Welcome my niece and the newest member of our family, Phuong Hanh! She's the first person in our immediate family born in America, the first of a new generation.

Tam asked Tudo and I to go buy a mattress for the crib when I went home for Thanksgiving, and in deciding whether to choose a less expensive mattress versus a name brand one, Tudo said: Only the best for Phuong Hanh. She's going to sleep in a nice bed not like the ones we had." (in reference to the bed and bedsheets that we had since 1980)

We have come a long way since coming to America in 1980. My dad quit his machinist job and my mom also quit her meat wrapping job. Both are now working together as janitors, where the benefits and health insurance are good and stable for the first time. Tam is a UM engineering graduate and is married two years. I'm in the eight year plan and heading to Michigan Medical school. Niki is a sophomore at UM and Tudo was just

accepted to UM. My parents no longer put up a fuss when we speak English in the house. We've all become citizens with our future here in America. Closing in on our eighteenth Christmas here in America, indeed many things have changed, but some things stayed the same. My dad still loves hunting for garage sales. We still attend the same Vietnamese Church, and the same family stories are told again whenever we are all together. In doing this project I'm trying to preserve our family story. But what if one day my memory fails, I lose this homepage, and no one is left to tell our story. Perhaps then, if by a miracle that stuff animals can speak, the little brown bear could tell our family story.