We're Moving! Again.

In our three and a half years of marriage we have moved four times and in the next few months we will add two more moves to the list. We will move to Encinitas for the summer and move again in the fall for business school.

Details:

Chris's last day at LEK is this Friday. Holla! He just landed a summer internship at a private equity firm in San Diego so we will be living with my parents for two months. Chris got accepted to Haas (Berkeley) for his MBA and is wait-listed at Booth (Chicago) and Wharton (Philadelphia). We are pretty sure we'll be headed to Berkeley for the next two years and I am really excited.

The summer internship starts on Monday, one week. The move will be a gradual one since we are still paying for this apartment and one week is not enough time for me to pack everything.

After our experience in China I have learned to like LA a lot more and I will really miss the friends we have made here. But starting in the fall, if you ever need a place to stay in the San Francisco area give us a call.

Can You Tell?

That I have lost my enthusiasm for blogging? Truthfully, I just don't feel like I have anything worth putting up here. No kids, I am not doing anything crafty, and I think I have taken a total of 5 pictures since we have been back in the states.

We do have some good news though. Chris got accepted to Berkeley for his MBA! After being wait-listed at Chicago and Wharton we were beginning to think that business school was not meant for us. The idea of not being two hundred thousand dollars in debt starting to become very appealing though.

Even though I haven't been taking pictures we have been doing fun things.

Back in February:

• We went to a murder mystery party. It was my first one and I had a great time. Both Chris and I were guilty in the murder. I actually did takes a couple pictures there!
• I got called to be the head of the Enrichment committee and Chris is the Ward Speech Festival Specialist. He thought they made up the calling just for him because he likes giving talks so much.

March:

• I went to a couple baby showers and we also attended a concert of classical music with my parents.
• Our only friends with a house hosted a great barbecue and game night. Thanks Smiths!

April:

• I went to some more baby showers
• We drove up to Berkeley for Chris's interview and spent the weekend there
• Saw the new Jane Eyre movie
• Another great barbecue
• And we spent Easter weekend with my family. It was the first time everyone was together since we've been back from China and it was fantastic.

We've also had friends over to play Just Dance 2, enjoyed dinner with friends, family has come up to spend time with us, and we've done other things I didn't write down in my calendar.

I am so glad we are back in the states!

Back in the USA and Vietnam in Pictures

I am really happy to be back! Not that I hated China but we had a layover in Vancouver and when I heard people speaking English in the airport I realized how much I missed home.

We are pretty much unpacked in our new place, though I am not unpacking any of our picture frames or other decorations because I am hoping that this is our year for an MBA and that means we will only be here for 6 months. If Chris gets into school I will be sad to leave here since we have family so close and we have made wonderful friends but I will not miss LEK and I am really looking forward to seeing Chris more often.

This post is actually about our Christmas and New Year's trip to Vietnam with Chris's family. so here it goes.

Here we are in the Ho Chi Minh airport just minutes past midnight on Christmas day.

After a few hours of sleep we piled back into the van to drive to the Cu Chi tunnels (Vietnam War site). Thanks Julie for making it feel at least a little bit like Christmas!

If you don't know about the Cu Chi Tunnels (I had no idea what they were) you should look it up. You will find some pretty wild tunnel pictures and learn the history. We all took turns getting into one of the old entrances to the tunnels...Chris decided he needed to mix things up and go in headfirst.

The kids in another old tunnel entrance.

After the tunnels we drove to Cat Tien National Park where we spent two nights. On one of the days we took a really lovely walk through the forest, complete with leech socks. The surroundings in Cat Tien were beautiful but when you find spiders the size or your hand, lizards, snakes, and scorpions in your room I feel like we invaded Nature's space a little.

Also in Cat Tien we visited a primate rehabilitation center and a bear rehabilitation center.

After Cat Tien we headed to Dalat, this was my favorite place. The city is in the hills and was built up by the French years ago so you get this unique France meets Vietnam environment.

What a hunk! Yes, a hunk.

One of the themes of this trip seemed to be the tour guide telling us how easy our next activity was going to be and then 15k through the mountains later you're thinking I really should have worn something different. We did a bike ride, river rafting, and hiking and all three were significantly more difficult then we were led to believe. BTW, that trip was my first and LAST time river rafting.

On our way from Dalat to Nha Trang we did a downhill bike ride which was amazing! I wish we had time to do a few more of those kind of rides.

Our last city was Nha Trang. Our guide told us they had some of the most beautiful beaches in the world...I think the beaches in southern California are prettier than what we saw, but it was still a good time. We got biked around town, Chris and Josh did Zorbing (one of the funniest things to watch), celebrated New Years by playing board games, and went to Monkey Island. Those monkeys can be terrifying but we befriended this one fellow and he would do some fun tricks for some treats.

PS - I don't know why most of the pictures won't allow you to open and enlarge them, sorry!

Homeward Bound

We leave for the US in less than 24 hours. Picture us singing "The Final Countdown" from the Rocky soundtrack.

Belated Holiday Greetings

We spent the holidays with Chris's family in Vietnam. It was a great trip and I'll post more about it soon.

This is us on Christmas day opening our stockings on our van driving from Ho Chi Minh to the Cu Chi Tunnels.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all! We are excited to go home in just a few short weeks.

Thank you for commenting! That post was my second most commented-on post, sweet. It's always nice to see that friends are still reading my blog.

As I said, if I decide to do this haircut it will wait until we are home (January 17) but I'm feeling like chickening out again! We'll just have to see.

On an unrelated note, I can't believe Christmas is next week and I will be in Vietnam for it. Wild! It hasn't felt much like Christmas but then it decided to snow today in Shanghai and I am suddenly in the mood for hot chocolate.

I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas and New Years!

For Your Consideration

A couple months ago I got the itch to cut my hair real short but I chickened out. This was largely due to the fact that I do not trust anyone here to do this cut but also just because I am nervous about it. I am getting the itch again. If I decide to go through with this it will have to wait until I am home which will give me ample time to chicken out again.

I am considering something like this. Not the color, just the cut. Could I pull off a do like this? I will take your silence as a "no."