Poppies, turtles, casinos, lacrosse

It was encouraging to see some tiny seedlings breaking through the potting soil in Hai Dang's dining room window this morning. True, there is nothing close to actually growing in the Dang's extensive Prior Lake back yard garden (unless you count Andrew) but it is very nice just to see the baby poppies and try to imagine all the bright colors spread around the whole Dang yard.
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Andrew is getting huge, dwarfing his skinny pop, who is actually pretty tall for an Asian. His mother, Thuy Nguyen, is shorter than Kathleen, so it is a wonder to see big, strong Andrew, presently on the attack line of the Laker lacrosse team, growing up like a weed.

We dropped by after breakfast this morning to collect an antique computer that Hai has loaded with some fun card games. We'll deliver it to Midtown Danny soon.

Dan enjoys playing cards and challenging video poker games at Mystic Lake so we're sure he'll get a kick from the standard Solitaire, Hearts and Minesweeper games that come with Windows software. Yes, you know, the very same games that you and the rest of working America have been playing on the company dime.

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(Speaking of Mystic Lake, Kathleen was recently mailed a special invitation to play Blackjack at the casino, along with a certificate for $5 cash. Fortunately, Stan was able to buy it from her for only $20.)

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Hai keeps an eye on our house when we're in Arizona. We bought him a Mexican garden turtle as a thank you. He has it outdoors, trying to get it acclimated to Minnesota. Not sure how that's going. When he placed the turtle out in the yard last month, it had a short tail. When we looked today, it was gone.

No surprise there, this has been one cold spring.
This, of course, is our all-time favorite photo of Andrew Dang, shot by his Dad during his "welcome back" vacation adventure to the jungles of Vietnam. The dour water buffalo are quite genuine and so is the smile and the shirt.