We arrived on Tuesday in Vietnam and have been in Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon) for the last three days. It's a fascinating experience so far. The drive to from the airport to our hotel was our first experience with traffic in Vietnam! There are motorbikes everywhere, zooming in and out of traffic. When someone on a motorbike wants to cut across traffic, they just start beeping their horn and move right on over - everyone else just seems to slow up at the ri...

After five years of saving our pennies and several months of planning, we found ourselves down to the final days before leaving on our big trip. Departure day - Monday, February 11, 2008 - was creeping up very quickly! We had our going away festivities on Friday, February 1 and thanks to Shauna's planning, it was a phenomenal party!! It was held at the Speakeasy in downtown Appleton and over 100 friends and family came to bid us farewell. We went home that night...