The last few months have been a whirlwind. We are home from Vietnam with the most amazing new son. We are two months home from the most amazing trip of our lives. I’m confident that no trip for the rest of our lives will ever parallel the experience that we had on this trip (unless we adopt again 
). With spending 2 1/2 weeks in Vietnam and traveling to three cities, I am going to split these post up into at least five post- Traveling there, Phan Rang, Meeting our Son, Saigon, and Hanoi. That being said, I took over 3,000 pictures and have narrowed them down to about 250 to share so maybe more post than that haha. So here we go- Part 1- traveling to Vietnam!
I was really grateful for the way that our flights lined up perfectly so that I could put Ford and Rhett to bed and then finish getting everything to the car before leaving for the airport. They were both a little apprehensive of us leaving and if I had to say goodbye as we actually drove away I am quite certain that I would have been a big mess (a few may have still rolled down my cheek but I was able to keep it together). The few days prior to leaving had been a flurry of trying to get everything together, finalizing the paperwork we needed to take, phone calls with our adoption agency and international adoption clinic to make sure we knew everything we needed to know, packing, laundry, more packing, etc. We had a week long family reunion that we had been out of town for less than a week before we left so we had to do all of the reunion packing, do mass amounts of laundry, and then find everything and pack again. Luckily I had been smart and packed Toan and Sawyer’s bags weeks before, so really it was just Brandon and I’s things but it’s a lot of work packing for a two week adoption trip! We also were flying on four different airlines and taking a train, all of which had different restrictions for size and weight of bags so the whole time we were measuring, weighing, and at one point had to unpack and repack a bag into a different one to make sure we were fitting everyone’s requirements.
Our flight left just after midnight on Sunday/Monday night so we tried to be all packed and ready to go on Saturday night so we could just spend Sunday together as a family. We went to church, took golf cart rides, and had dessert with extended family. The whole day I was SO ready to head to the airport and go get our little guy. Brandon gave me and each of the kids blessings to help prepare us for this big change.
My Dad took Sawyer, Brandon, and I to the airport around 9:30 and we officially began our adventure! Getting to the airport I was nothing but excited and so ready to get to Vietnam! Our first flight was an almost 15 hour flight to Korea where we had a 4 hour layover and then we would fly to Hanoi (4 1/2 flight), change over to their domestic airport side, and a two hour flight from Hanoi to Cam Ranh. A total of around 21 hours of flying and lots more hours spent in airports. Taking that first flight at night was awesome for Sawyer. He played games for the first two hours of the flight and then slept 8 hours! It was a huge blessing as parents because bored kids on planes can be tricky. Turns out we didn’t need to worry one bit about Sawyer on the whole trip- he was the best little travel buddy and we never once had to entertain him. He was the easiest kiddo ever and we had a great time. 
Seoul, Korea wins the award for coolest airport we’ve ever been to. There were kid play areas everywhere, both for little kids and big kids, tons of restaurants and charging stations at almost every seat. The airport is huge and has those crazy toilets like you see in Cars 2. We had a lot of fun on our layover there. It was 4 a.m. in Korea when we landed so we had the place almost to ourselves which was fun. We didn’t get to see much of Hanoi’s airport, but as we flew in and took the bus to the domestic side, I had my eyes wide open, just trying to soak in as much of the scene in our little guys home country as we could. Hanoi’s domestic side was our first real taste of being in Vietnam. It is not geared towards tourist at all. Everyone was Vietnamese, and everything is in Vietnamese. We loved it. We were able to find our gate and soon we were on our way to Cam Ranh!
(We had to take a bus from the International Terminal of Hanoi to the Domestic one. It was BRIGHT outside while we waited for the bus but we were so excited to be in Vietnam!)
When we landed in Cam Ranh it was a whole day earlier than at home and we were all exhausted. We had tried to plan our sleeping so that we’d be tired when we got to our hotel. When we walked off the plane in Cam Ranh (You get to walk down the big plane stairs onto the tarmac, it makes you feel like a celebrity or something) we went through security and met Peter who works for our adoption agency and would be with us while were in Phan Rang. Our car we had pre-booked didn’t show up but once we gave up on him we grabbed a taxi and were on our way to Phan Rang!
I stared out the window the entire time, so many thing to take in and see. I’ve never traveled internationally before and seeing it in pictures is nothing compared to seeing it in real life. Even at 10pm the streets were alive, filled with people on motorbikes, families eating at the restaurants along the sidewalks (everything is open air so it’s cooler out on the sidewalks), and more motorbikes filling every inch of the streets. The buildings that just line the streets are so close to the road and seem to never end with so many beautiful bright colors and designs on the outside. Brandon and Sawyer both fell fast asleep pretty shortly after getting in the car but I just wanted to take every second to take in Cam Ranh and then Phan Rang, our little boys home!
We got to our hotel around midnight and didn’t do much other than pass out asleep. The next morning we would be meeting our son!
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