Hi everyone,

It’s Saturday morning, and I’m a little more awake! When I got here, I purposefully stayed up for the afternoon… took an Ambien at 7:30 and was out at 7:31

‘The Group’ we’re here with is Cindy, Trey, Sandy and myself, and two other families from Cindy’s adoption agency who are picking up their babies. They’ve been on the same schedule as Cindy as far as their paper work, travel dates etc. This is a good thing because if Cindy is not able to come back when I do, she’ll have a couple other families around – although they’re on different flights to the States so she’d still have to do that long flight alone. I’m really hoping she can come home when I do, but we won’t know until probably the last minute.

We all went shopping yesterday and found a few gifts. Then everyone had been craving ice cream all week, so we had ice cream for dinner! Mel, you would have loved it. We came back to the room, then Cindy and Sandy went to the store to buy snacks for the 3-4 hour bus ride to the beach, and I got to hang out with Trey. All of the families are going to this same beach resort, it's a great group of families and it’s fun to have all of the kids together.

A note on the scooters. I think everyone who comes here needs to write a ‘note on the scooters’. I really wasn’t expecting much, having seen swarms of scooters when visiting Miles in Singapore years ago. This is so much different – it's hard to describe 3-5 people on the same scooter, or people carrying full-grown palm trees, cases of soft drinks and everything else imaginable. There are no rules, and when the road becomes clogged up, the scooters just hop onto the sidewalk and continue on - so even walking can be treacherous.

The other thing I found interesting is that, because lighter skin is desirable, along with their hats and long sleeved shirts, the women wear gloves. Some are knit or leather… so think of a hot muggy day and consider telling yourself “hmmm, I think I’ll put on my long-sleeved jacket and my gloves”. I was in an air-conditioned taxi and just sweating from looking at them!

Well I’ve had my first Katie-type travel snafu. At the last minute, I decided to go from 2 check-in bags into one, and transferred from one carry-on bag into another. Good idea because it gave me 2 bags to track instead of 3… bad idea because I managed to leave my camera behind. So check Cindy and Sandy’s blogs for photos, and I’ll send out Cindy’s winkflash link with all photos when we get back. Oh well, if this is the worst of the bad travel juju, then I’ll be thrilled.

Trey is very happy on the bed, playing with his toes and ‘talking’ – he speaks in Vietnamese, so we’re not quite sure what he’s saying.

Ok, we’re off to finish packing and leave to catch our bus to the beach. Not sure what the internet connection will be like there. Will try to add updates but not sure if we’ll be able to yet. Take care everyone. Kate