How did this happen

I know its probably cliche, but how did we get from this to this in such a short time! Next week I'll be posting graduation photos.

Time for the Ballet

Lily all dressed for the ballet this evening.


Apparently Barbie is going as well.

And a hat because its cold out there!

Does Pocahontas like Depeche Mode?

My daughter love the Pocahontas movie. When we are on long car tips and she is trapped in her car seat she watches it on a portable DVD player strapped to the headrest. She knows every word and even likes to re-enact it with Barbie dolls when she is playing with us at home. If you haven't seen it I'm going to ruin it for you, its past the spoiler limit anyway.

One of the major themes in the plot and songs throughout is: We shouldn't hate one another just because one is "white or copper-skinned". Most of the Native Americans and English in the show think the other group is a bunch of ignorant savages and think they are evil because they are different. Blah-blah, they change their minds thanks to Pocahontas and Disney plays fast and loose with the real story.

Another this my daughter seems to like it 80's music. She asks me to play a particular Dead or Alive song almost daily. After that I play some others to see what she likes. Dance and pop seems to be the thing. One of the songs that caught her attention was People are People by Depeche Mode. She immediately got very excited and said "Daddy, Daddy that's like a Pocahontas song!" Well it took me a minute or so to figure out what she meant. It didn't sound like any of the songs in the movie, they are all much more sedated. What she identified was the theme fighting people because they are different is bad.

I know we all underestimate children's intelligence and thinking skills. Assuming that ignorance of things in the world compounded with lack of experience in life as the reason they sometimes seem like tiny people that just don't think before they do. Its obvious to us that doing this or that will lead to getting hurt or break some thing, but we know that just because we learned it by experience or observation. But it was obvious to me by 2-3 that she is probably smarter than me and has a good memory. Of course that is unless she thinks remembering something like "How did that get broken" might get her in trouble.

But she immediately got the message and decided that Pocahontas would approve of Depeche Mode's idea that we should all get along. God help us when she figures out that she is smarter than us...oh that's right, they call that being a teenager. I might have a few more years of being her hero at everything.

I suppose when that wears off it will be time to let her Mom take over the "child manger" duties.

What? I've been busy!

We both changed jobs, moved to a different city, started a new business (several in fact, one is going to catch on eventually) , but more importantly we have been focused on our daughter the other 23 hours of the day. Now that she is four we can pretty much ignore her and see whats new this season on TV.

Just kidding, she is less needy as far as our time goes, but we still want to do nothing but spend time with her, playing, teaching, whatever, its the best thing. I may have found a rival for an few hours a week though, more on that later. I'll probably start an entirely separate blog for that though. In the meantime work is calling... And here is a picture of us at a Glacier in Alaska, she loves to travel. Ill be adding some stuff from the intermission as time goes by.

She grew up on us!

What happened? Lily became a little girl before I even knew it.


Rainy day at the Beach. We discovered a pond in the woods near our house.

Fashion Model in the making. She always wants her picture taken with flags.

Here is our correspondence from the beginning of our trip. You will notice the tone change on later posts.

"We are really enjoying Vietnam and also the company of Susan and her mom Faye. I know it is almost midnight your time, so I don't expect an answer till tomorrow. By then I might have the answer from Anna, but please reply anyway, just in case we still have not heard from her.

Neither Susan nor we have heard from Anna yet. Don't worry; none of us is panicking or getting frustrated -- just as you advised. We've been following all your advice so far (taking taxis from the airport when we weren't met, or in Susan's case, getting a ride from a friend who lives in Vietnam; resting, relaxing, locating the shopping malls, and exploring the area around the hotel, etc.) What we'd like to know is if we can expect to hear from Anna before the day we will go to Vung Tau. Since it is nearly noon here, and since it is a two hour ride to Vung Tau, we are starting to think we won't go today (February 22nd). Do you know what adoptive families have generally experienced? Do you know what time of day she is likely to call on the first day we hear from her? Today, since you indicated we would hear from her, we are hanging close to the hotel just as you advised, but we are wondering if we haven't heard from her by 1:00 or 2:00pm if we can risk leaving the hotel to see some sites. We absolutely don't want to miss her call because we don't want to miss our chance to go to Vung Tau. What do you advise? For now we'll stay in the hotel and wait to hear.

By the way I promise you I'm not asking you to try to "make things happen" from the States. I'm not worried about that -- I know things will happen when they happen, and I am surprisingly comfortable with that. I just want to know if I can go see the War Crimes Museum or the Cathedral without missing the chance to meet my daughter. You know which one is more important to me, of course.

We are definitely enjoying ourselves and taking lots of pictures. This is a great country!"

I just wanted to send a quick note that we arrived in Vietnam after 28 hours of travel. It is HOT! We are having a lot of fun. We've been shopping and exploring and taking pictures like crazy. Tomorrow, we get Lily. We are pretty excited. I will write more soon.

We are off to try to get a picture of a whole family on a moped. Most people drive mopeds here instead of cars. You see whole families (mom, dad, three kids) on one. We haven't captured this on film yet, but I'm determined.