judy on September 20th, 2010

Well, Ira finally decided to go on and have knee replacement surgery.  He was operated on shortly after our return from Claude’s birthday celebration — on Tuesday, September 14, 2010, at Presbyterian Hospital (Walnut Hill Lane) in Dallas.  He came through surgery in fine shape and was discharged on Friday, September 17. Painwise, Ira is doing fine […]

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judy on September 10th, 2010

Claude turned 40!!  Ira and I along with Olivia and Aaron joined the Massachusetts family for a grand celebration in Falmouth.  A wonderful time was had by all!!

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judy on February 10th, 2009

Today, we made a difficult decision.  We decided that we need to stay in the States for awhile and try to rejoin the workforce.  The economy is such that we are concerned that our retirement funds may not last the way we had assumed they would.  So now we are polishing our resumes and looking […]

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ira on December 9th, 2008

Well, we’re three days away from departure and as usual will leave with mixed emotions.  On the one hand, we can hardly wait for the warmth of hearth and home, family and friends over the holidays; on the other, we will feel a pleasant kind melancholy as the jets begin to whine.  This has been […]

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judy on December 4th, 2008

Ira and I were in Khon Kaen on T’giving and dined with a couple of our friends and fellow Americans who teach at our old school.  We ate well and counted all our blessings — at the top of that list is our wonderful family.  Except for the airport closures in Bangkok which caused us […]

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judy on December 2nd, 2008

Ira and I are fine but we are now stuck in Laos.  We couldn’t get any flights out of Thailand for weeks and the flights from Khon Kaen only go to Bangkok anyway which is obviously no good.   So, we came back up to Vientiane by bus to try to get to Vietnam.  The flights […]

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judy on November 29th, 2008

Well here’s a first for Ira and me…  Thanks to the PAD protesters at the airports, we are now “stuck” in Thailand.  We’re here in Khon Kaen with our old friends so obviously no hardships!  But, we had planned to fly back to Vietnam today and hold class tomorrow.  All flights into and out of […]

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judy on November 23rd, 2008

Sure enough, on my 65th birthday, I did have a terrific evening in Bangkok with a lot of our group who always used to get together at Doug and Yim’s old restaurant.  Those days from 2003 – 2007 were special ones!  We even met at the site of the beloved old Thee Sud Isaan.  It was great to […]

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ira on November 4th, 2008

While you were stirring around this morning to go vote, it was last night for us. We were reminiscing about our long string of new, exciting, and improbable experiences here in Vietnam.  I almost feel guilty about having such fun and great good fortune in general. Last weekend’s events are an example, as will be […]

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judy on September 24th, 2008

We have now been in Vietnam, in Ho Chi Minh City aka Saigon, for almost exactly one week.  Our impressions are currently mixed as we compare Vietnam with Thailand.  We have been trying to decide how to count — or discount — the familiarity quotient that we have developed with Thailand and the Thai language […]

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