Sienna Marie

Since leaving Guatemala six months ago, when Sienna was nearly 3, she has grown up a lot! We spent the summer having a blast with family and friends while Sienna continued to speak Spanglish. Once she started preschool, she really came out of her shell - not that she was ever in a shell, but she got pretty clever and comical. Sienna did, unfortunately, stop speaking Spanglish, for the most part, and if I speak to her in Spanish, she responds in English. At least she still understands what I'm saying. Like a seasoned overseas veteran, she makes friends easily. All kids, including those in pictures and on television, are her pals. She's always been the youngest in the group and this remained the same in her preschool class where her classmates, Aryona and Bujin, are both a year older. Their parents are teachers at AIS, Red and Iggy are from Florida, while Gunther is from California and his wife is from Mongolia. Another AIS teacher's daughter, Koreena, is five or six months y

We departed Minneapolis/St. Paul Interational Airport on July 26 with Nana in tow. We lucked out big time with an upgrade to First Class, thanks to the help of my mom's cousin's wife who changed her work schedule so she'd be working at the Delta counter on the day of our departure. The 12 hour plane ride wasn't that bad from those seats! We spent the first week in the LanLan 2 Hotel , courtesy of the American International School and were thrilled to move into our new Sky Garden apartment in the Phu My Hung neighborhood of District 7. Nana immediately noticed how nice and quiet the neighborhood is compared to the chaos and honking of District 1. We spent the two weeks apartment hunting, settling in, shopping, finding a nanny, registering Sienna for preschool and doing a little bit of sight seeing to balance things out. We love the safe, gun-free streets, excellent food, cheap everything, nice and extremely child friendly people - did I mention that Sienna is a cele