The Marvin Invasion

Jo-Ann and Anushka arrived last night! Anna did great on the flight over and is quickly getting into the new time zone. After a morning swim, we unpacked Jo-Ann's suitcases, which were full of presents - of course, most of which was for Caleb. But there were some treats in there for Kevin and I too. Thank you to both of our families for all the wonderful gifts - you have definitely spoiled us! Now Jo has three empty suitcases to fill which means... shopping (something I will gladly help her with)!

Anna and Caleb helping unpack the suitcases.

Storytime!

Bob and Mardell

We had a terrific week with Bob and Mardell, who are holidaying in Vietnam. Even though Bob and Mardell live in Calgary, we met them while visiting our mutual friends, Jeff and Andrea, in Cairo, Egypt. And how lucky we were! We were thrilled to hear they were coming to Vietnam this month. It was a fun-filled four days before Bob and Mardell ventured on to explore Danang, Hoi An, Hanoi and Halong Bay before stopping over in Thailand on their way back home.

The weather has turned pleasantly cool (if you think 30 degrees Celsius is still cool) so we enjoyed toured the city together, dinner on our patio and on their final evening with us, dinner at The Deck, a lovely restaurant near our home.

At the Opera House. Caleb is waving at the motorcycles going by on Dong Khoi Street.

We were all impressed with happy hour drinks at the Sheraton's roof top bar with the exception of Caleb, who was not interested in chilling out. Instead, he toured around on hands and knees must to the displeasure of the Vietnamese staff (the Vietnamese rarely let their children on the ground and prefer to always hold them). However, once Caleb discovered that a napkin could be ripped into a million tiny pieces, he thought the Sheraton bar was pretty cool too.

Saying good-bye to Mardell and Bob. It was wonderful to see you both. Thank-you so much for bringing us all the breakfast cereal (I have never been so excited about Cream of Wheat and Sunnyboy before) and of course, the coffee selection! We look forward to hearing about the rest of your holiday in Vietnam and Thailand.

Down by the Bay

While commuting to work this morning, I was reminded of that catchy, rhyming tune by Raffi:

Down by the bay

Where the watermelons grow

Back to my home

I dare not go

for if I do

my mother would say...

And then you think of the craziest, most unlikely, funny, rhyming phrase... like one of my favourites:

Have you ever seen a bear

wearing purple underwear

down by the bay

Now if only I could come up with the appropriate rhyme to capture the sites from this morning. While crazy, unlikely and funny, let me tell you - they were real!

Have you ever seen an eight month pregnant women on the back of a motorcycle carrying a six foot whipper snipper?

Have you ever seen a man on a bicycle transporting eight feet of plastic hose?

Have you ever seen a woman fall off her motorcycle and watch 20 plus motorcycles dodge her rather than stop to help?

I keep trying to read my book on the way in to work but, as you can imagine, I often get distracted!

Good Morning

Is somebody ever going to come and get me out of this bed?

One of Those Days

During the first 30 minutes of traffic today, I thought it was kind of amusing. However, after waiting at the same intersection for the following 20 minutes, I was less than amused. This is what the scene looked like:

Every available space is fillled by motorcycles. At this point, I know we are in trouble.

Oh look! The arrival of the traffic police - surely, they will be able to clear this up. There is a famous saying in Vietnamese 'khong duoc' and this would be an appropriate time to use it: 'can not'.

Finally, we can see the other side and I am optimistic.

...Until this semi-truck pulls out and we are completely blocked. In fact, at this point I counted six semi-trucks blocking us on all sides.

Sau's 45/46th Birthday

Since the Vietnamese consider their first year at birth, Sau turned 46 years old (Vietnamese method) or 45 years old (our method) this week. To celebrate we had lunch out at Restaurant 13, a local favourite Vietnamese restaurant. It turned out to be a great ladies lunch with Sau, her sister (who was visiting from the Mekong Delta region), Trang, myself and of course, the star attraction, Caleb. And I was surprised when Mr. Minh, the driver, did not want to join us?!

Caleb was incredibly well behaved considering he received his lunch a bit late and was due for a nap. He sat and ate his lunch, made cute faces at the girls and waved at the waiters.

Ms. Sau and Caleb with the Song Saigon (Saigon River) in the background.

The ladies.

Caleb was all smiles as he used his eating mat to play peek-a-boo.

11 Months Old

As I was typing in the title to this post, the post titled 11 Days Old popped up so I had to go back and take a look at 11 days versus 11 months. At 11 months old today, Caleb easily pulls himself up on furniture, walls, stairs... you name it. He is leaning again his little table while he plays and we have noticed him stand briefly a few time. Caleb enjoys feeding himself and we enjoy it too because it means we can all have dinner together. At dinnertime, he is eating pretty much what we eat minus extreme spice or chilies. With eight teeth now, most food does not stand a chance against Caleb. His favourite snacks right now are grapes and pomelo.

Caleb and I have had a terrific week together but we sure are excited for Dad to get home tomorrow evening (even if he is only back for three nights before jetting off to Kuala Lumpur).

Check that drool string out! I think somebody is getting some more teeth.

I absolutely love this picture!

Borneo Bound

Hi! How is everyone doing?

I am finding that work is really cutting into my photo taking and blog posting. And single parenting does not help either. Kevin is in Borneo on a field trip (yes, that is considered work) for a week. After breakfast at the Boathouse, which is conveniently located next door to us, Kevin left for the airport yesterday. Caleb and I had a great weekend. The past few days we have tried out the one nap per day and it has been successful. Caleb's one nap is ~2.5-3 hours long and he seems to be much happier in the afternoons and goes to sleep much easier at night (well, most nights). Yesterday, we hung out around the house, went to the pool and then met up with Maria and Elliot (who are also husband/fatherless for a couple weeks) for a walk and dinner. I put Caleb in his pyjamas before we walked the 10 minutes home from Maria's house and within about 2 minutes, he was fast asleep. Caleb did not even wake up when we had to navigate through the river that was once the road. High tide means that the water often comes up through the drainage system onto the road. Let's not think about what exactly is floating in that water that covered my feet...

Caleb's favourite activity - crawling up the stairs.

Today, Caleb and I went to swimming lessons. After lunch in the car on the way home and a three hour nap, we headed off to Dustin's first birthday party in Phu My Hung, a neighborhood about 25 minutes away from where we live.

Playing at Dustin's house.

After an exciting afternoon playing with all his little friends, Caleb almost fell asleep on me while we were reading a bedtime story.

Getting ready for bathtime.

"What do you want, Mom? I am busy trying to rip this diaper off and pull all my books off the shelf."

Another weekend highlight was catching up on Skype with family including the Grammas who were very happy to spend some time with Caleb.

Heavy Metal Halloween Housewarming

Our Heavy Metal Halloween Housewarming Party was a blast! There were so many amazing costumes. After tallying the votes, the big winners were:

Special Mention: Maria, Gavin, Gemma, and Simon as ABBA

Best Female Costume: Bic as Beyonce

Best Male Costume: Rob as an impressive heavy metal rocker

Caleb was not impressed with the party and spent most of the night hiding out in the kitchen pantry. Apparently, our costumes were so good that our own child did not even recognize us.

Check out the Halloween Photo Album.

Rockstar Caleb with Cyndi Lauper

ABBA (minus Gavin), Scary Spice (Brad), Beyonce (Bic) and Richard Simmons/'Let's Get Physical' backup dancer (Kevin)