New Blog

This post marks the end of this blog and the beginning of a new one about our adventures in Germany, called Oederweg. Oederweg will remain bare bones until we get internet at home. For now we are bumming off friends and going to a smokey internet cafe a few blocks away from our apartment. Thanks for following our adoption journey. If we decide to adopt again, maybe I will have to re-open this blog! Here is the address for Oederweg:

http://barbits2.blogspot.com/

Auf Wiedersehen!

Really this is the last one

Dan planned ahead and kept the cable modem and router from the vicious claws of the movers, so I can make one last blog post tonight. I was completely caught off guard about how movers work. They told us to just pack our suitcases, sit back and let them do the rest. Well, the problem is, some of our stuff is going to Germany and some of it is going to storage--for 2 years, inaccessible at a warehouse in Connecticut. And you can imagine that some of the stuff that was supposed to go to Germany ended up going to storage, most notably Gianna's stroller which we were going to use at the airport tomorrow! Que sera sera. Gianna's cute Swedish girl hat also disappeared in the chaos of the move. Who knows when or where that will turn up. At least we have each other--and our passports and some clean underwear. Germany, here we come ready or not! And for all the friends that called tonight to wish us well, but I didn't answer, my apologies. I am sick as a dog, tired, and stressed out. But I love you all and will call as soon as we have a phone in Germany.

Last night with American TV

The movers are coming tomorrow morning at 8am (!!!) and I am wondering how they are going to categorize and pack up all our crap in less than 24 hrs. It took us almost 3 hours this morning just to go through all the documents in our filing cabinet. There were so many things to shred that we broke the shredder. So this is our last night with TV and our couches...and our bed. Tomorrow night we will sleep on the air mattress and stare at the walls playing 20 questions, I guess. Here are some pics of Gianna in the snow. I convinced her to take a ride on the old Radio Flyer and found out she really likes eating snow. This might be the last post before we are on the other side. As I mentioned before, I'm working on a Germany blog and will post the address on this blog as soon as its up and running. Chào tạm biệt, USA.

More silly pics

We took Gianna to get some studio photos today and should have the thumbnails by next week. The rest of the day I spent packing up all of our clothes and realized I didn't leave anything out to wear for the next four days! Tomorrow Bruno goes to the USDA to get his final check-up, and I will continue to pack and make arrangements to put our US life on ice. Here are two more pics of Gianna imitating Dan making faces.

Last weekend before Germany

Only 5 more days to go and we are losing it! Moving to another country with a 2 year old is understandably stressful. We must categorize all our worldly possessions into one of the following categories: carry-on, checked luggage, air freight, by sea, storage, give away, and trash. I have my usual stress-induced heartburn. Gianna knows something is going on. We have explained to her that we are moving to a new house in Germany that has an elevator (she loves riding in elevators) and that Bố, Mẹ, Bruno, Gianna, and all her clothes and toys are coming with. But the constant well-wishes and good-byes in the past few days have made her uneasy. Saying good-bye is hard, especially when some people are acting like we will never see each other again! But we already have two planned trips back this year, one during the summer when the babies are born, and one over Christmas.

Through all the chaos, we've been trying to keep life normal for Gianna. I am impressed with her ability to spell. Although she can't write yet, she asks for us to take her hand and help her spell either Bố ("B-O!"), Mẹ ("M-E!"), or Gianna (just points to herself). I help her spell Gianna Vietnamese style: Gi An Na. Yesterday she had a play-date with her second cousin, Justin, who lives in South Jersey. Gianna had a fun time playing with his toys and their three little dogs. Even tonight when I was downloading the pics, she pointed to Justin and said his name--so cute!

Moffet needs to wear the Rutgers hat

Gianna, Justin, and my cousin that's like my sister, Beth.

Time for Tết

Finally Mẹ got her act together and bought some proper decorations for Tết. This is the year of the trâu, or water buffalo. The local Chinese market only had ox decorations but they look similar to water buffalos. When Gianna came home from school, the decorations were sitting on the table. She ran to them and hollered "Tết!", then she wanted me to hang them up on the door. I am not sure where her Tết association comes from, memories of Vietnam or from her Tết DVDs. One thing I do know, she certainly remembers Vietnam.

Last night at dinner, Gianna was eating vegetable soup as I surfed the internet. I was looking at an adoption blog by a friend waiting to travel to pick up her daughter from Gianna's orphanage. The header is a large photo of her daughter Chau on a horse bouncer at the orphanage. Gianna asked to see the computer screen. She made a comment about the horse, something like "boppity bop!", then she pointed the the girl. I asked her if she remembered the girl. She nodded and said "Chau Vietnam". Then she tried to feed Chau a spoonful of soup through the computer. I told her no, it wouldn't work, but she was insistent with tears in her eyes. She said "Chau hungry!" Then I had tears in my eyes! I told her yes, Chau is hungry, but we will have to wait until she comes to the US to feed her. I was just so touched that when she saw her friend from Vietnam, her first instinct was to share her food with her. To be fair, she also has extreme sympathy on Bruno's insatiable hunger. He is a rather thin dog and begs for food non-stop, which brings about a chorus of "Beano hungry? Beano hungry?"

Tick Tock

The clock is winding down until moving day, Jan 23rd. This weekend we got rid of a lot of old paper files and electronic equipment. Who knew we had so much old crap laying around? Moving international is a real motivator to get rid of all those sentimental things from grad school that you had been holding onto. Dan even got rid of his old Playstation and games--gasp! That old girl has been gathering cobwebs since we moved from AZ. My friend Kirstie took home a lot of my plants. It was hard to say good-bye to Kirstie and Dave. They live in Baltimore and I don't know when we will get to see them again :-( We plan to come home over the summer sometime in July or August to see our new niece/nephew and meet Gianna's friends that have come home from Vietnam. Hopefully it will be a long trip so we get to spend time with all our family and friends!

Gianna got her US passport last week--hooray! And we found an agency in Germany to do our post-placement reports. The Jeep is sold and we've had some activity on selling the house and Civic. So things are falling into place. On MLK day, we're taking Gianna to get some pictures taken for Tết in her Vietnamese outfit that I bought in Hanoi. I still didn't get any Tết decorations for the house on account of the snowstorm this weekend, but hopefully will pick up something this week. I also need to get some Vietnamese treats for Gianna to take to school on her last day. Friday is Gianna's last day of school and the last day of work for Dan and me. Since I don't have a job lined up in Germany, this feels like the last day of work forever! That's not a good thing, as I'm not ready to retire quite yet. But Gianna is my top priority. As soon as she is comfortable in Frankfurt, I will look for a job.
Making faces for the camera, what a ham.

Fire drill!

The other day Dan was testing the fire alarm while Gianna and I were watching TV. When she heard it beep and the robotic female voice say "fire detected. fire detected.", she started saying "uh-oh, uh-oh, uh-oh" and tried to escape through the window! I was laughing so hard! Then Dan came into the room and she grabbed him and tried to get him to exit through the front door. Hilarious! If we're ever in a fire, she will be the hero toddler that saves her sleeping parents and dog from being burned alive.

Gianna is learning so much English. She's now starting to act as a translator for some things. I can ask her "Gianna, what's the Vietnamese word for diaper?" and she will tell me the correct word (tã). She is also learning a lot of sign language at school. Tonight when I put her to bed, she kept signing in the dark. Yes, I am putting her to bed some nights. She stopped wanting to watch her usual Baby Einstein Lullaby DVD and now wants to read Goodnight Gorilla while listening to Vietnamese music instead. Speaking of Vietnamese music, today at school they listened to some Vietnamese children's music as part of their world cultures week. They said Gianna was ecstatic. It made me so happy to hear they were taking time to appreciate her heritage as much as we do at home. Now if I can only get something together for Tết! I got a letter from Vietnam saying celebrations are already underway at the orphanages. Unfortunately for my friends waiting to travel, they will have to deal with a Vietnam Tết shutdown from mid-January to early February.

Here's a pic from Christmas when our friends in Germany, Eric and Shira, came to visit with their min pin Darth. Gianna calls Bruno "Beano", so we call Darth "Bizzaro Beano" since she couldn't distinguish between the two dogs. Eric reminded me that we have 4 great friends and 1 great dog waiting for us in Germany. Now I am not so sad to go!

Selling everything, packing up

Its an everything must go moving sale around our house. Both of the cars are for sale and we have decided to sell the house while we're at it. Its not a sellers market, and we will take a substantial loss. But it doesn't look like the market will recover anytime fast and unfortunately we bought at the peak of the real estate market. So we'll see what kind of offers we get, if any! I'm trying not to be too depressed about money. We already had a few inquiries about the Civic and one for the Jeep. My dad and brother are taking a lot of our lawn equipment and we donated a ton of clothing and books to charity this weekend.

I am having mixed feelings about the move, especially selling the house. We totally remodeled Gianna's room just for her and she only got to sleep in it a few months. Bruno will miss patrolling the backyard as much as I will miss gardening in it. I will also miss falling asleep on my favorite couch watching TV, both of which are going into storage. Most of all, I will miss our friends and family. Two girls I know are pregnant, so I will miss seeing them get fat and give birth. Well, I guess they would not let me into the delivery room to see the birth, but I would be in the waiting room with balloons if I could.

To keep things in prospective and not get too nostalgic, living in Europe for a year will be a great opportunity to travel, meet new people, and learn about other cultures, especially our German roots. Being thrown into new adventures has kept our relationship strong, because in these situations, sometimes all you have are each other. We are not people to let grass grow beneath our feet, as you all know, but sometimes I wonder what it would feel like to stay in one place for a really long time. Maybe some day we will find that happy place. But for now, its onto greener pastures.

Happy New Year!

We rang in 2009 by sitting at home, watching movies, and drinking champagne, after Gianna was all tucked away in bed, of course. I can't believe we will be moving to Germany in just three weeks. We are trying to visit with as many people as we can before we go. This week we finally got to meet Debbie and Bob, a couple that is adopting Morgan Chau from the same orphanage as Gianna. They are wonderful people that have been waiting for a child even longer than we were. I feel very bad for them this holiday season, knowing how lonely it can be with your baby on the other side of the world. Hopefully they will get to travel before Hanoi shuts down for Tết. Here's a picture of Morgan we took when we were at the orphanage. Isn't she sweet? God willing 2009 is the year that she and two other children from Gianna's orphanage come to the US with their forever families.