For our family and friends to follow Phoebe Jade's journey from her birth place in Langson, Vietnam, to her home in the Fingerlakes Region in Upstate New York.
Phoebe's baptism reception (on 12/22/08) was held in a wonderful Vietnamese seafood restaurant in Westminster. Finally a family picture! The cross that I'm wearing is one that my dad gave to me and that he wore during two tours in Vietnam, 1965-66 and 1969-70. Little Phoebe is wearing a beautiful gold necklace of a traditional Vietnamese Catholic design that Team 35 gave to her. This is a neat picture of Phoebe with Col. P. Tang who, like Phoebe, is an ethic Nung originally from the Langson region, Vietnam! The food was amazing beginning with the traditional Vietnamese Hot Pot. Uncle Stef, "The God Father", gave each guest a copy of his father's book about his experience as a POW on Wake Island during WW II. His dad is one of the few surviving Wake Is. POWs, so he is regularly invited to speak at history programs and events in the Southern California area. The Trans. I wanted to add a picture of Stef's parents who were the guests at a WW II history event in Palm Springs in Dec. The person in the middle is the historian who planned the event. We could not have asked for a more special baptism day for Phoebe than the one that the members of Team 35 arranged for her. We will cherish these memories forever. Thank you Team 35, and special thanks to General L. Ly and Capt. C. Tran.
After much procrastination I'm going to attempt to blog regularly about our life with our adorable little Phoebe Jade. One very special event that we would like to share with our family and friends was her baptism on Dec 22 on the West Coast.
In mid December 2008, we traveled to California from New York to spend the holidays with my family, and to finally hold Phoebe's baptism ceremony-- a bit of a delay as she is nearly two years old (not to mention the challenge of finding a size 2 baptism gown!) Why the delay? We wanted to hold the ceremony when both her God-Parents (her Tante Nene and Uncle Stef) could both be present. My father secretly planned the event with his friends and colleagues from 91BCT & OP Team 35, a volunteer unit in the United States Volunteer-Joint Service Command (USV-JSC), a unit comprised of members who are originally from Vietnam. Read on to hear about this amazing event! On the morning of the baptism, my dad was vague about the ceremony details as we headed to Westminster, in Orange County, in a rain storm. When we arrived at the church, he then informed me that a special group of friends from 91BCT & OP Team 35 had arranged for Phoebe to be baptized at Blessed Sacrament Church, a Catholic church with a Vietnamese congregation of 9000 families. My parents, the god parents, Nene & Stef, and Ken and I were thrilled and honored for such a meaningful gesture to our little Phoebe Jade from the Team; we are forever grateful to all of you. Opa, Phoebe (wearing Uncle Bernard's coat from Paris to go with her French baptism gown) and Ken heading into the church. Several members of Team 35, including General L. Ly (right), met us at the church entrance. Phoebe's Oma and Opa entering the church together. Another surprise guest at the baptism was Dee, Opa's childhood neighbor from Central Coast of California, whom he hadn't seen in nearly fifty years! Phoebe greeting members of Team 35. Meeting CPT. C. Tran, who had done so much to prepare for the event. Phoebe taking cousin Jojo's teddy bear for a stroll. The baptism ceremony was conducted by Rev. Tuan Pham. A group shot of Team 35 with Opa, Phoebe Jade and her God Father, Uncle Stef. Here is a short video of the end of the ceremony. It is a bit awkward because I'm trying to discretely film. An entry about the reception to follow.
We are packing to head to the airport. This afternoon we received Phoebe's visa to enter the US! This will be a crazy flight, with travel time over 30 hours! Wish us luck.
Jen and Bob are here in Hanoi. This morning they traveled to LangSon to meet their little ones! I can't wait to hear how the meeting went. I'll be passing Ed and Peggy's cell phone on to them--Amanda and Bill left it for us. Thank you Ed and Peggy, having the phone, especially for Father's Day was a real treasure.
I have mixed feelings about leaving. We are eager to get home, but we have loved our time in Hanoi and will miss it. We hope to return when Phoebe is old enough to enjoy and appreciate Vietnam.
Gotta Run--just talked to Jen and Bob and they had a great visit in LS.
Hanoi has many great features, but by far for me my favorite has to be Hoan Kiem lake and the park around it. It’s great to be there any time of day but the early mornings are the best. It’s not just me who says it. Literally thousand of people vote with their feet (and their hands and their badminton racquets and their flags and their loudspeakers for aerobics) each morning to make it the best. This post is a collection of photos and paragraphs describing some of what goes on around the lake, as well as these first couple of paragraphs about running here.
Most mornings I’ve been lucky enough to start off with a run around the lake, joining the hundreds of other runners (whose faces are now beginning to look familiar). There is no single group to categorize them into except runners. There are old people, young people, rich people, poor people, girls, boys, women, men, some fairly overweight most relatively slim. Runners in fancy running shoes and runners without shoes. Runners with fancy running gear and others with dirty shorts and t-shirts. And a first for me in Asia: runners who are shirtless (this is the first time I’ve ever been shirtless in public in Asia except when I’ve been at the beach!).
Running the first couple of days was a bit rough, because of the heat and humidity. But it’s considerably cooler (i.e. less warm) in the early AM than late in the day (yesterday the temp was about 80 in the morning and reached over 100 by 2 PM), so after a couple of days of adjustment here the mornings actually DO feel cooler. And I think that all the activity going on in the morning at the lake also make it a bit easier to run. Sort of like people-watching for non-couch potatoes.
In addition to running there are lots of other things related to physical activity going on at the lake. I mentioned badminton and aerobics. There are three different regular aerobics classes that go on in different parts of the park in the AM ( and there are others that go on at night (see video clip of nighttime aerobics (here, ) These classes are great. In addition to the fairly large groups gathered around the instructors there are people (all women) who hang out within earshot of the music and simply do all the routines, following the instructor and group from afar. The photo above includes 3 of those "lurkers". It's easy to see why they would choose to lurk away from the main class, given the setting they chose. And these classes go on for hours! I’ve been there at 5:30 in the AM and 7:30 in the AM and they have been going on the entire time. Of course I did see one class where the instructor simply called out the instructions but did not participate herself. Judging from her less than perfect shape I would guess that as a general rule she’s not someone who believes in teaching by example.
There are several activities I don’t even know the names of, one of which I’ve got photos of (above). In this particular activity each person maneuvers, tosses and balances a single ball on a small racket, but each person in the group does the same thing in synchrony with the rest of the group. There is also tai chi, (four different regular groups) and this morning for the first time I saw that people had moved some weight benches and free weights out and were using them. Hackey sacks were in evidence, as were soccer balls. In addition i saw a juggler, shadow boxers, people skipping rope, practicing yoga, cycling, and even courting. I guess hormones never sleep or there really ARE some young people who are morning people because even at 7 AM in the morning that particular activity ranked near the top in popularity. No photos of that here. Looks pretty much the same in any culture....
The entrepreneurial nature of the Vietnamese was in evidence all over the park. There were little stands where people were selling nutrition drinks, paper fans for cooling off, and someone was even selling shorts and t-shirts, I guess in case someone left the house and had forgotten theirs. But my favorite was a little old lady with a bathroom scale who will weigh you for a small fee. And if after a workout and weighing yourself you decided that you really could eat today there are vendors there to tempt you with whatever you might need to make breakfast. There are even flowers to brighten a table. About the only things I didn’t see for sale were diamonds and other precious stones.
One noteworthy absence—animals! I think I’ve seen two dogs in the park in all the days I’ve run there. But it’s not just dogs one doesn’t see. There aren’t any birds either, Also no insects--well, very few of them. And perhaps things have changed throughout SE Asia since I was last here in the early 90’s but even in the centers of other major cities I would occasionally see beasts of burden ( oxen, horses, donkeys, water buffalo); I’ve seen none of them here.
Kim, the World Child in-country staffer, informed us today that our CIS was approved! This is very good news considering that we've been in Vietnam for only one week. With the approval, we hoped to do the final US Consulate interview (for Phoebe's visa) today, but ran out of time because we had to pick-up Phoebe's VN passport at the police department and then go to the SOS International Clinic for her Wellness check-up (both documents are required for the Visa application). We are proud to report that Phoebe is very healthy weighing in at 13 lbs, 25% on the US growth charts for 4.5 months, and 61 cm, 35% on the charts. She is a big girl by Vietnamese standards. Her doctor was a very nice man from Holland who admitted that she was perfect--yes we are proud parents! Tomorrow afternoon (Fri) we'll have our visa interview, then on Monday afternoon the visa will be issued by the consulate, which means that we'll be ready to head home with our girl! We emailed our travel agent who reserved our new flights leaving Hanoi on Monday late night. Our original return flight was booked for July 4- clearly the process is moving forward much quicker than we had anticipated.
Here are pictures of dinner out with Peggy, Neil, Phoebe and me at the Cyclo Restaurant. We sat across the table from a lovely French couple who are starting the adoption process for Vietnam, which they think may take up to one year. They are wishing for a young baby girl, hopefully as young as Phoebe. They asked if they could take pictures with Phoebe, which my girl was all too happy to do. We shared blog addresses (apparently this is what waiting parents in France do too!) and wished them luck. Hopefully next year they will be dining in a Hanoi restaurant with their daughter--bon chance mes amis.
