2015 at a glance

Family Picture, It’s about time!

About this same time last year, as we were about to say goodbye to 2014, we told each other that 2015 would go by very quickly and so it did. It has been a busy, challenging, and fun-filled year with study, work, travel, church responsibilities, and parenting responsibilities.

Learning from babes

We blinked, and a year has passed since Harvey was born.  To say it went by fast would be an understatement!  One year ago we couldn’t quite wrap our minds around having a baby as part of our lives, and now we can’t imagine life without our little Harvey.  Being parents has changed everything.  Our marriage is different.  Our priorities have changed.  Our lives are fuller (is that word?).  Our hearts have loved like never before.

The Beginning of Harvey’s Adventure

Harvey Jerome Liem Nguyen, our little bug!

We are forever changed since the last time we blogged!!  On August 27th, we welcomed Harvey Jerome Liem Nguyen into the world, and from that point on, our hearts have loved like we never thought they could!!  We are so happy to have him in our family and couldn’t have asked for a better baby to put up with us as we learn the ropes through this whole parenting business!!

Pumpkin Drama!!!

Pumpkin Carving Perspective:

YSA Pumpkin carving activity. Close to around 50 people turned out! Not bad at all!

I remember my first Halloween here 2 years ago, I planned a pumpkin carving activity as part of the Church’s Halloween Party… It was a major flop.  Let’s just say that by the end of the night people were more interested in taking the pumpkins home to make pumpkin soup than actually having to carve it (or in their opinion- ruin a perfectly edible piece of food)…… *sigh  🙂

They’ve come a long ways in 2 years!!  The YSA did a pumpkin carving activity this year!  It was very well planned and thanks to a bilingual American who could explain the concept beforehand and provide tons of pictures and examples of carved pumpkins, they warmed up to the idea!  There were some pretty creative pumpkin (and watermelon, pineapple, and squash) carvings that would put most in the US to shame!!  Thanh and I each carved our pumpkins too!  Thanh did a version of Jack from Nightmare Before Christmas, and I did a barfing one.  We brought them home and proudly displayed them outside our front door.

Little did we know that our pumpkin carving woes were just starting!!…..

ode to Vietnamese food

We’ve been eating at some amazing places lately, and just have to properly document it!  One thing we love about Saigon is that you can venture down the most random alley and discover a treasure trove of “why don’t these people move to the US, open up a restaurant, and show Americans what food REALLY is”  places to eat!

Here’s just a few of the ones that we remembered to snap some pictures of:

We had scallops, BBQ shrimps, BBQ squid, crab legs in tamarind sauce, morning glory, clam, and bread! Even Lindsay loves it.

1.  Our favorite Seafood spot!:

Tucked away in a maze of narrow alleys, our favorite place to go when we are craving seafood is Như Seafood!!  We get our fill of tamarind crab legs, clams in lemon-grass broth, muscles fish sauce and peanuts!  Plus, there’s this incredible bakery across the alley with the best bread we’ve had in Saigon!  Very convenient for scooping up the extra sauces!

The seafood egg rolls are to die for. Not to mention clams steamed in fresh milk!

2.  The best egg roll of the face of the Earth:

Thanh went to Ngọc Sương restaurant as part of a work event and then took me there to try the seafood egg-rolls.  oh my incredible!!  There are few foods that can get me to cry, and this is one of them!!  We then told Thanh’s mom about them so she could try them and then try to duplicate the recipe…  haha we’re so sneaky!!  SHE did a great job of making them…. us on the other hand need a lot more practice!

3.  Working for our food:

I don’t think Americans realize how babied we are when it comes to food preparation at restaurants!!  We are so used to expecting everything to be completely prepared beforehand so that when the waiter sets it in front of us, the only physical exertion required from us is to start shoveling it into our mouths… (maybe season it a tad at most).   Most dishes here require much more assembly, separating,  and yes even cooking the food AFTER the waiter brings out the dish!!  While I still usually rather prefer my meat (seafood included) to be headless (or at least eyeless), legless, antenna-less, fat-less, shell-less, and boneless, there IS an appreciation and satisfaction that comes from working for your food (plus with all the extra time it takes sort through the non-edible stuff, we’re less likely to get fat from overeating!  yay!!)

Here are some pics that show the different types of work to be done!

Grilling your own at your table!

Bánh Tráng Trảng Bàng! Very different kind of rice paper and almost 20 choices of herbs that you’ve never heard of in your life totally make this place famous! The good thing about this dish is that it doesn’t make you feel terrible about yourself after gorging 10 different spring rolls because you mainly eat herbs and veggies! Talking about being on a diet!

4.  Street food mania!!:

Thanh recently purchased a book that details the best street food places in Saigon!  SCORE!!!!  We have now made it our new mission in life to try as many as possible!!  So far we are loving it!!  It’s been a popular date night activity and we have both tried food that we have never had or never thought we would have before!!  So fun!!  Here’s some examples (and even more on our FB page):

assorted dishes

Vietnamese grilled corns with a mixture of green onion sauce! Yummy!

A montrocity of fruits ice blend. So refreshing for less than a buck. I’m sold!

We love fried stuff rolled in lettuce leaves, or in this case, a very different leaf that has a bitter and tart taste. It’s very commonly used here to eat with Vietnamese crepes.

BBQ chicken with fried sticky rice

rolled away in lettuce and herbs and then dipped into three different kinds of yummy sauces of your choice. I’m telling you, it’s all about the wrap, and roll, and dip here in Vietnam! And it costs us just about 100,000đ or 5 USD for a dinner for two, stuff to the rim! Not to savvy heh?