note: if this posts twice, I apologize. I sent this an hour ago via Gmail and it never showed up but Gmail is frequently very slow. So I'm doing it manually - it may double post eventually.

We are here! We got in about 14 hours ago. I should be sleeping but I screwed up and fell asleep this afternoon and, oops, there was no one left to keep an eye on the children (Tony was out for a bit) and so they went to sleep too (ordinarily who am I to complain about SLEEP???). When we were discovered, great ridiculous means were attempted to wake us up with almost no success. We were all sleeping in separate rooms and as soon Tony left the room to wake another, the first just fell back asleep. I woke long enough to scarf down late lunch/early dinner and then later to go on a forced walking tour of the hotel grounds (that was fun - wish I had video to show how pathetic we all were). It didn't work either. We finally made it back to our room and I managed to convince The Sleep Guard (aka Tony) that I had not slept in 48 hours (mostly true) and would be able to sleep through until tomorrow. Oops. here I am, 10:30 pm, wide awake. oh well, at least (for now), I'm the only one. I also still have the sore throat raging from before we left which is greatly compounded by dehydration, airplane dry air and exhaustion. So maybe I can get back to some restorative sleep in a bit.

The Plane/s: We had great experienced with all our flights except the one from Detroit to LAX which was horrible. The taxoff was horrible, the flight was horrible, the plane was horrible, they did not feed us AT ALL (5+ hour flight), it was miserable. So by the time we got on our EVA flight, we thought we had died and gone to heaven!!! It was so nice, comfy, a great smooth ride. The kids LOVED it and so did I (A little Dramamine helped). That is where I got my 3 hours of sleep I managed to get on the way to Vietnam. The flight from Tai Pei to Vietnam was just as nice. They even fed us breakfast (on our 2 hour flight) and Teegan is now a congee fan. Woohoo! Everyone did great on the airplane, we got lots of compliments. Except both Tony and Noah had HUGE problems with their ears on landing. Noah just screamed - nothing helped until the very end of our EVA descent when we found a method (counterpressure combined with drinking from a straw, fyi) that he felt helped a lot. But on our last flight he was asleep during the descent and already SUPER crabby. I was so afraid he would be absolutely miserable but mirculously he stayed asleep through the landing! Whew! Anyway I would have updated again but we had almost NO layover time in LAX (just enough to switch terminals) and even less in Tai Pei. We have had no issues with security or luggage! Hurray!

On Hanoi: Seeing Vietnam from the air was so emotional for me. I mean really really emotional. It took everything in me to not sob hysterically, which is not to say I didn't cry. I just kep tthinking "My daughter is HERE. She could be right THERE. She is probably awake, eating, playing, anything right HERE!!! Her birth mother is right HERE. Her life is right HERE." The reality is so overwhelming, I can't even explain it. Hanoi is beautiful. From the sky and the ground. There is a dichotomy I had not expected here. Like acres and acres of rice paddies with a cell phone tower stuck right in the middle. Driving down the highway, there are these huge billboads, all in English, advertising all kinds of things Americans like making it seem like you have barely left home. Except for the water buffalo leashed to the base of the billbard and the rice paddies filled with hard working familes literally right underneath the billboards. The kids were so excited and amazed and everything was wonderful to them. We all particularily love the architecture in Hanoi. I can't wait to get pictures of it all!

On the weather: It is hot. And like walking though water in the air. Enough said.

On our hotel: Wow, where to start. This place is like living like royalty. In fact it used to be some presidential palace. It is amazing. I am going to LOVE staying here although the thought has already crossed my mind several times that we are so not doing the "When in Rome" thing, which makes me feel pretty terrible on some level. But then I walk inside the doors again and - haha - I feel better! :-) We have a full huge apartment. Like gigantic huge. Each bedroom is like a hotel room in itself and then there is a huge livingroom dining area, this office area, a full kitchen, etc. One of our favorite things is the beautiful built-in wardrobes - the kind that open and light up like we have always wanted for our own house. Each room has a bunch of them. We even have a walk-in pantry. Seriously most people we know in the US don't live this large. Also there is a huge pool on the grounds, indoor playroom for Noah and game rooms for the boys and outdoor playground, sports stuff, etc. Supposedly there is even an organic garden on the grounds although I'm not sure where or why. Dalton already spotted his first fisherman, incentally, walking past the back of the hotel grounds. haha. Our view, like all of Hanoi, is a dichotomy of sights: a huge ferriswheel, water park, rollercoasters and then tiny fishing boats and people living in leanto's made of tarp.

Other stuff: Noah just woke up screaming from a bad dream. Poor baby, he had an adoption dream!!! He said we had all flown on a plane to get Addison and then as soon as we got her, everyone but our family turned into zombie monsters! he said "so it was both a bad and good dream". Poor baby.

We are not sure what we'll do tomorrow. Besides shower, unpack, and stock up on water. I think we have an agency dinner tomorrow night where I will finally get to meet my good friend Carolyn and her new baby. However we also have a chance to go to Viet Tri tomorrow so we will have to decide whether to do that - it is a 5 hour round trip drive. That is a lot of time in the car after being in airplanes for so long. Plus it would be very hard to see Addison and leave her, even if only for 24 hours. So we are still unsure.

And now that it's after midnight, I should probably try my hand at sleep again. Now Tony is up, too, and we are eating all our leftovers from dinner. I think I might just live on spring rolls for lunch every day. And poor Teegan, we have not yet found him a bowl of Pho (go figure) and he is obsessed!

I'm going to go download and then upload photos to flickr now. So check out the badge on the right in a bit for some photos so far.