MAXIE

well... who knew you could sell a house that wasn't for sale?

We bought the Maxie pad (we live on Maxie Street, hence the nic name) in August 2007 before we were married in 2008. Dirk was gone offshore for most of the premarital sin of living together before marriage and we also had a roommate, Mitch, who was left in limbo with his housing situation. We loved the location from the get go! We could walk to restaurants, bars, doughnut shops, and the best part was Memorial Park was a 10 minute walk with doggie park for Otto.

We moved to Singapore August 2008. We barely had a year there to enjoy the area AND the wonderful neighbors!

Our neighbors deserve a post all in its self! They are so wonderful and accepting, even when Dirk rolled up with this big red pickup everyday and smoked out the street with his heavy duty grill/smoker. The pickup was an eye sore next to the Porsche's and BMW's... but they didn't care. They invited us out to neighbors night every Tuesday anyway, they took care of me while Dirk was already in Singapore and Hurricane Ike hit. We secured the neighborhood and cooked out every night on said smoker/grill. They truly are the best people!

So... with all that said, our current tenants have made us an offer on this great house, awesome neighborhood, and ideal location... that we could not pass up in this economy. I mean really, how do you sell a house that wasn't for sale??? I guess this just shows everything has a price?

The deal is not final, no closing date as of yet. Part of me hopes that it falls through, but at this point I have to think everything happens for a reason and I am not the one in control.

Goodbye Maxie! You were an AWESOME first house!

I am going to miss this big bright living room!

Just look at these crazy kids!

vietnam paintings

we are addicted to collecting paintings over here! we bought TWO while we were in hanoi. hanoi is known for its paintings and we particularly love this artist. both are landscapes of hanoi and the artist is local who still lives there. he came down to sign the authenticity paper.

this one is huge! i don't know where we are going to put it! it is about as big as a queen size bed.

this one is smaller, i love all the color!

we are currently getting them framed so i will take better pictures when we get them back!

descending dragon bay... and tons of pictures!

april 1st-4th: ha long bay, vietnam

i hate divided blogs... why can't people just blog on one topic for the whole posting... BUT i had so many pictures that i thought i should break up the trip... so i will make it as entertaining as possible! i do this mostly for my parents... they don't facebook. old people! (just kidding love & miss you!)

so we headed to hanoi, vietnam easter weekend. mind you, i planned the whole trip and dirk had no idea what was going on at all... this is the way i prefer most trips... how exciting is it to be him? he is so focused on work that it would be hard for him to even comprehend how much planning trips like these involve. (i just tell him when to take holiday and when the plane leaves) i think i may have even packed a few bags for him...

anyway... onto ha long bay! it means descending dragon in vietnamese. we started the trips with a 3 day excursion on the bay... one night on a boat (aloha junk) and one night on an island. here we go...

arriving to the boat

i missed the part that it was the end of monsoon season... didn't really matter anyway since it was really the only time we could go, so it was a little cold (nice change from steamy singapore) and it rained but it really didn't take away anything from the trip... actually made it more beautiful!

our cabin, not too shabby, and came with a view!

local fishing boats which were used as homes too

main deck, aloha junk

clouds and bay... feels eerie huh?

dragon!

view from the boat

view from our room

i'm on a BOAT!

first time we used our fake northface rain jackets and fleeces, bought in vietnam! HAHA! they worked really well too! so well we bought three more backpacks.

local fishing village, the people live on the bay, got off the "junk" and took an up close tour!

local row boat

anyone seen the international Visa credit card commercial with the guy in the boat doing a funny dance, saying "in Vietnam without a Dong"- well dirk loves this commercial and cracks up every time he sees it. we really wanted to reenact the commercial but don't think they were going to play along.

lovely

every house had a flag, dog, and tv

they probably learn to swim early in life

and so do the dogs...

cement boat?

nice little row around the bay...

all the boats at night took anchor in the same harbour

i counted over 30... and karaoke pouring out of them at all hours of the night

fresh seafood everyday on the bay, luckly we had no allgeries to shellfish!

more to come...

kayaking, beaches, and limestone karsts

april 2-3: ha long bay

so we stayed the night on the aloha junk (such an ironic name for a vietnamese boat huh?). we stuffed ourselves with as much fresh seafood and hanoi beer possible having lovely conversations with our fellow travelers. there were two younger female travelers, traveling alone, on board who we befriended. one an irish doctor and the other a german/korean from germany.

side note- does anyone know this show called "american dad"? apparently they show this in ireland all the time, and that is how they think of us (cringe) we had an american family with us as well, they were stationed with the military in japan... apparently he was the typical "american dad". they also home schooled their children which the german and the irish were amazed at (fascination that of a side show at the carnival) i agree the children were a little socially in adequate and all they did was read books... on HA LONG BAY! but to each their own... right?

so the next day we woke up and had a very busy day of kayaking... yes FOUR hours of kayaking! i was thoroughly impressed with both families on board. one australian family with two boys maybe 7 and 9. and well the american family (who, yes, brought their own compass and survival gear) not only did the kids eat all the seafood they also kayaked the whole time!

we also shared the boat with some other tour goers. they were not in our group and only stayed one night with us. i mention them only to share a funny story that maybe a tad racial but dirk and i find hilarious! in this group are two asian males, traveling together (i don't know). AND yes the are suited up from head to toe in camera gear. (dirk and i love to watch asians on holiday, when i say asians, i mean the stereotypical asians) so we are all sitting down to lunch as the boat heads to ha long bay. we start seeing the rock karst outside the windows, well as soon as we saw the first one, the two asians jump out of their seats and to the door to get all the "good" pictures. mind you, we see thousands of these for the next 48 hours

also at one point during the trip i notice the boat turned around suddenly and the captain out standing on the front looking into the water (this may have been 5 hanoi beers in, not thinking that someone could be overboard) apparently during one of their many photo shoots they dropped a camera in the water. WHO does that? and WHO makes the boat turn around to look for it? like it is going to float?? luckily i am sure they had many many back up cameras...

onto the pictures...

kayaking, should be an elective of marriage preparation class. it took us awhile to get the hang of it and some skill from both sides. dirk was the captain, i was in front. (just this should scare anyone getting married) dirk steered us and was the one responsible for keeping us in sync.

strongly recommend kayaking before marriage, great way to learn how to work together! haha!

.
and no one got wet :)

el captain

deserted beach

conquered ha long bay april 2010!

turtle island

ca bat island - halong bay, vietnam

April 5th, 2010: Easter

after spending one night on ha long bay aboard the aloha junk, we arrived on cat ba island. it is the biggest island in ha long bay. while we were they we hiked up a hill? mountain?... either way it took us 45 minutes up and i felt like a mountain goat! plus it was raining and very slick. we also saw the hidden hospital built in a cave used in the vietnam war. it was refuge to the upper military leaders and a fully functioning hospital.

can't go on holiday without sampling the local beer, actually pretty good!

welcome drinks, artificial coloring much?

the hotel was awesome!

buddha onto of mountain number 2

cat ba island

weird seafood, never figured out what these were? ideas?

hospital cave

mountain goat-n-it

at the top, can't see much but WE did it! other two ladies that we climbed with

hydrofoil boats

world famous restaurant that served one dish but it was awesome!

hotel in hanoi

busy street of hanoi

tour through hanoi! cracked us up a little bit.