Thursday bowling...take two...and date night Friday in Hoi An

Thursday was a great day...full of running a few more errands for the house, coffee at our favorite place...cafe Ty...and buying the last items for the gift bags for the kids.  Back by popular demand...we took the kids back to Co Op mart for bowling and arcade games.  This time, we got smart and did not feed them immediately before a taxi ride, as several of them are very adept at getting car sick.  Makes me feel a little bit better, seeing as the traffic here makes your head spin just watching it, albeit riding in it!  We did our "clown car" routine, fitting 25+ people into three mini vans and we took the bowling alley by storm!  There are about 14 kids that love bowling, the other 10 are more interested in the arcade games and claw machines that always drop your 50 cent teddy bear moments before the chute.

Tai, Phuc, and An were super into bowling!  Little Tai, who cannot weigh more than a 10 pound bowling ball, would run up to the lane, toss the ball, and magically it would go straight about 80 percent of the time.  Pretty good little bowler!  None of the kids had bowled before, so now two times in, they were old pros.  But, despite having done it before, there was still the mad dash to toss the ball down the lane as fast as possible...sometime sacrificing the racking machine as the ball zoomed down the gutter and slammed into the rack that was still down.  I have a feeling that the teenage guys working the bowling alley were counting down the minutes until we left!  Hahaha!  One of the kids did get a bear out of the thankless claw machine, so the 20 bucks we probably put into that effort was worth her HUGE smile!

Taking 24 kids plus staff from GIBTK and the house mothers can proove to be a bit like hearding cats, but we haven't left a kid behind yet!  They all know that they really COULD get left behind, so they stay close by!  However, we did manage to send Diem for popcorn for the kids as we were waiting for the taxis and then proomptly left her at Co Op mart!  Haha!  Nothing that a cell phone call and a U-turn couldn't remedy!

We brought the kids ice cream the night before from the Vietnamese Costco (called Metro) and they loved it.  This time around, we ordered out so the mothers did not have to cook a meal after returning from bowling at 630pm on a school night.  Chicken and rice take out with soup for 26...30 dollars...brilliant!

We headed to Loc Chau with Hai, Diem, Minh Chau, Paul, Ha, Tony, and two other friends of Jen's for some tasty Vietnamese seafood!  It proceeded to downpour about 20 minutes into us getting there, so we promptly moved inside.  However, it was really enjoyable to watch the traffic go by for the next hour, with people in plastic raincoats and speeding to get home (because THAT is so much safer in torrential downpours).  Hai and Minh Chau even sported the fashionable "double headed raincoat" for their ride home!

The next morning, my GI tract had a bit of a war with my dinner from the night before...but nothing that a liter of water, a handful of antacids, and a nap couldn't fix!  Jen was a darling and packed up the kids' gift bags (thank you Mandy and Uncle Dean for contributing) while I slept.  We then hopped on the motorbike and made the drive to Hoi An.  We headed back to the wonderful Hai Au hotel, had a much-needed shower, and had a lovely date night out!  Happy hour beers watching the kids play in the streets, a lovely glass of wine (hard to find here) at White Marble, a Samurai show courtesy of the Japan-Hoi An festival that happened to be going on, and a lovely dinner overlooking the river.   Such a great treat from my beautiful girlfriend!