Wake Up Birthday Girl!

Today our sweet girl turns 2 years old.

Happy Birthday, Little Phoebe Jade.
May all your precious dreams come true.
We love you.
Mommy and Daddy

2009 Tet Celebration in Ithaca

Chuc Mung Nam Moi! Happy New Year of the Ox! On Sat, 1/31, we held our second annual Tet Celebration at the Wok Village Restaurant in Ithaca. The event brought together families and the students from Vitco Cornell to celebrate this special holiday together. Unfortunately I was too preoccupied to take many photos or videos--here are a few that I managed to get.
The Vitco set-up crew (Thao, Ha, Hanh, and Nhung) preparing the traditional Tet snacks for the tables.

Mary to the rescue! Several of us struggled with setting up the screen--finally Mary figured it out.


Nga (Mary's daughter) and Jojo (our niece) did a wonderful job preparing the sign-in table and the kid's activity room, which was adjacent to the dining area. The girls really hit it off! Nga's is holding a box of Tet desserts that Huong P., a former Vitco member who is back in Hanoi, sent to us for the party. She also sent back special Tet ornaments for the kids (lower right corner of the table). Thanks, Huong--we missed you this year! The colorful masks and fans for the kids were donated by Ha and Nhung (thank you!). And the flower decoration on the right was donated by Kris S. (thank you and your great florist!).


Video 1, The set up crew hard at work!



Part 2 of Tet Celebration to follow!

2009 Tet Celebration in Ithaca, Part 2

The wonderful Vitco team that did so much to help with the preparation of the Tet Celebration. Thank you everyone! Special thanks to Thu for compiling the family and Vitco slides for the presentation.
Group shot #1 of the kids!

Group shot #2 of the kids.

Kris and Sadie. Sadie has grown so much in a year. Her big sister, Sarah, is in the Vitco group shot.

Kelly and Emmi. Ken and I were supposed to travel to Vietnam with Kelly, but then the Ministry of Justice in Langson changed the order for travel so she went in the group ahead of us. Now here we are, together with our girls celebrating Tet!


This video is of the Vitco students and family members hanging out--notice the little dragon dance costume in the back.



Singalong video. This song was tough so the Vitco students did all the singing!