Today we woke up early to visit with Bethany's birth mom as much as we could at breakfast because we had to catch a flight to Hanoi and leave the hotel by 7:00am.
Bethany's mom and cousin stayed overnight in the hotel and Bethany's brother came back to say goodbye this morning.
It was so sweet...yesterday Bethany was so worried that her mom wouldn't take advantage of the shower and all the other ammenities because her mom was so humble and shy and didn't ask for anything. Bethany also wanted to have her mom's clothes washed at the hotel before she left so she could have clean clothes.
We communicated to Bethany's mom a lot through the translator and also through Bethany's cousin who could read and write in English. They exchanged email addresses so that Bethany could her email pictures and stay connected.
When it was time to say goodbye to Bethany's family, it was just heartbreaking. Everyone was crying. I've never seen someone sob and sob like Bethany's mother did. She didn't want to say goodbye again and was just so sad that she couldn't take care of her. I can't imagine what kind of emotions were going through her head. Goodbyes are so hard. 
I rarely see Bethany get emotional or cry but it literally stabbed me in the chest when my mom and sister stood around Bethany's birth mom and just hugged her to tell her it would be okay. 
Bethany's mom kept studying every part of Bethany. Her ears, her hands and her smell. I've never seen anything so sad before. She was literally holding onto Bethany's leg just sobbing.
The hotel worker that was working in the gardens outside was watching us, sobbing too with tears just streaming down her face.
Bethany's family lead us to the bus when it was time and Bethany watched them out the window and cried. 
We flew to Hanoi and were served rooster and goat at lunch. Then as we were walking to the bus afterwards we saw the goats and roosters in the pen behind the restaraunt ughh 
We had a little fun ...
The rooster is taking a rice bath!!
After lunch we visited the orphanage that one of our fellow adoptees came from.
After visiiting, we had to drive back into the city where our hotel was and along with the flight earlier and driving tithe orphanage, we were in the bus for a long time. 
Best Vietnamese snacks!!! Marine boys
They're sorta animal crackers with seaweed and salt on them and they're sooo good!!!!
Along the way, our bus ran out of gas and our driver had to improvise on a way to get the diesel into the bus. He used water bottles...only in Vietnam. 
Once we got to the hotel we went to a restaraunt that served American food!!! Bethany was feeling really sad about leaving her birth family yeaterday and was really depressed and she almost didnt go, but once she talked about it and had a good cry she was okay.
We had cheeseburgers and fries and spaghetti and brownies and our tummys were really happy. 
Once we got back to our hotel we all took showers in our amazing hotel rooms!!! We stayed in a four star hotel (I think someone said that) yesterday night and man was it EXQUISITE!! I'll take pics and post them on here soon.
So once we were clean we all lounged in our friends room and watched Despicable Me. 
Sorry for not posting this earlier, I was beat! Talk to you later...
Blessings!!
Marisa
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