It has been one week since we were back from a 3-week trip home to Melbourne.
Time passes before you realise our little one is approaching 3 months old next week...! Holding him after a long day will guarantee you a smiley face from both Nolen and yourself.
Special thanks to my lovely wife who gave birth to this lovely son and her effort to bring up our children. :-)
The circumstance was devastated & heart broken, up until now the toll is reported at 70,000+ resulted from the 7.9 on the Richter scale quake.
May the mercy of the Lord to be with the Chinese
May Your hands heal their pain & sorrow...
That tireness feeling is just not going away...
Headache, coughing with pressure on the sinus system.. it's not severe, but just torture you in some way... My Aussie made Panadol has run out of stock, I've gotta get some local manufactured.
Mum has recovered faster than me, bulb is doing marverlous and Ashy is entering his last week of school next week... I need my health to recover 100% very soon... keep resting and praying...
Mum of two is sick today! Headache & vomiting with some flu-like symtom; all because of Dad - prime suspect - who brought the jerms home ...
Ashy is nearly 5 now and he improves a lot in his drawing; last Friday he brought home this card and claimed it was his drawing. He made similar claims previously with other pictures; not fully understanding the meaning of 'drawing', he often refered to painting the colour - but he always said he drew the entire picture...
So how did we find out whether this time he did, actually draw the picture himself (except the basket of course)?
Simple, we asked him to draw again and the result...was compared to the original card, all authenticated and displayed as above!
Happy Mother's Day mom and get well soon.
The standard processing time was meant for 4 weeks for Nolen's citizenship to be processed; so I estimated it would require another 2 weeks before we receive any notice... therefore I went to the Malaysian Airlines this morning to change our flight schedule from 15th to the 27th.... all done and I even bought Nolen's ticket too...
My mobile rang around lunch time - I was told to collect Nolen's citizenship..... #*&$!)%_*) why wouldn't they call me a few hours earlier so I didn't have to delay the return date so late....?
Well....but I should be glad and pleased that Australian way of doing business - efficiency! Yes normally it was meant for 4 weeks, however I belive this is the result after I sent an email to the Consulate-General to request an urgent processing of the application due to our return tickets going to expire....
As usual they would never promise any urgent processing turnaround, but mentioned will put the request/note on file for special request...
This is a great example of Under Promise - Over Delivering.
I am on my way to the Consulate again tomorrow for passport application, after that will be an exit visa.... oh no... I am back to the VN bureaucracy again......
很驚訝地發覺當你在Yahoo! 輸入"椒"一字時，第一個出現的組合字就是這影响深遠廣東人文化的一味。
看似簡單，但Tina 試過只憑記憶中椒鹽鮮魷的模樣嘗試去弄，結果....當然失敗！
今晚，多謝互聯網上討論區中的分享，讓我能一嘗真正老婆弄的「椒鹽鮮魷」。
歡迎來涵交換「食得」
今天惜逢五、一勞動節，一家人出外飲茶....
Announcing Nolen's "full moon" today, meaning baby is 1-month-old! a tradition being upheld through generations of the Asian people.
For mum - she can now leave home to have her hair done, shopping etc...
For bub - he is also ready to leave home for checkups, shopping, dining with the family in restaurants...
For dad - he is busy in thinking how to ensure mum & bub can enjoy their outings, safely & convenient; don't forget this is VN, we don't have a car to ferry around. For those who owns a car with their baby, just imagine without it and you can't take public transport such as bus, what do you do when you need to go out?
Happy "Full Moon" our lovely boy!
My first blog.
I am 3 weeks old now.
Still not sure my current own weight or height - will have a check up in another week's time. But one thing for sure is I am a big eater and consumer of... nappies!
Ashy likes me very much, he often looked at me and said I have a funny face and...好攪笑!! Well I think I should get along with him without much problem, except I am younger so whenever there is an argument, (hopefully) Mum & Dad would be on my side often...!
Since I sleep most of the time so I also post some of my sweet dreams pics as follows....
And when I wake up, apart from playing some Kung Fu which I learned by watching from mommy's tummy when she used to challenge Daddy everyday; I also play with Ashy a bit... Ashy looks like me, doesn't he??
It has been a hectic period of time trying to 'legalised' Nolen's identity.
The story started of course when Nolen was born to Aus parents (overseas) in Vietnam... Is he Aus or VNese?
So for most of us, we would say of course Nolen is Aus - but the truth is yes & no. The fact is that you are Aus only if your parents register/apply for you to become a citizen by decent if born overseas - this is not given (like children born in US) but you must apply for it with all the appropriate documents....
So, shall we start:
1) I had to go back 3 times to the hospital to obtain Nolen's "Evidence of Birth" certificate. Why? Because when I collected my bonds in USD (upfront money when you admitted into hospital) from the cashier, those changes were all old and damage USD bills and generally not acceptable by others, so I refused and asked for newer notes. 2 days later, I came back and only some of them were changed to acceptable notes, I refused again and it took them another day to ask from the Finance Department to exchange for newer ones... Only when I got my changes back and receipt stamped, then I was able to receive the Evidence of Birth certificate. 3 days wasted in total.
Under normal circumstances people with Evidence of Birth could go to Department of Justice and apply for a Birth Certificate straight away. For Nolen...
2) I had to visit the Australian-Consulate and get my Marriage Certificate certified for... USD29 per copy. Came back the next day to collect it with the Australian-Consulate stamp stating "I certify this is a true copy of....." by the Vice-Consular. I then had to take it to the VN Foreign Affairs Department to certify that this is a true stamp and signature of the.... Australian-Consulate!
That costs me another USD10 for a stamp to certify another stamp; and 1 week's time.
3) So I was happily received my "Certified Marriage Certificate" after a week; remember the Department of Justice would not accept English document... I had to take it to the same DoJ for translation into Vietnamese, the translation will be available in 4 working days, I was told.
4) And I came back with all my documents, ready to lodge Nolen's Birth Certificate application, only to find out there was a... mistake on the translation!! I shouldn't but couldn't not to comment to the clerk that "if you couldn't translate it properly into Vietnamese, which your own language you might as well accept the English documents". The translation asked for another 4 days to correct the error but I refused to accept it, so they said would correct it the next day.
5) So the next day I came back to collect it, it turned out that they still haven't been able to fix it and have it stamped for me in time, they walked me to the Brith Registry area and requested the application to be accepted pending the correction on the translation; the worst thing was I requested the DoJ to allow me do the same yesterday (save me time coming back again) but they refused. What a bloody bureaucracy!
6) The Birth Certificate interview began when I was asked "What do you put under nationality for the kid?" I replied "leave it blank please because the child hasn't got a nationality". The clerk replied: "If both of you are Australian then you should put 'Australian'"! Notwithstanding her ignorance and subjective comment, I still wrote 'Australian' under nationality at birth, and not forgetting to state to her again that the Birth Certificate is required to apply for Citizenship by Decent, so technically Nolen is NOT Australian at this point of time...
7) The next day I received a call from her saying that I should leave it blank or write "Vietnamese" because the father was Vietnamese citizen at birth...
I was very irritated of course and wanted to express my "I told you sold" attitude over the phone, knowing it wouldn't help this bureaucrat; I asked is it really simple if I write 'Vietnamese' on the application, she went on to say that I am required to obtain a letter from the Australian Government to.... state that the Aus Gov won't object this child to have... Vietnamese citizenship!
I believed my brain was spinning fast enough to make a decision by leaving it blank under Nationality column... expecting the answer from me she went on: "...then both mum & dad are required to come into DoJ to sign a declaration that you both agree to leave the nationality column..blank"!
It was that afternoon Tina had to leave home before "full moon", which we have violated our Chinese culture, our family tradition.
8) A week later, Nolen Birth Certificate was available; I took it to a local Law firm to have it translated into...English! That same afternoon I lodged the Application for Citizenship by Decent with the IOM (International Organisation for Migration) office in HCMC, was told that we have to wait 4 weeks for the result. This is an Australian visa office and of course everything went smoothly, the clerk served me was a Vietnamese and she added: "I have always been receiving similar applications where the Father is Australian but mother is local, are you sure you need to lodge it when both of you are Australian...."
Knowing she is not, but I would be very worry if she is the person who assessing this application.
I believe there will be step 9), 10), 11) etc that are coming. If we receive citizenship for Nolen, we have to apply for Passport then Exit Visa... only to know that our original return tickets booked for the 15th of May, and expire on which I believe was before 28th of May.
So we're still not sure what date we will be coming back to Melbourne yet.
With the addition of a new family member, you suddenly find changes happening in every single minute and changes are necessary.
Today we have our blog name changed - with the addition of Nolen, thought HarryTinaAshtonNolen was too long for anyone else, we have now changed it to "HuynhFamily".
Vox reassures that whoever visits the old address will be redirected to HuynhFamily.
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Sam&May said:
Bureaucracy 1, Harry 0.But the game has not ended yet. Keep up the good work and I am sure you... read more
on Citizenship by decent -
this one is so cute. the hat is covering his eyes lar daddy... read more
on I think....