Börse beer fest

This weekend there was a festival in Frankfurt showcasing international beers, which are difficult to find in Germany. German beers are the best in the world; why would you want to drink anything else?

A beer named after me (sort of), and Dan with a Duff beer.

Gianna getting drunk on noodles.

The love starts flowing...

...soon she is singing Karaoke and mocking the Germans.

Frankfurt Sundaes

Spaghetti

Lasagna Bolognese

The spaghetti sundae sits on a "meatball" of whipped cream!

Donnerstag update

Gianna is home this week and next, so it is a challenge to get a word in edgewise on the blog. Since the US trip, she continues her fascination with being an auto mechanic and a doctor. She props up her Fisher Price car and hollars into it, perhaps imitating the noise level at my Dad's garage? Who knows. Today we ran up to Toys-R-Us for the Fisher Price doctor kit, but instead found a German brand that was just as good. Another store sold a wooden German doctor kit, complete with wooden syringe, but I was certain she would need to see a real doctor after playing with that. This Saturday is her 1-year post-placement visit. Yes, 1 year already! The agency over here has to prepare the report 1 month before our US agency needs to sent it to Vietnam, which is 1 month before her placement date. So really we are 2 months ahead of the anniversary.

People ask if we still get looks and comments about Gianna being a different race than we are and the answer is yes, but I have become immune. Yesterday I brought her along to a doctor appointment. This doctor had previously been anti-adoption, but after showing her photos of Gianna, she agreed this one was a special case because of her beauty. Seeing Gianna in person, the doctor remarked, "Forget the eyes, she looks the same as you except for the lips. She has Angelina Jolie lips". Hahaha. What I found funny was this picture of Gianna and my Dad. I think he has darker skin than she does! He would have to come to the "ethnic pool" with me and Gianna if he was here in Germany (long story). Dan is, however, fit for the German pools with his blue eyes and fair skin.

US trip part 2: new nephews

The main purpose of this US trip was to meet my two new nephews, Hunter (11 weeks) and Ryan (3 weeks) and see the rest of the family in the process. We visited Ống Landis at work to watch him fix cars. After that, Gianna was pretending to fix toys for the rest of the trip. Since she also has a fascination with being a doctor, my brother Jeff let her use his stethoscope. Now she is begging to have one of her own. As an added bonus we had lunch with my cousin Dave and his family and stayed with some grad school friends, Greg, Alejandra, and Marcela in Richmond. All of these families have kids, so Gianna was never lacking for playmates. I expected she may be intensely jealous of the new babies, but there were only one or two occasions towards the end of the trip that she got upset that Bố was holding the baby instead of her. We never made it to the beach, but there were plenty of pools to swim in. Gianna went from a timid barnacle to a sea dog in the matter of a week. Check out pics of her swimming with her Hello Kitty swimmies.

Two things really hit me on this trip. As I was having dinner with my brother Jim and his family, Hunter was crying as Jim tried to burp him, Nathan was playing his Nintendo, and Gianna was crawling under the table. It was wonderful chaos. My little brother Jim is a father and our kids were playing together. Priceless. Same thing in Virginia watching Jeff and Nancy take care of Ryan. The look of exhaustion on their faces, the spit-up on Dan's shirt, this is the true meaning of family. We have reached the next stage in life and alles gut. The second thing that hit me is how the internet makes it feel like we see these people all the time even though we live on different continents. When we were leaving, we told Gianna that this just good-bye for now, say "see you on Skype". She was sad to go, wanted to see everyone one more time, but the trip was over. We coaxed her onto the plane with the expectation of seeing Bruno and her neighbor friend Niall. Before the wheels were up in the air, she was asleep. She woke up after we had landed and asked "America?" Sorry, it will be a long time before we return to America again. Now it's back to regular life in Frankfurt, the land of "hotdogs and big hotdogs" according to Gianna. Thanks for all your hospitality America!

US trip part 1: Vietnam picnic

We had a great trip to the US this past week. One of the highlights was a picnic with the kids from Gianna's orphanage. This is the first time she saw Morgan Chau outside of Vietnam. It took the kids a bit to warm up to each other. Gianna shared her love of shrimp chips and rock collecting to break the ice. Eventually, they were all running around, having a great time. Gianna looks like the tallest one even though she is one of the youngest. There were two more boys adopted from the same orphanage that couldn't be there, one due to illness and the other resides in Utah. It will be at least another 9 months until we see them again. Here are a few of the highlights and you can see the whole album by clicking here. Now that we are back in Germany, Gianna really misses everyone. This morning she wanted to watch "more Chau" videos and got a pretend phone call on her cell from Thuy during which she said "missing you really much" followed by a Vietnamese song and dance routine. Breaks my heart.






This video was taken when Ryan arrived with his family. Watch Gianna's reaction when Chau tries to hold Dan's hand ;-) That's my Bố, here you can have a shrimp chip instead.

Blog holiday

A lot of the mom and pop shops around here are already on holiday for most of the month. This is Gianna's last week of summer camp and we are getting packed for our trip to the States this weekend. This will probably be the last blog post until after the trip...unless something phenomenal happens that I simply must share with my blogger friends! Thanks to the loyal readers, esp the ones that tell me "I read your blog". Even if nobody read it, I would still blog just to chronicle our life in Frankfurt.

Here are some pictures of Gianna eating her favorite Smurf blue ice cream cone. She actually stays pretty clean for a toddler, but I have to keep reminding her to lick, lick, lick. Sometimes I need to take one for the team and actually lick this blue bubblegum flavored cone myself to prevent it from running down her arm. She learned the "I suck the ice cream from the bottom" technique from her godfather.

Can't wait to see you

Gianna is really looking forward to meeting her new cousins Ryan and Hunter. She is already saying their names, telling us that she wants to give them "big hugs" and sing and dance for them. She's been working on her dance moves on a daily basis. We will fly into Philadelphia this coming Saturday, just missing a big Landis reunion. Sunday will be spent at another reunion of Gianna's Vietnamese siblings from Hà Nội. She will be seeing two of them for the first time since she said good-bye in Vietnam last October. On Sunday night we might get to see Hunter at a BBQ at my parents house. If not then, we're having dinner with them on Monday night. Tuesday (Dan's birthday) will be spent driving down to Richmond to see Jeff, Nancy, and baby Ryan. Can't wait to sit in traffic on 95 >:-( We'll be staying with some college friends that we haven't seen in a while. They have a 5 year old boy for Gianna to play with when she's not singing and dancing over at Ryan's house. Then we drive back to Philly on Saturday to catch our flight home to Frankfurt.

Today we will make a vacation calendar so Gianna can see what we will be doing each day and when we are coming home to Frankfurt to see Bruno again. We are careful not to tell her we are going "home" to the US, because she gets confused. If the US is our home, than what is Frankfurt? Gianna has lived more months in Germany then the US, and more years in Vietnam than either place. So it's important for her to realize home is wherever she lives with her parents and that is the end of the story.