerner. The teacher is a black lady from California, and there was a kid from Seattle for a couple of weeks, but she already left to go back. Ronin started going to a preschool with Thuan where she teaches songs. None of those kids speak much if any English, but he likes going there to be with them anyway.  We travel like ninjas to protect us from the sun.  We're one of the locals now.

I woke up to a nice mother's day breakfast in bed made by dad and the fantastic four.  I love my 4 little ones.  And for returning the favor mamma made them a heart shape bacon and chicken pizza.

We got a little cra cra and went and looked at pets.  I think we got a little bored doing the day to day routine after all the exciting travels.

After looking at the pets from the pets store we found a cute little park called the 29th of March.  Literally that is its name.  Shorten 29/3 park but in Vietnamese people say the 29th of March park.  I need to look into the importance of that day sometime.

Can you believe this is all in Da Nang??!!!  There is so much liveliness here and people are out and about just drinking, eating, and having a good time.  There are street food all over and high end restaurants.  Vietnamese people love to eat.

We took a trip north by car to see both Hue and Hai Vong pass. The latter was gorgeous. Standing on huge rocks on the side of a mountain we had beautiful views of the jungle and ocean. Then up to Hue where the old kings used to live. We went through a small exhibit of American war machines like tanks, anti-aircraft guns, and a few jets. The signs all claimed they had been bravely taken by the Viet Cong. Maybe my understanding of the Vietnam war is off by a couple of years, but the dates of their confiscation indicated that it was more likely that the US just left them behind. We also toured the old King’s palace. It was neat, but nothing like what you’d see in Europe so get that idea of a palace out of your head.

 Cute little resort we got to play and swam here for a good half of the day

 And somewhere in all the craziness of exploring the area we squeezed in a birthday party for this sweet little girl who just turned 9.  She has been a tremendous helper, babysitter, and our family pianist.  She is very talented at the piano, just ask her to play an hour of piano and you'll see.  She loves sitting at the piano playing.  We have to tell her to go back to her study all the time and it's usually because she's sitting at the piano playing.  She loves her piano teacher here, who is way better than her mommy at teaching her how to play.  She is our baker and loves to make sweet treats for us because she's just that.  Sweet.  She loves puppies so we agreed to let my family get her a dog.  So yeah we have a dog.  I'm still not sure about the whole thing.

For her birthday present we took her to the famous Vinpearl Land where she got to spend more time with friends and her family.

This amusement park is a bit south of Hoi An and is part of a larger amusement park. We spent most of the time at the water park, but when that closed for the night we walked over to the rides for a bit and had a lot of fun. We did a lot of rides for the kids.

Here are the rest from Dan's Newsletter:

One night after the kids went to bed Thuan and I rode our bikes to the Han River and found a little night market with rentable bikes, tandem bikes, Segway-ish things, small electric cars for kids, and other kid related activities, as well as food. We ate banh trang Da Lat which is excellent. We enjoyed it so much we brought the kids out the next night. They enjoyed it a lot as well. It only took Darion about 30 minutes to figure out how to avoid crashing into people and things! And more banh trang Da Lat; so good. I could almost be convinced it originated in Mexico.

Speaking of Mexican food, there was a couple (the Brockbanks) briefly in our church group as they travel the world. They left this month and so we went out to eat with them twice. Once at a taco place that had some decent Mexican dishes. Also in attendance that night were the Halls and an old friend of Thuan’s who was getting married and so travelled to see his family in Vietnam for his fiancee to meet. It was his first time in Vietnam since he left some 20 years earlier. The second time we ate out we treated everyone (about 13 of us) to my Quang. The bill came out to be about $18 total.

Thuan’s cousin, Tien – who was baptized last month – moved in with us. We celebrated her birthday with chocolate cake. We also celebrated Debrie’s 9^th birthday. She said she wanted a dog. Like that was ever going to happen. Thuan took her out to a pet shop so she could see some. Di Ba went to the country side and returned with a puppy that her daughter’s husband’s family’s dog had just had (this might be the same dog that bit me, but I’m not sure). So we have a dog. Why? I don’t know.

 Speaking of pictures, I finally got Thuan out to buy some Ao Dai (“traditional” Vietnamese dress if you allow French influence to be traditional). You try them on by having the staff hold fabric around you as if it were already made. We took a lot of pictures and then she decided which ones she liked most and we bought a few.

One week for church our group hit twenty people with a visitor from the states and a couple of friends and investigators. We’ve been told that if we can keep those numbers up the church will consider getting us an official place to meet. Granted, the next couple of weeks were back down to 15 or so. We also had branch conference. Our group is part of the branch that covers all of Vietnam minus the few branches in both Hanoi and Saigon. It was in Vietnamese but I was still asked to speak, so Thuan translated for me. Our primary (all six kids) was asked to sing a song. They were all prepared but it was very hard to hear the conductor and so we didn’t hear them inviting them to sing. We just had them sing to us locally. The mission president later apologized because there was some technical issues on his end that caused the sound problems. They sang beautifully.


Life is pretty blissful here and as an American spending is extremely cheap for everything except American food.  The Vietnamese people just adore our children and we feel like celebrities walking the streets here.  Thuan is asked almost every week by many schools to teach for them.  She has to turn down a lot but due to teaching English at night already but is having a lot of fun meeting so many people.  The kids love their extra curricular classes and activities but the best and most priceless experiences are those that come from traveling and living abroad.  Nothing in the States could come close to this.  No not even comparable.