December Chill

The Saga Continues (from Dan's Newsletters),

The story of each of our lives, recently, has been mingled. Where one goes, pretty much all go, which makes for a nice linear adventure. At this point, you could give us a Choose Your Own Adventure book, but we’d read it straight through like 2^nd grade me, and we’d be no more nor less enlightened nor confused about what is going on in life.

We start this month in Boise at Thuan’s sister’s house. We attended their ward Christmas party and had to explain several times that we were neither new, nor visiting non-members. The girls both dressed as Who’s from Whoville, and Debrie stuck chopsticks in her braids so that they stuck straight up. Debrie helped her aunt make a Christmas cake. The next day we went to the zoo where all the kids had a good time. Ronin and Darion were particularly excited to see the different animals. Thankfully the weather wasn’t too cold. We then said our goodbyes, stuffed ourselves back in the van, and headed off to Soda Springs.

December was a pretty chilly month all over the Northwest.  We continued our trek across Northern America.  We've thoroughly enjoyed every part of it.  We slept in many beds since we left Vietnam.  I believe Dan counted 20+.  We left Walla Walla and drove to Boise where we saw my sister and her family.  They had a Ward Christmas party Whoville themed so naturally we got creative with the hairdo.  My sister had a brilliant idea of using chopsticks to make the hair stick up!  The girls got a lot of "wow that's awesome" at the party

Here are the behind the scenes of the picture above

Debrie was the social butterfly with my brother in law's mom.  They played games together and chatted up the storm about Vietnam

We took the kids to the Boise Zoo.  Everyone had a great time.  We got some pretty awesome donuts and made cakes and sweet treats for the holidays

Grandma's House (straight from the newsletter written by Dan)

It was good to see Grandma and the kids were excited to have cookies. We helped her out where we could, and hope we did more good than the boys did harm. We attended church at Grandma’s ward. The EQ pres was not in attendance and had not, according to the rest of the presidency, prepared for his absence. So EQ was mostly me talking about our church experience in Vietnam. Thuan’s experience in Relief Society was spent in the nursing room, but thankfully the rest of the kids had a good time. The girls, still grateful to have an actual building full of people that speak English were more than happy to attend primary. Dan realized later that night that he had forgotten his laptop charger in Boise, which puts a damper on working. So we planned on leaving Soda early the next morning to get to SLC so he could buy a new one. This did not happen, as we missed Grandma too much and work can stuff it. We did eventually leave, though.

While visiting grandma I had a neat experience with nephew Nicholas Applegate.  He was working with a Vietnamese investigator of the church and needed some translating work since the investigator doesn't speak much Norwegian.  It just made my day to chat with him.  It made me so glad to know another language.  Wish my Spanish could be as good as my English and Vietnamese.

Idaho didn't fail us and gave us a nice snow fall.  The kids really loved it

Looking back we wish we had stayed even longer with grandma.  It was really hard to say goodbye.  She is just the sweetest.

We stopped in SLC, both to get a charger, and also to see the lights at Temple Square. We did not stay long, though. None of us were prepared for the cold. The warmest jackets we had were some light hoodies from Sydney. What do they know about cold? So we bundled in multiple outfits and braved the cold for as long as we could, stopping inside the old Tabernacle for a slight respite. Then drove off to Aunt Cheryl’s house in Midway, AKA, midway to nowhere.

While in Midway, we made a trip to Thanksgiving Point for the dinosaur museum we knew the boys would love. The girls like it, too, but Ronin couldn’t stop running. Each exhibit was cooler than the last. How can you stop at the Precambrian exhibit when the Mesozoic Era is around the corner? He went around the whole museum twice. We did eventually have to leave but only pizza, fries and popcorn could bribe that kid away. The next day was a more relaxing day. Thuan drove back into the inhabited lands with Aunt Cheryl to see some friends and other things while the rest of us stayed home and I worked. That night, we left Midway, and drove to Roosevelt, UT for the viewing of a close family friend of the Nguyen’s. The survivors were surprised and happy to see us. We tried to find a hotel in town, but after a couple of turns down the main drag with no luck, decided to get partway to Vegas and finally pulled into a hotel in Price, thankful that we didn’t slip off the road or have to get out for a breakdown as the temperatures dropped below zero for much of the way. This was where Thuan had her first class. She is teaching English to Chinese kids. They do it in the evening, which is early morning in Price, UT. So Thuan had to use the bathroom of our hotel room to try not to wake anyone. Darion woke up anyway, and I had to take him on a drive until he fell back to sleep or Thuan was done with classes, whichever came sooner. She finished her classes first. After a stop in Richland for lunch, and a stop on Durango to wash our car, we finally made it to Mom and Dad’s in Vegas.

Papa wanted to take the kids to the park and so we did.  There are parks in Vietnam but they are on hard cement usually and they make me nervous.  We did discover a really nice and padded playground near Asia Sun World but that is closer into town and a 10 drive from the beach

The Kilo Ren scar
One night at the hotel Ronin and Darion were playing and all of a sudden we looked at Ronin's face and he was all scratched up.  He didn't even cry or said anything was bothering him.  We had no idea where it came from and when we asked him, he thought of it, and said "maybe it was Darion"

Dan's mom brought out some photos she found of us when we were dating.  What a wonderful surprise!

Have we changed much?

After a few days at Nama and Papa's house, we went to the kids uncle Jeff's house and the cousins got to hang out with each other for a few hours.  We got to meet his new baby Charlotte

Little Miss Charlotte looks a lot like her siblings.  What a cutie!  After Dan held her I asked if he wants another baby and he was very quick to say "NO I don't want to set us back to sleepless nights and poopy diapers haha".  Darion is probably our last baby unless we have an oopsy.  Dan also has convinced himself that 4 is a perfect matching number, especially with our 2 girls 2 boys ratio.

 We said our goodbyes and it was hard, too.  All of these little trips' goodbyes have been hard because we love the people so much.  We wish more could visit us while we're in Asia but it is costly so we understand.

Hello Tucson

We spent more time at the house in Tucson than we had spent anywhere for almost the prior two months. Not enough to stop living out of suitcases, but enough that we had some sense of stability.  It was great to see my mom again after Detroit.  She was at my sister's house for 4 weeks helping her recover from giving birth.  We had about a week with her and then she went back to Philly

Ronin loves his new cousin Micah.  He sneaked kisses all the time, like A LOT of kisses.

Highlights include watching Star Wars several times, including opening night. We made a trip back in to Phoenix. While there we saw Krista and her family and went to her older boys’ basketball game. We also stopped at Tiff’s and saw all of the family except Chad. Amber had just arrived. Dinner was delicious. We drove back to Tucson. We attended the local ward Christmas party, somehow started looking for land/houses, and then were visited with the stomach bug. Thuan’s sister Thao started first, then came Debrie. The next night Thuan had enough of that, and took the rest of the family to a nearby hotel, leaving Debrie to get over it, and Dan to help her. That night, Dan came down with it. Thuan left the city. Seriously, she drove back in to Phoenix, saw Krista and Tiff and some cousins. So there Dan was at my Sister’s house trying not to vomit, and I was several hours away visiting his family. There was a newborn, so I just stayed in the room. Debrie was feeling healthy at this point so she took care of me. Christmas Eve was spent at the short church service, and then packing up. We had a quick and early Christmas with the family that was there, then drove to a hotel across the street from the airport. Early Christmas morning we had a flight from Tucson to LAX.

I took some newborn photos for my new nephew.  You can see of his photos on my website here: http://seastevensphotography.blogspot.com/2018/04/baby-micah.html
He's just the sweetest little thing

Before the sickness came in we were able to squeeze in swimming and meeting Santa and Christmas shopping.

My sisters and I went out for some yummy pizza downtown

These are the cousins I got to see that I haven't been able to see for years

The Flight Back to Vietnam
I have never flown over the Pacific Ocean as many times as this trip over such a short period of time.  It was rough but at least the meals on the plane was good and the entertainment was even better.  They had cozy blankets, slippers, toothbrushes, and coloring/activity books for the kids.

No long layover goes unpunished, so our flight to Seoul was delayed. We only had a one hour layover in Incheon, so they delayed us three hours and told us it was due to weather, despite there being nothing but sunny skies for the past several days. When we arrived in Incheon, we found out our flight to Da Nang had been delayed as well, but had just departed about the same time that we were getting off the plane. After much cajoling, the airline, out of the graciousness of their cold black hearts, had decided they would be willing to put up our family of six in a hotel with a single double bed, thank goodness they had extra beddings so we jerry rigged some beds out of extra sheets and blankets. At least it was in the airport so we didn’t have to figure out transportation and go through security again. The next earliest flight they could get us on was noon the next day. Thuan’s last unvisited sister had changed her vacation plans to be in Da Nang and we had left on Christmas morning so that we could see each other there. You can imagine losing a day was no skin off the airlines back. We finally arrived in Da Nang. We spent the next couple of days visiting with family, went to Hoi An for a celebration, ate lots of food, tried to overcome jet lag while people were in town, and picked up our stuff from Thuan’s aunt’s house, finding that some of it had succumbed to mold due to the amount of moisture in November. We had brought back some Christmas stockings to make a feeble attempt at bringing a more traditional Christmas vibe, and we didn’t take them down till much farther into the next newsletter. From November 7 to December 26 we slept in 18 different places, not including 2 overnight flights. It feels good to finally grab some clothes from a drawer or closet rather than rummaging through a suitcase only to find everything has been worn three times already. It’s winter, now, so we’re staying further from the beach in what could probably be described as downtown Da Nang. The place is growing on us, much like the mold.