Daddy's Boy:)

Snapped a few cute on-the-go pictures of John and Alton at a craft fair/market we went to today. He does seem to be leaning towards being a daddy's boy at this point! Check out these handsome guys:)

We got this cute toy at the craft fair for Alton. The Reedy's actaully found it first and bought one for their little guy Cruz, but after we saw theirs we loved it and copied them and bought one for Alton too:)

Two fun days:)

The beginning of the week we really didn't do much of anything but hang out and go for walks. The last 2 days have been really fun though:) Yesterday there was a birthday party here at the hotel for one of the kids being adopted. A little girl named Eloina who turned 5. We went shopping with the Jaenesch's and let the kids pick out some gifts for her & the cooks here made her a beautiful birthday cake. It was lots of fun. Their family also got sentencia this week and signed their final decree yesterday for her and her brother, so it was a double special day for them:)

Just like a birthday party at home. All the kids crowded around watching her open presents:)

Little sweetheart birthday girl giving Athena a thank you kiss for the present. She gave a thank you kiss to everyone at the party:)

The most kids we've had at the hotel at once when there was a full house. L-R: Jose (aka 'little Jose), Jose (aka 'big Jose'), Jenna, Laura, Ben, Lauren, Jack, Eloina, Cruz, Athena, Alton.

They're all so stinkin cute!

Today we went out for pizza for lunch. The place we went to was awesome! They have a special kids menu where the kids get to make their own pizza. There is a separate little kitchen area where they take the kids to be chefs. We went with the Jaenesch clan and met the Seifert clan there, so we had 8 kids total! They all had so much fun & I have a feeling we'll be going back there once more before we leave:)

Cutest little chef ever:)

Pounding the dough flat.

How awesome is this kid-height, squiggly work table for the kids!! I want one for my classroom:)

The lady in charge of helping the kids in the kid kitchen really encouraged them to get into their work and get dirty. As you can see, Ena was happy to comply:) We're thinking that super cute birthday cake set up in the back was for a birthday party later today.

Tomorrow of course is the day that they close down some of the busy streets for walking and biking so if the weather cooperates, I'm sure we'll get our excercise out walking around the markets for the majority of the day again:)

As far as how our process is going, we're trying to have faith in the 'no news is good news' theory. Our representative just keeps telling us that everything is good with our paperwork, we just need to wait out having it go through the system. We know for sure at this point that we weren't assigned to a fast court, as we most likely would have heard something by now if we had. Hoping now that we're in a medium-fast court and will get some news this coming week:) Little guy turns one on March 14th, so that gives us about 2 weeks if we want to get home before his birthday. (which I'm hoping for!)

A budding musician

An empty formula can turned into a drum equals tons of entertainment when you're stuck living in a hotel room with just a handful of real toys. He plays an instrument and sings! Watch out ladies:)

Hanging out.

We've spent the last few days just hanging out, not doing anything too exciting. The hotel has suddenly filled up and there are lots of families here to hang out with now and it's been fun having a full house. We've been going on lots of walks and John has been working a lot the last few days. Seems there is always something we find we 'need' to justify a walk to the grocery store and a stop at Juan Valdez coffee shop on the way back:) Us and the Reedy's walked to the mall today to meet up with another Wisonsin family who are here adopting a sibling group of 3:) They got their Sentencia already and are heading home next week, so we're going to try to get together with them once more this weekend before they head out.

One of Altons favorite 'toys' is to bang on the cover of Athena's plastic container that has all of her craft supplies.

His GQ shot:)

He loves to walk around like this. We're just waiting for him to take off on his own!

This is one of the new ways the wonder twins have found to entertain themselves. They like to make a tent over the bed out of the curtains. They sat in the tent and played with coloring books and stickers for over an hour the other day!

Look what I can do!

Guess who's standing?

Alton had made so much progress in the 3 weeks he's been with us! Today he pulled himself up to stand for the first time! The beds in our room are really low to the ground (as you can see from the picture) and just so happen to be just the right height for him to get a good grip and finally pull himself up. He's been close to being able to do it for a few days now and decided today was the day. About 20 minutes after that feat he decided to go ahead and walk along the bed too. He usually 'army crawls' and gets around pretty fast doing that. I have a suspision he won't ever do regular crawling with his belly up off the ground. I think he'll go straight from army crawling to walking.

He's also learned how to pick up little bits of food with his fingers. When we first got him he would grasp a puff in his fist and not be able to get it into his mouth. Now he can pick them up with his fingers and get them perfectly into his mouth. I remember hearing about older babies like this in our adoption classess. Babies who will make months worth of progress in a few weeks once they get with their families and get the nurturing they need to strive.

A sure fire way to get him to smile and laugh is to do itsy bitsy spider.

In addition to the standing and walking excitement around here we had a great day out walking and looking around at the markets. Ena was excited to find some puppies to pet. Good thing we weren't at home because I'm pretty sure between her and John there is a good chance we would have ended up bringing one home. They've both been working me for another dog for while now and I've been holding them off so far!

Back from the coast.

We're back from our get away to the coast. The kids are pretty worn out from all the swimming and sun & fun and they both fell asleep during take off and slept the whole plane ride until we landed back in Bogota:) When we arrived back to the hotel, we got to finally meet the Reedy family in person. We've been in contact just via email and fb for months now and it's great to finally meet in person and have another family to hang out with here during our stay:)

I have a few more favorite pictures from our trip to share. None of Alton today though. I just wasn't happy with how any of his from the last 2 days turned out. Don't worry, I'll make a point to post more good ones of him again next time! Lots of pictures of Ena that I thought turned out extra cute and I wanted to share:)

I also wanted to tell about the tons of iguana's that we saw on our trip! They are everywhere at the resort. They're about as plentiful as squirrels are in Wisconsin. Seriously! The Janesch's even had one sneak into their bungelow!

These guys liked visiting us at the pool.

They're hanging out in the trees all around the resort.

Can you see all five of them in this one shot?

A culinary adventure:)

I can read a small amount of Spanish. Understanding what someone is saying when they are speaking Spanish at a regular speaking rate though? Forget it. The poor person who is trying to talk to me may as well be speaking Chinese for how much I'm going to understand. It was when we were going out for lunch today that I really wished I could understand a lick of what was being said to me:) I have GOT to learn more Spanish!

We went into town to shop at some markets and have lunch today. Shopping was fun:) Ena scored a few treasures and John got one of those cool Colombian cowboy type hats that he's been wanting. We decided to get some lunch before heading back to the resort to spend the afternoon swimming.

There was a security building on the beach with police men and security people in it and Mary had a good idea to ask them if they had any suggestions of a good place to go. The police officer we spoke to immediately yelled something at an old man who was sitting on a tree a little ways down the beach. The old man came running over and started to lead us down the beach. We ended up at a beach restaurant where the old man then yelled something at a couple of other men who started scurrying around grabbing chairs and tables and setting up a place for us on the sand. They were so accomodating and nice. Stacking up chairs for make-shift boosters and picking up the kids and plunking them into the chairs for us. When we were all finally seated, they brought out the 'menu'. Lauren wouldn't look at it, but Mary and I of course immediately grabbed our cameras:)

The menu:)

The man who seemed to be in charge picked up each of the fresh fish and rattled off what each one of them was. As he was attempting to take our order, I was somewhat intimidated at this point not knowing what he was asking of me and how the heck or what the heck I should order. John finally just went ahead and pointed to the fish that happened to be nearest to him and said he would take that one. Athena said she wanted fish, but "without eyeballs". The man pointed to Athena and 'fillet para ninos?' Yes, that I understood:) Fillet of fish meat for the child. Yes, please! As he went around the table figuring out what everyone wanted, Brain asked for pollo (chicken) so I knew that chicken was also an option. When he got back around to me, I also asked for pollo.

When the food came out, it was delicious! John's fish was really good! Dredged in some type of coating and then the whole thing was fried & served with coconut rice and plantains. If I would have seen ahead of time what it would be like I would have probably gone ahead and pointed to one of the fish and had it fried up too:) The chicken was really good too though. Dredged in a yummy flour mixture and pan fried and served up with coconut rice also. Athena's fish fillet was beautiful and huge & it came with french fries instead of the plaintains. She liked it and ate quite a bit of it.

John's yummy fish.

Athena eating up her fillet para ninos.

Alton got to enjoy of few of sissy's papas fritas (french fries)

Our table for 9 by the beach. Complete with an eccentric local trying to wow us with his mad guitar and singing skills:)

The view from our table. I took this picture from my seat.

After we got done eating, we needed to stop at a store to pick up some supplies before heading back to the resort. We needed more bottled water and Jaenesch's needed some baby supplies. Mary again grabbed the bull by the horns and used her best Spanglish to ask the man in charge at the restaurant where a store was nearby that might have these things. The man yelled to another worker at the restaurant to come over and walk us to the store. He started heading off and gesturing for us to follow him. He walked us right up to the front door of a large convenience store that did in fact have everything we needed:)

We certainly didn't look like American tourists. I think we blended right in, don't you?

It was a fun experience and a yummy lunch that I'm sure our family will never forget:)

Happy Valentines Day!

First of all congratulations to Angie and Heath who got their sweet baby boy Cruz today! They're another family from our agency who will be together with us at Hotel Paris adopting their little boy. Can't wait for them to update their blog with pictures of the little guy because we won't be back to the hotel in Bogota until Friday to see him in person!

We had an awesome day here in Santa Marta. John worked a bit this morning before we went for breakfast at about 9:30. The dinning room is right on the beach and apparently the fresh sea air was pretty relaxing for Alton because he actually fell asleep in his high chair while we were eating. We headed back to the room after breakfast and layed him down for a nap. He napped for about 2 1/2 hours while John got more work done on the computer & Athena and I spent the morning at the pool with Mary and the kids. John and Alton joined us at about lunch time with fruit and sandwhiches he made for a pool side lunch.

Alton liked the water a lot! He liked splashing and slapping at the water and doesn't mind getting his face wet at all. We lubed him up really good with sunblock and tried our hardest to keep him in the palm tree shade the whole time. He is so fair skinned! Not like our other little Colombian who tans like a coffee bean:)

Ena asked if she could take a nap by the pool, so we covered her up with a beach towel on a lounge chair and she took a little pool side siesta:) Her and I were at the pool the entire day. It was great!

After our day at the pool we all showered and then headed out for dinner with the Jaenisch clan to a seafood restaurant off the resort. We decided that would be a fun way to celebrate Valentines Day:) It was super yummy and guess who liked the calamari! Yup, that's Ena chowing down the squid!

This should help week 3 go by quickly:)

We're here in Santa Marta at the resort and it is awesome. I'm so glad we decided to go for it:) One of the ways we were able to get a package we could afford was to do a package that only included breakfast, not all 3 meals. By doing that and taking a smaller bungelow type room with just an extra bed added for Athena instead of a bigger fancier room, it was 3 thousand dollars cheaper. Seriously. Three thousand dollars. There is a fridge in the room so we did a grocery store run into town last night to get lunch stuff and snacks & we'll just do pizza & such for dinner. SO WORTH IT!!! This place is beautiful and it's wonderful being here!!

It is also the off season here right now so that contributed to us being able to score a deal too. Also, it is not crowded at all being the off season. We practicaly have the pool to ourselves many times and the beach is not crowded at all. Here are a few pics from our first day:)

Alton and mom chilling by the kiddie pool while sissy swims:)

Daddy and the chitlins at the beach.

Kiddie pool.

Please, no poparazzi!

The view from the cabana we parked ourselves under for the majority of the day.

Our bungelow.

Beach walk stroll before dinner:)

We're going for it:)

When we were planning and waiting for this adoption, we thought maybe we would do a trip to the coast during our time here. Lots of families do it because it's really a pretty cost effective way to have a tropical family vacation. You're already in South America anyway, already paying to live in a hotel anyway, so it's just the cost of the short 2 hour plane ride from Bogota to the coast. Us, the Jaenesch's, and our agency representative have been working on it for several days, pricing all the different options of all the different resorts. We finally found a reasonable option and today we booked a trip to Santa Marta! We'll be paying about the same amount as we are at the hotel we're staying at now and the plane tickets for me, john, and ena will be just $250 each. We're leaving this Saturday and coming back Friday the 18th. We'll be staying at the Irotama resort.

http://www.irotama.com/

We call these 2 the wonder twins. Their smirks say it all:) t-r-o-u-b-l-e

I see lots of living room wrestling matches in our future. They both like to rough house!

GOOOOOOOAAAL!!!!

Some purchases you just can't pass up:)

Busy Day!

Today was a busy and important day for our adoption process. We had our documents authenticated at 2 different Colombian Notarias this morning. Then we had a great surprise when we were told our Defendor of Minors appointment was this after noon! This appointment could have been as late as next week Tuesday, but we were lucky enough to get ours today. They said our papers would be submitted to the court tomorrow. Some courts have a reputation for being slower for adopting families and some are faster. As far as we know there is no rhyme or reason as to which one you may be assigned to and it's all just luck of the draw. Send us some luck people;) The Defendor of Minors appointment takes a long time. We were there 2 1/2 hours with the kids in a tiny hallway of a room with nothing but some chairs. John did a great job entertaining Alton for a good part of the time and then I got him to fall asleep for a while to help pass the time too. Athena was a total champ too! Her and I played with a sticker book for a large part of the time and we knew from other families experiences that the wait could be long, so we saved her last 2 bags of goldfish crackers to eat during that time as well:)

We're so glad to have other families here with us this time around! The Jaenisch's are amazing, always coming up with fun things to do and are so welcoming to Athena when she wants to come into their room and play with what their kids are playing. Last night they even had every one of the big kids from the hotel in their room at the same time watching a movie! We have more friends joining us this Saturday when the Reedy family arrives too!! Can't wait to meet their little guy Cruz:)

Isn't this the cutest picture ever:) L-R: Athena, Eloina, Lauren, Jose, Ben.

Here are Alton and daddy enjoying a little after breakfast siesta. He's not a thumb sucker like sissy, but prefers his fingers instead:)

This is my view when we're out and about and I'm carrying the little monkey in the carrier.