Tears of joy!

So my Mom reminded me last night that we don't write enough. The two-year-old schedule is pretty grueling for sure. Misty's been at home now for two weeks while I'm back at work trying to tie up a number of loose ends before I'm done on June 15 for good - or at least until I secure part-time work in Brunei this fall.

She'll come back to work that next week and work all the way through early August when we leave to come back the US of A!! Woo Hoo! It's always the last couple months of a tour that you realy start itching to get out, get moving, go ahead on to the next place - and of course get back to the US and tuck in to some fast food, smooth roads, drinkable tap water, and mall shopping.
Gracie? Oh yeah. I'm sure everyone reading this is like, "shut up already, you two are fine... How's the kid?!" She is, in a word, awesome. She's smart, beautiful, and 7 out of 7 days she wakes up happy as a little piggie. She's been talking non-stop. In a mix of Cantonese opera, baby talk, sign-language, and heavily accented English. Let's see here. The English words that she is able to speak are as follows: Apple, milk, wawa (water) car, ball, baby, flower, bye-bye, hello, Gracie, Daddy, Mommy, eye, nose, ear, one, two, three, four, five (she mixes up the order of three and four). I think there are others, but Misty's been home with her for the last two weeks, and I'm missing out. We'll flip back and Misty can share my feelings of longing! She signs potty, baby, more, eat, drink, ouch, thank you, please, up, light, fan, car, daddy, mommy, cereal, and banana.

She says lots of other stuff to us like ah-MAH, and dat! But we're not exactly certain what they mean. The coolest thing ever though is when she tries to say something to us in English. This morning I got up a little late and she was already sitting on the edge of her bed waiting for one of to come get her (orphanage training for sure). So we went in and did our morning business and then walked downstairs. Misty was in the kitchen getting breakkie ready and Gracie walked up to me and started rubbing Mr. Monkey on her upper lip (standard fare for "I'm nervous", "I'm tired", or "I'm sad") and Misty said, "Oh, she's sad that you're leaving". Wow. Good feelings. Feelings that couldn't be topped, right? Wrong. Then, as I was putting stuff in my bag, our daughter walks up to me, wraps her arms around my right bicep and squeezes me hard and says, "Duh do daddy. Bye Bye".

I case you need a translation that was "I love you Daddy, bye bye".

Then just as quickly she was off to breakfast! Gotta stay on schedule, even if you've just caused your two new parents to start bawling with joy.