Merry Everything!

We had a fun filled weekend holiday of merriness!

On Sunday night, a group of Mission families and friends went caroling...

there were 40-50 of us out and about...

it was so merry, it was blurry!

Merry Everything from niCLO & Hubs!

Merry carolers....we were given candy, beer and cookies for our talents, it was a lot of fun!

On Christmas eve, we had the day off(Thank you, Mr. President), so we decided to organize our house and I baked a bit for our Christmas day celebration. We were on such a mission to get organized, we forgot to eat breakfast so we were starving by the time we had lunch. Instead of ordering in, as we always do from Foodshop 45, we decided to walk...

Do not put your garbage here, the only time we have seen a sign like this in Hanoi....otherwise we see garbage on the street everywhere

Chai masala from Foodshop-amazing!

Our standard samosa order

Set menu for lunch; Chicken curry and Paneer Tikka Masala

Full order of Tandoori Chicken, did I mention we were starving?

After lunch, I attempted to make green bean casserole. No, this is not another "Nic vs. the stove" episode...it was more of a "Nic vs. Ms. H" My housekeeper comes on Mondays and while I asked her to not make dinner that day and only BUY me green beans and onions to make green bean casserole, she was set on making it herself. She even had a recipe to make it from scratch! She was not impressed with my Campbell's mushroom soup, and insisted that I should put some thyme in the casserole(I didn't)--but it all turned out pretty delicious. We went to a Merry Carpness: A Slovak Christmas Eve. Our friend's boyfriend is Slovak and wanted to have the traditional Carp Christmas. Therefore, Merry Carpness was born on Christmas eve. They DID indeed go and buy the carp and try to keep him alive in the bathtub, but alas, Hanoi tap water killed him before the night was over. 

We had a gift exchange....

The amazing spread of food BEFORE it was cooked...

Slovak potato salad

Me and Ms H's green bean casserole

My amazing plate of green bean casserole, baked cabbage, potato salad, stuffed chicken, fried carp, squash and potatoes!

We had SO much fun playing games and drinking eggnog and mulled wine. When we came home, we ran into two colleagues outside our buidling. One of them recently bought a new "toy."

Doesn't that look like fun?

The best part of this "ride" is that the owner filled the front with toys and drove all around Hanoi handing out presents to children all night! 

We went home and tried to watch National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation(a tradition in the Hubs family), but we were too tired to make it through the entire movie. We went to bed and I woke up at 4:30am too excited to sleep! Hubs didn't feel the same, so after a few hours, I went back to sleep also and we rose together to open presents...

We must have been good this year, at least Santa thought so...

My dad sent me this book from my childhood, it seems pretty accurate :)

After our gift openings, I skyped with my #1 blog fan <HEYYYY JSWOLL!> and we went and got massages in the afternoon(my present to Hubs). Later on, we went to dinner at a dear friend's house.

This is the centerpiece I bought :) Not bad, Vietnam.

I brought the Christmas goodies sent from my Gram and Aunt, they were a hit!

Amazing spread by many talented chefs and Turkey and Ham from Donkey Bakery

A happy plate is a full plate:

Green bean casserole, turkey, ham, sweet potato casserole, stuffing, mashed potatoes and salad

the desserts!

I made the peanut butter balls and pumpkin pie bars, but there was also fudge, cookies galore and MORE!

After dinner, we had a white elephant exchange, which was pretty hilarious....

I would show you some of the gifts, but it was a white elephant...

:)

It was VERY MERRY! 

Yes, we missed our families and friends, however; we were surrounded by the spirit of Christmas: wonderful people, love, laughter and most importantly-we had each other. 

Love was all around, and that's what it's all about, right?

I am so grateful to have such a wonderful partner on this grand adventure.

I love you Hubs!

We hope you had a very Merry Holiday and wish you a Happy New Year!

Happy America Day to Me!

On Thursday, my friend C took me on an American adventure/educational tour of Hanoi places that I haven't been...

New York Crispy--the closest thing to Krispy Kreme that I have encountered in Hanoi. YUM. Beware--if you try to go by taxi, you really need to know where the Garden Mall is! I tried to send two friends there and they got lost yesterday:(

The Garden Shopping Mall has a new store: The GAP! I was shocked...

Doesn't this look like America? Save for the Vietnamese banner....

After my Garden Mall experience, my friend took me to Indochina Plaza, which is not a far drive from the Mall...

Yes, that's Burger King, Pizza Hut and KFC...the ONLY Burger King in Hanoi

There is also a Body Shop inside and more!

My friend C ordered the Whopper....

..and I ordered the Spicy Chicken crispy, which I don't think I have had in over ten years, but the nostalgia made it worth it. I did add the chili sauce though, which made it even better. At BK in VN you only get the choice of a small coke and small fries; there is no other soda option, it was delish!

After my American retail adventure, I went back to work. Hubs and I went out on Thursday night to say farewell to a dear friend leaving back to the States for good. It was near the The Metropole, a fancy hotel surrounded by luxury shops....

Where are we? Feels like Georgetown...

Are we in America? Well, no because you will not see local people taking TONS of pictures around a hotel in America. If you drive by the Metropole during the day, you will see at least 3 couples getting wedding pictures being taken, at night it's teenagers taking each others photos on their iPhones.

Notice: the Hubs striking a pose, do as the locals do!

Gucci and Christmas lights! Feels like home!

We went for Happy Hour at The Press Club to sendoff Miss Jenny right: we miss you already!

We had some pizza and other goods, and then the Karaoke began....

"I will survive" by Diva D

Our happy crew

The Hubs singing "Summer of 69" with Miss Anna

Such a fun night! We have the most fun friends!

On the way home, we saw an impromptu circus show in the road!

The next day, my office handed out stockings(with contents contributed by our community) to our Marine Security Guard. 

Thank you for your service gentlemen!

On Friday we received some more Christmas cheer: packages from our families! One of them was a box full of my Grandma's homemade goodies! It feels like Christmas, and TASTES like Christmas too! YUMMMMMM!

Saturday morning we woke up to an email notifying us that Mr. Barack Obama has given us Monday off, then later in the morning Mrs. Hillary Clinton sent us an email thanking us for all that we do to advance our nation's interests and values. I am pretending like she sent it just to me, when in reality, I know that it went to all State employees. Either way, I thought that it was pretty rad. Although I am feeling a bit homesick for the holidays, I am also feeling very grateful to serve our country, very blessed to be working at such an awesome Mission in Hanoi and very proud to be an American. 

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE! 

HAVE A SAFE AND HAPPY HOLIDAY!

Hodge-podge

This blog has no theme, except perhaps winter. It's a hodge podge of events, but I like the photos, so here goes:

Our housekeeper made Bun Thang; chicken, egg, mushroom and shrimp with noodles and a fish broth. Not my fave, but aok with chili sauce on top:)

Ew. Rainy Monday. It was so cold and took forever to get to work, can you IMAGINE driving to work on a scooter in THIS. 

Mopeds galore; I will one day get a good picture of the different kinds of raincoats, but for now, I will borrow from the internet:

From sourcingmap.com; the dual hood poncho: note the clear square in the front--this is for your scooter light, of course! I love it.

Today was our Management Section holiday party, we had International fare: 

Above: Chinese....

Indian....

Pizza and sodas!

I love my section, they are an awesome group of people:)

To sum up the hodge-podge of photos, I am posting a pic for my Gram(who didn't love the cinnamon roll frosting, btw): this is our tree in all her glory, WITH both Hubs and My ornaments from our childhoods with a few we have picked up in the last three Christmas seasons. 

If you look close, you can see that it's leaning forward a little bit. 

I think we will buy a bigger tree next year!

 ....and we will find a better space for it since our presents are starting to overflow...

Thanks everyone for sending us goodies! We are feeling the love!

To our parents: See, we promised we would wait until Christmas to open our gifts! 

Happy Holidays!

Xe Om: Hugging Vehicle

In Vietnam, the motorbike taxis are called "Xe Om", which translates to Hugging vehicle. Today we got a ride home from brunch from our friend Javi...three Americans on a motorbike, we got some laughs and chuckles from several Vietnamese on the way. 

It was really fun, and now I want a motorbike!

Christmas is all around us....

We watched Love Actually with some friends this weekend and I cannot get the remix of "Love is all around us" out of my head....it's not such a bad thing:) Luckily, Christmas IS all around us...it's been another holidazed week...

More delicious food: Bun Bo Nam Bo from Commune, I think I have an obsession

The Holiday tree in the foyer of the Rose Garden, done by VN staff, pretty rad!

Pad thai, spinach and red curry

YUM!

Hot apple cider from an HIWC "Coffee" morning

Look at all of the holiday goodies I can buy from UMA!

I resisted and only bought a few goods, I am continuously amazed by the availability of Western goods

Fried tofu at Bi Do: Red Pumpkin for lunch

shrimp and peppers at Bi Do

In addition to the holidays, we had a Medical visitor in to do lead testing for the small kids. Since our offices are close, I got a lot of visitors in my office this week, which resulted in this:

The talented artists of US Embassy Ha Noi!

On Friday, we had our door decorating contest. There were some pretty amazing doors....

MED: See the flu shots in Santa's sleigh?

MED: with pictures of their kids who made it possible:)

Information Resource Management: 

Of course, IT had all the bells and whistles: even music and a slideshow!

ECON: the nerdiest by far :) 

"A Free Toy Agreement for the 21st Century"

more of ECON

Is this the Mailroom, or a rave?

The Mailroom door: a package, very clever!

The Mailroom gets props for dressing as reindeer

CONSULAR

With a recycling theme, very creative!

the actual door to CONSULAR

everything is recycled here!

Of course, the FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT OFFICE door has a tree made of money

The HR Angels

one of my favorite Angels:)

another favorite angel....

The Management Counselor in a banana split sleigh

He has an ice cream social and taught the local staff how to make banana splits:)

Back to CONSULAR to view the slideshow!

REGIONAL SECURITY OFFICE:

with walkie-talkies and badges!

USAID had an entire presentation...

Very impressive! An entirely recycled display:)

Notice how everyone has plastic bag "stockings"

CDC had Dr. Santa!

More CDC....

See the snow made of recycled shredded paper?

What makes me feel like Christmas? A sleigh full of condoms, thank you CDC!

As many of you know, I was feeling very sad about not having many ornaments that were "mine" on the Christmas tree, so I asked my dad to send me a few....I was VERY happy to receive a care package this week!

Who remembers this guy?! I don't even remember how old he is, but I am so happy to have him in our Christmas decorations:)

A box of ornaments from my childhood; I am pretty sure that the Hulk Hogan santa isn't mine, but I am keeping him! Sorry bro!

The angel from my tree, with VN/US wings

In the spirit of the holidays, I have been doing a lot of baking. I am planning to take several of my Grandma's peanut butter balls to a few parties, so I bought three bags of semi sweet chocolate chips....

These bags cost $21 total. I am going to order some online. Oi gioi oi!

I bought my own snowflakes for our house, it's getting festive in here!

Last night we had an ugly sweater party for a friend's birthday and a going away party also....thanks to my mama, we got into it:

Hubs and his ugly sweater....

The peanut butter balls! Ready for the party!

Taking the elevator to the party....it was only 5 floors away, but the stairs are sketchy...

Oh fer cute....

Ugly sweaters!

More "ugly" sweaters

The cutest sisters in HaNoi

Happy birthday Sam--Jenny; we are going to miss you!

These ladies make ugly sweaters look good!

SO FUN!

This morning we went to a Hanukkah brunch and I was so overwhelmed by the amazing latkes and quiches that I forgot to take photos! Whoops....It was a lot of fun. One of the highlights was a little boy singing "dreidel, dreidel, dreidel, I made it out of play-doh"<which he did!> The Hubs and another friend got schooled playing dreidel with two kids and we had a lovely morning. 

This next week will be a little more low key....well, probably not.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS EVERYONE!