There is no denying it now.  Cici's bags are packed and she is ready to go.  When we wake up early tomorrow we will head for the airport.  One of the many t-shirts that Cici is taking says "I Love Houston" with a heart in place of the word love.  She held it up in front of her body so I could see it.  She also has several t-shirts from her band activities, and is giving t-shirts with various words like "Houston" and "Texas" on them as gifts.  Somewhere along the way I believe she developed some pride about her new home town.

We started flipping through Cici's American History textbook last night while Cici was packing.  Ping kept finding interesting things to read about, and I also found it very interesting.  Ping and I may have to read that book this summer while Cici is away.  This is Vietnam? Cici asked when she saw it on a color map of Southeast Asia.  It is so small.  This is Hue, where your classmate lived, I showed her.  This is Da Nang, where I landed when I arrived in Vietnam.  And up here at the top of South Vietnam is where I spent 19 months of my life.

For all of Ping's bravado about how she won't miss Cici, at least for the first week that she is gone, I noticed that she was hugging her a lot last night.  But she survived without seeing her last summer, so she will make it five weeks without her this summer.  In the meantime, Ping was delighted to learn last night that she didn't need to come to the office with me today.  The girls can enjoy one last day of sleeping late before their summer officially begins.