How is Scuppy Doing in Hue?

Some of our more devoted blog watchers may be wondering how is Team Scuppy holding up after five weeks overseas, thirty some postings and four weeks in Hue? The answer, happy to say, is that we are doing fine. This blog entry is intended mainly to share with our blog watchers how things are going according to Scuppy as best we can tell. "Room" has become our home and its here that each morning she enjoys a routine of playing with toys and dollies before getting some breakfast in the garden. Breakfast is usually followed by a walkabout in the garden and then a swim in the pool.

Each day for lunch we head over to Nghien and Lac's house at noon where Uncle Nghien entertains Scuppy with his grandfatherly antics. Their son is married to Hong-Anh's cousin on the other side of the family and now lives in Boston, so they're enjoying Xuan Anh in lieu of their grandson who is far away. Nghien makes lots of crazy noises and games as he dances with his hands or drums on the table. Scuppy gets great food each day thanks to Thim Lac, especially regular servings of shrimp and rice. Today was "ga rut xuong", a dish that took Thim Lac three hours to prepare and was absolutely delicious.


In the afternoons she takes a nap usually from 1pm to 3pm. On Tues-Thurs this is also Ba time when I stay here while Hong-Anh teaches the afternoon Vietnamese language class. When she wakes up from nap its Ba-time. (She calls me Ba.) We often start out with pool play. Last Thursday Scuppy was one of the otters she read about in her book, and she swam in the pool on her back (me holding her), collecting coins (little fruits that fall into the pool from a tree overhead) while saying "au revoir" to her French friend, Elisa. This week the pool's been a little cold and the Frenchies have gone, so we haven't gone in yet, but maybe this afternoon since its sunny again. After the pool and a bath, we have snacks and watch Dora the Explorer on Hong-Anh's i-pod. From there we might go out for a walk, get food at the restaurant, or go play with Mama when she comes home. In this picture, Scuppy visited the fabric store with Mama to look at beautiful fabrics for making "ao dai" the traditional Vietnamese dress. Hong-Anh with Thim Lac's help is getting us outfitted for the new school year; a set of new linen work shirts for me and a few new pairs of slacks all to be tailored sometime next week. She's also getting new pajamas and a few other items made upon request for Di Quynh, her mom and her dad. I'm not sure who the friend is in this picture. Maybe this is the lilliputian ao dai shop and she's the owner? (Hong-Anh tells me it's the shop owner's 2 yr old daughter.) Scuppy is definitely right at home and her Vietnamese has definitely improved as she hears it each day. She's counting in both English and Vietnamese and knows some basics about greeting people. Also, thanks to Ba-time, she's picking up some yoga poses such as downward dog, boat, and mountain.