Hi, good evening. I hope this blog post finds you happy and healthy. I wish it is November 2018 again. That was a great month, a phenomenal year. Everyone freely traveling, happy and healthy...but it isn't so.
I have found it extremely hard to justify the time to sit down and write, due to the nature of me having 4 kids and having mom guilt for taking me time among other uncorroborated excuses. It was a bit easier while living abroad because we were in a rental home. I didn't find the need to add my own touches to what was already set up. It was a fully furnished villa and it was a bit older than our brand new home we built here in Seattle, but that was ok because it was temporary and it was as close to native living as you could possibly get in an expat community. I didn't want to appear as a rich Vietnamese American to my family because heavens we got asked for help financially many times by distant relatives. Why did I mention all that? Well that was all to say I had a lot of time not doing house chores (I had help) and decorating.
Now that I'm home though I have spent many times with interior decorating. If you know me that is my happy place. I will focus on every crannies and every nooks until I'm satisfied which can be overbearing at times but it is what brings me joy. I simply love it and thrive on interior designing beauties. It isn't about the space that you have, it's about the details.
Without much further mentioning of excuses for why I haven't updated my blog, here are some recaps of what happened in November of 2018 at home in Da Nang, Vietnam. For some reasons mentioning 2018 seemed ancient. I actually just had to go back and changed it from 2019 to 2018 because it is 2018 I'm actually recapping and not 5 months ago. Sadly, I'm a whole year a half behind....sigh!
Aside of the everyday working, studying, science projects, and conjuring up amazing authentic food (I'll save you the boredom of reading those), end of November meant Darion's birthday!!!! He turned 3. My sweet 11 pounder at birth baby turned 3. He is soft, gentle, and a complete opposite of his hyper brother. He was exactly what I needed and he made a very big entrance into this world as big as he was for extra cushion and guard against the pounding of his big brother...who surprising turned into a giant softie with him being born thank heavens.
Yet while he is described as a soft, gentle, baby by his mamma, he has a pirate heart for adventure. The boy never wants to return home when we go somewhere. He always says "next hotel". Yep, that perfectly describes him and his love for pirates. A pirate party it was. Mamma still got it in her to be creative even with limited supply. Borrowing (thank you Nguyet and Dzung for the treasure box), buying, and researching my options we came up with this.
His cake was nothing but amazing and just simply adorable, made...not by me! Yes I've checked off all the things I could do and cake making was one of them. But I can make a lot more money in the time it takes me to make a cake so I'll just teach online to earn some money and buy the cake (which btw cost me $15, so about a 25 minute of teaching). 25 minutes to make a cake like that?! SOLD!!!
We had a party! What a memorable and spiritual party it was. None of these people had ever had a Thanksgiving Dinner. It happened to fall right around Darion's party so we combined it. These ladies brought their kids and the party was complete with friends for the adults and friends for the kiddos.
These are my soul sisters from Vietnam. I cried my eyes out leaving them. They are the sweetest women on earth.
Before I wrapped up the post I want to take a moment to say a bit about this turkey. This turkey was listed "product of USA". It was a $90 turkey. I have never paid that much for a Turkey like EVER! But I thought 'how nice it would be to give my local Viet friends a true Thanksgiving dinner treat. I was so excited to have them taste it. They have never ever had turkey meat before! Here goes...they HATED it. All the 6 Americans in the house liked it and said "ooh it reminds us of home so much" and the Vietnamese sitting around the room with displeased faces and totally not impressed. My turkey if you haven't tried it then you should go straight to the food blog post and search it now! It is good! But they couldn't get passes the smell of rosemary, or thyme, or the smell of the turkey. Just about every single one of them said it's got such a strong smell that they disliked. If you don't understand Vietnamese culture, I'll tell you right now. They don't generally beat around the bush. They are pretty much straight forward with their opinion and it's nothing against you. They still love you and adore you but they'll say if the food is good or not so good. Just like if you're a bit overweight they'll say "wow you got bigger since I last saw you" or "honey you need to eat more because you're too skinny" or "sweetheart you do too much, relax or you're going to die early!" See where I came from? Yeah I hope that if I have ever offended anyone, which I know I have, please know I still love you. It's not personal. If I were anyone else but Vietnamese I'd probably be offended but my skin is too tough for that so I just laughed at what people were saying about the food, not my cooking skills because they know I run a food blog and I know what's good and what's not. I simply laughed because I can sympathize. Yes, it took me a while to like Turkey as well.
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