Well, we bought tickets!!! We don't have them in-hand yet but they should be
arriving via Fed Ex tomorrow. Now if only we could get those pesky visas I
could rest easy.

We ended up choosing to fly out on the 28th. The earlier flights were all
booked and we would have had to back it up to the 24th to get a flight out
on the airlines we want (EVA). So we are cutting it close. We hope to arrive
in Vietnam on the morning of the 30th. I'm really excited about our flight
because it will have us in the air only about 22 hours and the layovers
aren't terrible. The bad part is, though, that our longest layover will be
from about 1am - 5am our time! Can I tell you how excited I am about a 4
hour layover in LA smack dab in the middle of the night with three kids?? On
the other hand, I'm hoping it means they are forced to stay awake and then
will sleep more on the long stretch, leaving them fairly rested when we get
to Vietnam in the morning. We've already considered started, soon, to keep
them up later and later at night in order to adjust their bodies but this
seems like maybe overkill and like we could end up with sick kids from not
enough sleep. So we'll see.

Meanwhile we have our luggage sort of packed. We bought most of the gifts
for people but none of the orphanage donations. I just don't know what to
buy or how many. I'm so bad at that kind of thing. I also have not yet dealt
with how we might transport these gifts or donations. Haha. One thing at a
time.

Today my absentee ballot gets delivered to the local city clerk which means
I have officially done my job for the mid-term elections. It's my first time
voting absentee and I *love* it. I can totally research each of the issues
as they come up (because no, I was not well-read on each ballot proposal or
local proposal) without any pressure to hurry.

Yesterday we splurged and bought a laptop. Which is good because we badly
need it and I would have never agreed had I been given more time to think
about it. I hate big purchases. But we needed it. We were going to take my
husband's work laptop to Vietnam but it is such a piece of junk that the
hard drive keeps crashing, some keys are totally broken, it has boot issues,
etc. I need more reliability if the laptop will be our only means of
communicating with the outside world. So we are now proud owners of a
bottom-of-the-line Compaq. Eventually it will be the kids' laptop and when
we are rich, I will have my own. A girl can dream, right? :-)

We spent Saturday and Sunday morning cleaning and then Sunday afternoon
running errands with my 3 boys. They behaved moderately well and didn't
whine too much which seemed like a much needed miracle. I think we are
almost done doing what we need to do to get ready for the trip. I have a few
more errands to run today and then all that is left is the things I asked my
hubby to do a week ago which - haha - still aren't done! Go figure! So my
part is done.

So two days and counting until my Mom's surgery and I will likely be MIA
Good thoughts are appreciated!