Last Day

All the kids went to the park for the morning with their counselors. Then we had the closing ceremony. Jazzy and I went out to lunch at a Mexican Cantina and searched for places to stay next year. Strangely enough, the KOA campground cabins look pretty good...fairly close to the Conference and about the same price as the tiny (I am told) Holiday Inn rooms. Good thing they didn't have much planned outside because it has been pouring down sheets of rain all day.

This morning we had breakfast with Mary Tran, as well as her husband and her son Richie. She grew up in Saigon, went to a French school and became a classical pianist. Her family was fairly wealthy... I am guessing, but had to get out of Saigon when the Communists invaded. She came over on a boat in 1975 and has lived in Denver ever since. She is now an interpreter and financial planner. She met her husband Hieu Vo after moving to Denver. He was a pilot for the American army in the Vietnam War. Such an extremely friendly family who took a liking to Jazzy.

Mary Tran and Richie
Jazzy's first ride on a big school bus

Fun day at Heritage Camp...

Long fun day today. In the morning, I went to lectures/discussions with the adult Operation Babylift adoptees. They discussed what they thought their parents did right or wrong in raising them... as well as other adoption issues. Next, we saw a slide show of Dana Sachs extensive travels all over Vietnam. She also discussed the history of Vietnam. This year is the 1000 year anniversary of Vietnam officially being a country after the Chinese invasion.
We went to Stanley Park for a Vietnamese lunch. Jazzy fell off the picnic table and pulled the entire bowl of Pho onto her head.
There were noodles and chicken everywhere. I had to take her back to the hotel room to get a bath and change of clothes, but she still smelled like Pho for the rest of the day.
One of the workshops I attended in the afternoon was called "Vietnamese Names". We discussed all of the kids names. Jasmine's Vietnamese name is Nguyen Thi Tam which means "good heart". I already knew that because last week when we were in Target, we met a Vietnamese lady who worked there... as there are many around where we live. She told me the meaning of Jasmine's name.

Jasmine's pre-school class did all types of crafts and martial arts. They made lanterns, self portraits, Vietnaese hats, and tigers.

Later in the evening there was a "formal dinner" where all the kids wore their traditional "aoi dai" dress. A massive carnival then took place where I worked as a carney for awhile.


Jazzy with her friends
Jazzy next to her self portrait
Jazzy with her favorite counselor Nguyen Duy. She never left the poor guy alone for 10 minutes the entire week!!
With her hat on

First day of Heritage Camp.....

Today was the official first day of the Vietnamese Colorado Heritage Camp. There are about 100 families from all over the country... about 350 people total. Each group of children- according to grade- get to wear a different color of tee shirt with the Heritage Camp logo on it. Jazzy's pre-school color is red.

The morning consisted of a "Opening Ceremony" and Instructions for Volunteers. I get to do something (?) on Saturday night with the Carnival. We'll find out tomorrow night what I will be doing. After a nice Vietnamese lunch of Pho at the Stanley Park, I went to a lecture by Dana Sachs. I had read two of her books prior to going to Vietnam, and now she has a new one "The Life We Were Given". She is a journalist who has travelled for years all over Vietnam, interviewing hundreds of people, and has researched everything from the war.... to Vietnamese adoption..Operation Babylift...to current Vietnamese travel destinations. She talked about the fact that in 1975, there were 800,000 orphans just living in the streets of Vietnam, 20,000 orphans in government run orphanages and 2000 in Western run orphanages. She showed photos of some of the 20,000 starving and dying kids in the government run orphanages. The 2000 in the Western orphanages were not that much better off, but were the infants and children who escaped in Operation Babylift... some of whom are at our Heritage Camp as speakers telling their stories i.e. where they grew up with their adoptive families, what they do now, obstacles they have overcome. The children (now adults) were all from Jasmine's home town area just outside of Danang... where most of the fighting occurred. They are all around 35-38 yrs old now.

Jasmine's pre-school group did Martial Arts, made Tiger posters and Tiger necklaces since this is the year of the tiger, and read the Vietnamese story about how the tiger got his stripes.

Also, today I visited the Vietnamese Market... a little store that was set up to sell Vietnamese imported items to benefit the Blue Dragon Society. Blue Dragon helps homeless Vietnamese kids go to school, buy clothes, etc. I bought Jazzy a little Vietnamese jewelry box.... as if she needed another jewelry box!, a sweatshirt with the Heritage Camp logo, some Vietnamese gummy bears... which she has already eaten, Vietnamese calendars, Dana Sachs book, and a book for Jazzy about different cultures. The middle school kids are running a Vietnamese coffee shop..so I had my extra shot of concentrated caffeine this morning.


Dragon Ceremony
Jasmine meeting her camp counselor
Lunch with the pre-schoolers

pre conference fun continued

pre-conference fun

Pre- Conference playing with other kids at the playground
Video games at the indoor pool area with Emily
Cook out dinner at Stanley Park
Bike rental around the lake
Golfing

Vietnamese Culture Camp Estes Park, CO

Today, we got up at 3 AM, got ready to leave, took our doggie to the dog sitter, then off to the airport to fly to Denver. I have never seen Jessie around other dogs, so wasn't sure how she would react to all the dogs owned by Tina.. our sitter. I still haven't heard yet... but I did see that Jessie loves cats. The cats she met were bigger than here and she just wagged her little tail like they were best friends. Jessie is a little old lady and Tina's dogs are like high school football players.... so I am somewhat concerned that they will knock her over and hurt her back again.

After the typical airport ordeal, we rented a car and drove about 1 1/2 hours north to Estes Park which is amazingly beautiful at about 9000 ft. elevation. One time we were coming up over a big hill, kind of like a roller coaster, and at the top of the hill was a view like a mega post card of the mountains! Much better than a post card of course. Took my breath away.

Estes Park Marina is just across the street from our hotel.. .so we spent a couple of hours there playing at the playground, looking at the little mini kayaks for kids which Jazzy is still too small to use of course, and all the boats. The lake is visible out our hotel window.

Our next endeavor was to brave the Safeway store.... the only grocery store in the town. The place was a madhouse on a Wednesday night. I saw very few Colorado license plates... only out of state. We had to purchase our contribution to a cookout held at one of the camp directors (Kristin Morgan-Tracy) campsites in the Rocky Mountain National Park. The cookout was a "pre-conference" event for anyone who wanted to come. Jazzy met lots of new friends.
Overall, the town reminds me of Sedona. Perfect weather, very pretty, but totally overcrowded, bumper to bumper traffic and subsequently very overpriced. A very nice place to have the camp though.


My computer was smashed in the overhead bin on the plane... so it has taken me about an hour just to write this one paragraph. Will be very short for awhile.

Eating breakfast 5AM at Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport!
With 9 yr old Emily (Kristin's daughter)
Jazzy and Trang. Trang is 14 yrs old and was just adopted from Vietnam at age 12 1/2. She speaks very good English already.
Jazzy and Kristin (camp director)

Dragonfly Day...

Today was Dragonfly Day at the Environmental Education Center in Chandler. We went on a little hike at 8AM when it was already over 100 degrees. We didn't last very long. Then we made dragonfly visors, dragonflies from coffee filters and other stuff. We then went to an open house for a potential kindergarten for Jazzy next year... Paragon Academy, then lots of other errands. It was so hot and we were so exhausted that we came home and immediately took a nap.



on a little hike
making dragonfly crafts
Jazzy's usual face when I try to take a picture!