In Asia, young people call older adults Uncle and Auntie as a way of greeting them.  It is a sign of respect.  Cici's Vietnamese classmate who has been so helpful to her has started calling me Uncle.  She is a grade ahead of Cici and just saved us 3 or 4 hundred dollars by giving all of her textbooks to Cici.  I told her that we will help her with her immigration status when it is time to change it.  I drove this young lady and Cici to the mall so they could see a movie and do some shopping, and then picked them up to bring them home.  I think she is coming back tomorrow because they are going to miss each other this summer.

Meantime, the packing has started.  I finally convinced Ping and Cici that she should check both of her larger suitcases and use my rolling laptop case to take her laptop and other important things like her camera and ipod and passport and tickets on board the airplane.  They had wanted to put the laptop in the smaller suitcase and let her take it on board the plane.  She is taking so many gifts back with her that she will need all the room she can get in her two suitcases.

We bought 6 large bags of pecan halves at Costco yesterday.  Ping's mom loves to eat them, so we are taking a large supply to her.  Four of Cici's former classmates asked her to bring t-shirts to them, so she added those to the many things that she has collected for gifts over the past year.  She also has many clothes and shoes to take along for her own use, so she is taking only one bag of the pecans.

This morning Ping got her wish and I drove her car to the office.  I stopped on the way and had the oil changed and got the car washed.  Which reminds me.  I guess I will alternate driving the two cars to the office when Ping goes back to China in July.  Then Cici and the band played at the school graduation ceremony this afternoon.

Unbelievable as it is, she is half way through high school.