Countryside Wedding, 21 Dec 08

Thao's cousin was having a wedding in her hometown of Ba Vi. It is about 60km away, and for

the first time she let me drive the motorbike for a few km! ;)) When we finally got there, it was

dark already, and the groom was calling Thao to come to the wedding quick!



The guests at the wedding give money to the bride and groom, so here is Thao writing on our

gift. She is also complaining that in countryside sometimes whole families of 5 people come to

the wedding and only give 50.000 dong ($3) :P











The party is just getting started outside the groom's parents house. Actually this is only the first

day of partying - the wedding parties lasted for three days!











Lots of good food to eat: chicken, pork, beef, bird... And tooooo much Vietnamese wine...



All of Thao's uncles and groom's brothers kept making toasts with me. After I drank more than

20 small cups like you see above, suddenly I started to feel it and was very sick that night. And

the next morning I started to vomit alotttttttttt... I should feel ashamed because it was also the

day I came to talk " Trạm ngõ" to Thao's parents. Thao's parents were so worried for me and

Thao couldn't sleep that night because she was so worried and thought I might die... :( hehe...



Thao's parents were scolding her why she didn't stop me to drink so much, but you know what,

Thao answered that "I didn't know Kyle can drink alotttt like that, I thought he just sipped a

little... I didn't know all the time he drank it all with about 25 cups like that.. All I saw before is

he just always drink beer a little bit..."



The next day, luckily the groom teached me "một ít" if anyone ask me to drink again. So it

worked, and Thao made very sure I didn't drink much anymore :D











Another of Thao's cousins with great hair ;)) The next day Thao wanted to style my hair just

like that, but I said "nooooo he will think I am copying him!!"









Thao's cousin, sister's husband, me, groom, friends...













At the next day of the wedding, the bride went around to all the tables to pour tea for the guests









The bride wanted to sing some songs for the guests











The happy couple with Thao's mom































Bride and future bride;))











Saying good bye to the guests.









Whole family.

Dạm ngõ

"Hôm nay cháu về đây để xin phép hai bác một chuyện.

Cháu yêu Thảo nhiều lắm, và cháu muốn cưới Thảo.

Cháu muốn cưới Thảo vào tháng 3.

Vậy xin hai bác quyết định ngày cưới, và bố mẹ cháu sẽ sang Việt Nam để gặp hai bác và gia đình."











Thao's sister, nephew and niece cheered for me! Everyone was very happy with my Vietnamese!











They made me repeat it three times for other family members.

Here, the baby is thinking "I can talk better Vietnamese than you!"













Me and Thao's mom











Sitting on the swing with nice purple flowers









Relaxing outside with Thao's dad, niece and nephew











A very happy day for us!

We are happy 96% of the time...

Thanks to recent advances in modern medicine, you can now get a picture of exactly what

someone is thinking! For example, here is a picture of what Thao was thinking over the weekend...



Seriously though, no matter how happy a couple is, there are always times when they are

fighting. For Thao and I, it seems that we are fighting about once a month. That works out to

about 96% happiness, which is pretty good, right??



The important part is how easy it is to forgive each other and how fast we can get back to our

normal happy life. Thao explained something to me this weekend that I never quite understood

until now...



She said that men and women are different. No matter how much I try to explain something,

when she is angry she just can't listen. I need to just say sorry and shut up and not try to talk

about everything right at that time. Do I need to be right all the time? If both people try to be

the winner of an argument, they both lose. You might argue a lot and win the fight, but do you

really win if you lose the one you love? You need to try to understand each other and not think

only for yourself, even if you think it was the other person who did something bad. That's what

being in love is all about.



No matter what, I know in my heart that Thao really loves me, and if she really did something

wrong she always says sorry and makes it up to me later. If there is an argument, we shouldn't

fight to pick a winner. It's to make both people understand and learn more about each other.

And I know that's true, because no matter what happens, after the fight is over it always seems

like we love each other more and more.

Hanoi by night in the holiday season

I got a very nice Christmas surprise when Thao came home from work with a Christmas tree

and wreath for me! Thanks sooooo000 much for making me happy everyday hun!













Thao gets creative, and puts some fresh snow on the tree...









Looks like real snow





Hope you will always give me nice gift eveyday like today;))





Look, we are always happy and I will be more happy if i have gift from Thao;))





One more pose







The tree looks so nice in the dark!







Fish swimming in the night







Turn red light..





Night flies











Birds flying













HO HO HO!

Thao gets kind of crazy when posing for the camera









Ehmmm.... hey i see somethingaewew





Red sweater and red flower, look good hunny.







I do my part and make Thao some freshly squeezed orange juice ;))











The streets of Ha Noi are decorated for holiday season







I wanted to steal one ...:)))





Santa riding on the sleigh to give gifts for everyone.





Ofcourse you have your own Santa holding you there hun.. Wait, I just need to wear Santa suit







Ohohohoo Im coming, open the door....







Here is some reindeer and Santa's sleigh... made up of millions of lights!

It was really amazing to see!

























Front of apartment. Oh wait hun, where is your helmet?









Ok, one more pose while waiting for the elevator!