Back to "Normal" Life

My family has come and gone. Why do good things have to go by so quickly?! It was wonderful. I loved every moment of it: showing them Hanoi, eating dinner with my host family (and all the relatives they invited!), spending days on the beach in Nha Trang, renting motos and driving all over, eating at Pizza Hut in HCM City (twice! Including Christmas Eve, so good), seeing more people than I ever knew possible in one place for a holiday that supposedly isn't celebrated in this country, making Robby take ten million pictures with us and just being with them. Because my Dad is the great man he is, he managed to bring a small fake Christmas tree, our family Christmas stockings and speakers to play Christmas music from just so we could have a Christmas morning that was a teeny bit like if we were home. He was very proud of himself for the idea, and I loved it. The stockings were even filled with the same things as if we were at home, fruit, a toothbrush, chapstick, and new underwear (Santa has always been very practical when filling our stockings!). I can't imagine spending Christmas any other way.

Now I'm back---to Hanoi, to work, to normal life routine. I've decided to cope with having to say goodbye to them by eating the dark chocolate MM's that my mom left behind for breakfast. So far, it's pretty successful :) Although I think it will take a few days for me to accept life being back to normal again. Normal, what even is that?! Does anyone really ever know?!

I'm sure I could tell you lots more about the last 10 days but I think pictures will explain it better. So, if you don't mind waiting a day or two, you will soon get a glimpse of what a Temple family Vietnamese Christmas is really like :)