What's in a Name?

Well so many of you have commented on Dillen's name... I've heard it all, from "I love it!" to "Are you sure you want to spell it like that?" and "I thought that only boys were named Dillen." Well Chris and I tend to over think things. Many of our friends in the international adoption community have kept part of their birth name. For Dillen her birth name is Le Ngoc Hoa, pretty huh? They actually call her Hoa (whaaaa) like the sound a baby makes when it cries. So we decided to talk to some Vietnamese and find out what is in a name... Hoa means precious stone and Ngoc means flower. They say it is a very beautiful name in Vietnamese. We decided to take that meaning and find her new name... after a few good laughs about Diamond Daisy and Ruby Rose, we decided giving her a stripper name wasn't the best idea. We found Dillen, a Welsh name meaning precious thing, that was it. Now Marie? This is where we jinx ourselves a bit. Marie means "A sea of bitterness". There is a lot of bitterness in these waters surrounding this adoption. However, we chose Marie (a form of Mary) because we loved it. We have a Mary in our life that we love dearly (this is a shout out to Raymond) and come on, you've got to admit if the Lord didn't like it, he wouldn't have made it his mom's name!

So, I write this Name blog now because we have a new request... a name affidavit. We have to send Vietnam a list of every name we have ever used ever in our lives... oh, the best part? It has to be notarized, certified by the Secretary of the State, Authenticated by the Vietnamese Embassy in DC and translated... For a mere cost of $72 before priority shipping. Lovely. As always, keep us in your thoughts as we continue in this boring stage of excuses, ridiculous paperwork and nothingness! Best wishes, oh and as always another picture of our girl to get us through the weekend. Don't mind the man in the photo he is the taxi driver of our friends that were there. Yes, Dillen is a lover of the simple man.