Trying to get back to a routine

Today Alex went to work and I (MM) stayed with the girls all day. I tried to get back to a routine of doing some homework, which was received with great resistance, since we had been busy doing other things. I also needed to run some errands, go to the district and drop off some information for the Health Insurance. We are a bit nervous that the girls are not under our health insurance yet. The lady told me that under new law, the kids have to have a SSN, before they can be enrolled. Since we just got here, we are not sure how the kids will get SSNs if we have to apply etc. We will call our local social worker tomorrow to find out, no one told us about this in the agency, so we are on our own again. After going to the district I stopped by KMS and West Middleton. It was nice to see people from work. Only one person said I looked tired (from DAC), I'm not tired, just exhausted. It was great to see Maica. She gave the girls great advice.

Yesterday the girls met their cousins Vini, Angelina and Veronica and got to play sports and go to the club to swim in the pool.
They can't wait to see their cousins again. They had a great time.

Finally today I got the girls bikes. We had one for Sucena ( I think it was Anna's), and she just loves it. It's perfect for her size.
Yesica, Mirellen and Milena all got new bikes. Their reaction was mellower than I expected (except for Yesica who towed along with me for the purchase.). The girls will have to do homework to earn their bike rides.

I will take some pictures of the girls on their bikes. I don't think we will be working on this blog daily anymore, but we will continue to post a couple times a week throughout the first year the girls are here.


Time to go to sleep... --MM

We're Home!!!

We made it!!
The girls are excited about all the new things and their grandparents were wonderful about having a meal ready for us when we arrived. They also set up the condo with balloons and other welcoming decorations.
Ginny, Kevin, Julia and Anna met us at the airport to deliver our car to us and to give us a warm welcome. The greeting was wonderful, but we realized we made a mistake. We forgot to tell everyone on my side of the family some things about Hispanic culture. People tend to greet each other with a kiss on the cheek. We forgot to tell Ginny (Julia and Anna) this so there was an awkward moment at the airport. Hopefully everyone will get past this shy, awkward time quickly and get down to getting to know each other. The language may not be the only thing to bridge, and we have to remember that the customs we are familiar with may not be familiar to others.
It was nice for us to be back in familiar territory and not be so dependent upon others for everything, but we also have to remember how new this all is to the girls. The weather cooperated with us and provided us with a day of sunshine and 70s temperatures. Tomorrow is supposed to be in the 90s. We called the PAC and their outdoor pool will be open but not the Dolphin's Cove. The best fun will have to wait until after Memorial Day.
The afternoon was a blur to me. We ate a wonderful dinner, we introduced the girls to their new home and even had time to play at the nearby park (I love the long sunshine days of late spring and summer). The girls went to bed late but it would have been difficult to put them to bed any earlier because they had too much excited energy to sleep . Tomorrow it's an introduction to their Rivera cousins and the club pool. It will be interesting to see how we do in crowded pool and with meeting other cousins in person.

Immigration and Miami

Sorry we missed posting this right away but travel has been tiring.
We left our hotel in Bogota at 4am so that we could catch our 7:30 flight. It was not as difficult to convince the girls to go to bed early as we thought because they didn't get a very good night's sleep the night before. The hotel had some fruit and bread for us to eat and though tired we were all very excited to get going.
The van driver was very helpful in steering us through the airport as well as the city. He also had some bracelets (that the girls loved) that had either Colombian colors and indigenous symbols or Colombian/US flags. Since the girls would be dual citizens the two flags seemed appropriate to me. We were worried about weight limits and baggage numbers but no one gave us any problems.
The pilot or copilot either had a regular practice of this (and chose us) or saw our family and thought of doing something special , so he called the girls up to the cockpit before the plane took off for a picture (pictures to be posted later). The 4 hour flight to Miami was a bit late in arriving but it was spent mostly sleeping.
We arrived in Miami about 12:30. I was glad we decided to stay overnight in Miami. Not just because it was great to see Laisa and Eric, but because we found that immigration through Miami is not only slow but rather unprofessional. We were told by CHSFS (our agency) that once we were on US soil that the girls would be considered US citizens. We were also told that the girls would be interviewed to make sure that they were not being abducted. Neither of these things happened.
After going through the usual customs official, they took us to a large holding room filled with people and told us to wait. I knew that we were in for a long wait because the official that brought in our paperwork told another official that we were an adoption (using some paperwork code) and the official in the room rolled his eyes and sighed heavily. Most of the people in the room were Cuban immigrants and were waiting for the proper paperwork to officially enter the US. Most of the officers there spent as much time complaining about how much work they had to do that day (so many people) as they did actually working on things. We were not allowed to use cell phones in the entire customs/immigration area, so though we wanted to contact Laisa, our hotel, or other family we could not. The officers were mostly loud, rude and confrontational to everyone and often joked about what was happening in a condescending way. It was the kind of ugly American behavior that I was hoping to spare the girls for a while. We waited in that room for 3 hours. We tried asking questions but were brushed off. Eventually one of the officers asked why this group of six kept being put to the back of the line. He started processing our things and we were eventually able to leave. Upon leaving I was not going to question anything but it did not seem that we were processed correctly. The girls have a temporary immigrant status for 1 year. Either CHSFS told us an incomplete story or immigration did not do their work properly. We may have more to do to correct this than is usual.
The girls were wonderful about the waiting we had to do (in Miami and everywhere else in this process). It could have been much more unpleasant for all of us if the girls were difficult.
When we finally made it to the hotel we were glad to be able to call a couple of people. We were all very hungry because we had only eaten that fruit at 3:30 am or ate a little of the airplane food around 9 am. It was now close to 4 pm. Laisa and Eric came over to our hotel, exchanged gifts and we went out to dinner at a Colombian pizza place. The girls like pasta but for some reason are not fans (yet) of pizza. We found enough to eat and it was fun for the girls to go to a place that was closer to home (another gradual adjustment). Laisa was the center of attention as the girls argued over who would sit next to her. It was fun for the girls to speak freely in Spanish. The girls can be a whirlwind when they get excited about something/someone and Laisa and Eric saw this in full force.
After dinner we made our way to Miami beach so the girls could experience the ocean. This was another novelty for them. They had gone swimming many times but they had never seen the ocean before. Though it was dusk they played in the waves and we all enjoyed ourselves. They learned about waves, salt water and also learned about the stickiness of ocean water on their skin after swimming. Only the next day did they ask about sharks (tiburones). The girls needed something to physically wear them out after so much sitting and waiting. There's still more traveling so bedtime came faster than we wanted.

Last full day in Colombia

Well... this is it! We did it! Today was our last full day in Colombia and tomorrow we leave for Miami, where we will be visiting my cousin Laisa and her husband Eric. We tried to make the most of the day even though the girls were tired. The house we are staying is great but the main disadvantage is that our room does not have windows we can open, so we let the door ajar for air and the mosquitoes get in. Bogota is really very rainy and much cooler than Medellin, with temperatures in the 60s and 70s. It rains almost every night which means.. mosquitoes!
Here is what happened today.
We hired a driver who had driven us to the embassy to show us a couple of things in the city. We wanted to first go to the Divine Child Church. Here it is called "Iglesia del 20 de julio". I asked our driver why it was called that way, he said because '20 de julio' is the name of the area where the church is located. We thought it was an important date. We wanted to see this church, because my mom (Mercedes' mom) had asked me to go see it. It is a national Shrine for the Child Jesus. The area where the church is in is not that nice. It is a poor barrio, but the church brings in so many visitors a year that this is helping the economy there. The church has been renovated and the old church is only for daily mass while a church that is annexed to the old church is for Sunday mass. There is now a patio with Roses in the back as well as a brand new restaurant in the back of the church.
We got there, prayed, walked around and took pictures. The girls asked me "Are we going to mass?", I said no.. they seemed relieved.. they are not crazy about going to mass. The girls also got to put money in the church and were curious about the new 'candles' they have there. The way it works is that you put a certain amount of money there and a light goes on. That way there is no risk of fire. We then went to buy some souvenirs at the Church store. The girls chose a little statue for their room and a rosary. We bought some other little things, but could not buy more since our bags are pretty full. I also bought the girls saint bracelets from a lady. She said, 'ah.. little paisa girls, you are from Medellin'... she also said some other strange things, but they got beautiful well made bracelets for 3,000 pesos ($1.50).
We then went to the center of town, to the plaza outside of the presidential palace.
The girls had seen pigeons at the 20 de julio church. I had told Sucena we were going to see more pigeons. She was a lot more interested in feeding the pigeons than learning about the government. We got there and there were many people asking for money, coming up to us to sell us things. The girls are not used to this, and felt sorry for the people who were doing this. We bought some corn from an old man. The girls fed the pigeons and while we were there our driver told us some things that had and were going on there. There was a presidential candidate from a small party who was on hunger strike. He had been there for a while, we were not sure what they point of his hunger strike was.. He also showed us the congress building where he said that in 1985 there was a bombing there where a lot of diplomats where murdered,he said there are still investigations going on regarding who had been involved in this.
We had thought about going to the gold museum, but the girls had not slept well the night before and were tired so we went to lunch close to there. I was a little stressed as there were many people on the streets and trying to keep people together was challenging. When we got to the place to eat,(a food court inside a small mall where they buy and sell gold), there were people there haggling trying to get customers to buy from their restaurant. This was not something we expected and the girls were very annoyed by it. Our oldest, Milena asked our driver (Reinel) why they did this... He simply answered that they wanted customers, her response was "They never do this in Medellin" Very true, as Medellin is more laid back and the pace is totally different. I could see that the girls were not impressed by the big city. "So this is Bogota.." Milena said.. Medellin is 10 time prettier and better"..No offense to people from Bogota, but I agreed with her. Medellin felt a lot more comfortable and much more family friendly.
We decided the girls had had enough and asked our driver to drive to the embassy to meet our representative and pick up our visas. On the way there we got to a street where we had to turn around. There was a police, tanks etc. Reinel said" There is always a protest in this city, they are always protesting something. He went to explain that there had been demonstrations at one of the universities the night before because Uribe had signed an agreement with Europe to import dairy products.
(Maybe next time I can enjoy them if they come from Europe as for some reason I became lactose intolerant here and was not able to consume any... --MM)
Reinel stopped at a park close to the embassy so they girls could play in a park and pass the time before I had to pick up the Visas. They played for a little while there. The equipment looked in OK shape for the area looked like at some point it had a luxurious neighborhood and now it was low middle class. From there the driver dropped me off at the embassy where I met our representative and picked up our visas. There was a another lady there adopting a baby girl and she had just gotten her visa. I was not sure if the man she was with was her husband ( he looked older), or the representative.
When I (MM) got back to the house we met with our representative for about 30 minutes going over what to give immigration here in Bogota, in the US what the visas mean etc. The visas are to travel from Colombia to the US, but once the girls enter the US they are US citizens. We will then get US passports for them there. We started packing, and during dinner the girls said goodbye to all their friends they had made here. Three of the girls gave away the Barbies I had brought for them (which was fine). They wanted to leave something for them. It's amazing how sociable our girls are and how fast they make friends. We hope to they do the same in the US.
They struggled to sleep as they were very anxious but finally went to sleep at around 8:30 (It took them an hour or so to calm down before sleeping. This is longer than usual). I think this place will be very quiet tomorrow.
We are getting up tomorrow at 3 for a 4am taxi ride to the airport. It will be a long day...

Visa application

(North Korean Embassy)
Today we spent most of our day at the U.S. Embassy applying for the American Visa. What this means is that the girls will travel to the U.S. with Colombian passports and special U.S. visas. When we get to the US we can then apply for their US passports, as the girls will forever be dual citizens ( I think we explained this in another blog).
We got to the embassy at around 9:30 and did not leave until 1:30. The girls were very patient. We had the idea that the wait would not be that long but it was. We did not prepare ourselves for the long wait because we were told we would be out of there by 11 am. I ended taking any piece of paper from my purse to have the girls draw, write etc.
At the Embassy we ended up meeting another couple that was adopting 4 children. We saw them there and we were curious to meet them so we went over. The couple happened to live in St. Paul and the lady or mom had been born in West Allis (Milwaukee Area). The couple was younger than us. We started talking mostly because we were curious how and why they had chosen four children. As we were introducing our girls, the father said he recognized the girls. We then found out that the couple had actually seen our girls profile and had tried to apply for them, but were told by Children's Home, our agency, that they were too young. They then switched to Bethany Lutheran Services and by then we had already started our process with the girls, so they ended up with a sibling group a tad younger than our girls (three girls and one boy ages 11 to 5). What was amazing was that they said that the profile on our girls was what motivated them to apply for a sibling group of older kids. We did not tell the girls this yet, per their request. We exchanged e-mails as we wanted to keep in touch and see how they were doing with their kids.
We were not allowed to have cameras at the US embassy. We brought cameras but they were confiscated when we got there. They were returned to us when we left.
The rest of the afternoon was spent here in Casa Lanthana watching movies, playing,drawing and spending time with the other kids. Our girls are great with the other kids. It's nice for us to spend time with other parents. We also spent a long time talking to the sister of the owner who is also a representative for other agencies. She has great stories about all the families she has dealt with in her 37 years of experience doing adoptions. She has also told me several times that she thinks our girls look great, and that they are 'juiciosas' a word used often here-- it basically means that they are 'good decision makers'. This made us proud as we know that she has seen many families come through these doors.
Alex wants me to mention that we in our neighborhood there are two of the axis of evil embassies: North Korea and Iran, as well as Venezuela. The North Korea Embassy is right behind this house. By Colombian diplomatic standards we are on the 'bad side of town', even though this is a nice neighborhood.

I can't wait to go home and have my own room. We have been sharing the same bedroom (not apartment) with the girls for 6 days. (One more to go)...

First Full Day in Bogota

Today had it's ups and downs. None of the downs had to do with the girls. They were great today.
In the afternoon we visited a doctor to check the girls' records and submit a document for the US Embassy that they are OK. He was a Tulane Med Student from the 70s. He was very good with the girls and seemed pretty thorough. Some of the girls immunization records are good and up to date and some are not so good. We knew that going into the doctor's office. We will have a bunch of immunization follow-ups to do when we get home (we started several here). The only news is that Sucena will likely have to wear glasses (she didn't like hearing that). All this means is that we cleared this next hurdle and are OK to go to the US Embassy tomorrow. Yeah!!

The down part of the day revolved around our documents that we received in Medellin as part of the Sentencia (Adoption decree). We wrote about this a week or two ago. What we didn't know, was that CHSFS (our adoption agency in the US) had requested our lawyer in Medellin change the process to save us some money. Instead of a copy of some of the documents for each girl, it would save money to have only one copy for all. Not knowing anything at the time, it sounded reasonable. We found out this morning that this change will cost us the money it saved us, plus overnight transportation fees for the documents (They supposedly will be in Bogota by 8am). That is frustrating enough but we were worried that this changing of the process and the lack of adequate paperwork was going to mean we had to stay here extra days and we'd have to change our plane tickets. All of this could have been avoided by CHSFS not asking for a change, or asking the public defender at no extra cost to certify the documents when we went to court (the defender was present at our sentencia, see May 10th). Since we stayed in Medellin extra days, the documents could have been done correctly then too. Instead we find out at almost the last minute that things are not correct. The paralegal in Medellin had to redo documents, run around and send them overnight. We owe you, Maria Jose (and Edwin).
We didn't take pictures today. We will add pictures of our hotel later.

Casa Lanthana is a big home with a late 50s/early 60s "modern" styling with multi- leveling (sunken fireplace area, TV/lounge area a half a flight down, many large windows to allow natural lighting). It's very pretty. Like our originally intended place this is a hotel that specifically caters to adopting families. We are here with three couples, all of French background. Two from France that are adopting babies, and another couple from a central African country (can't remember the name) that are adopting a 4 and 6 year old. As a result I hear as much French as Spanish and English is fairly common too. One of the mothers only speaks French so is left out of many conversations (I know how that feels). It is good for the girls to hear other languages and discover these kind of differences. Not many kids from Wisconsin have actually spoken some French with someone from France.
Our meals are included in the price of the hotel which makes our costs more predictable. Since the meals are prepared ad cleaned up for us, it allows us more time with the girls. I hope the girls do not expect things to be like this at home. It will be closer to the apartment in daily routines. One thing this place has that we really like is a large washer and dryer!! We did one big load and could do more but we are limited to two washings per week. That's fairly reasonable for a family of 3-4 but a bit unrealistic for a family of 6. We will probably end up with a fair amount of laundry when we get home.
The four and six year old girls are popular with our girls. Since the girls are from a small town near Bogota they have a different accent than our girls. This is also good exposure for our girls. The babies are also popular. The other couples have been very good about allowing our girls to play with their new children. One of the moms said her baby was the most "tranquilo" that she has seen when she was being held by Mirellen.
Well it's time for some more sleep.
Hopefully tomorrow will go smoothly.

Trip to Bogota

Today was an important day as the girls said goodbye to the Medellin area that had been their home for about 2 years. We spent the morning at the club, the girls played with some kids that had also been adopted from La Casita and spent a little time at the pool. Without being at the club we would have had a difficult time packing. Since they were being supervised by staff, we could finish packing and get ready for the trip. We were ready to go at around 1:10. The transport that the hotel had arranged never showed and we had to get to the airport in two taxis. We made it through the girls' first airplane trip. For such a short trip (a little more than 30 minutes) it was full of things. We had an hour + delay, we had turbulence, we had issues over who would sit next to the window (which ended up being a relatively moot issue because the engines were right outside the window, and we spent most of the flight in clouds).
The girls were very patient, though still put out over who got to sit in the obstructed (non) view window. No time in a 30 minute flight for a meal (and the girls were too excited at lunch time to eat so they were hungry by the time we arrived in Bogota).
We said goodbye to a bunch of friends this morning, La Casita alumni families as well as staff we had grown attached to. For us the club was a life saver. Not only was it fun for the girls, but we also got a little rest as well as meet families who had adopted from La Casita. Every one we met came over and told us what wonderful thing it was we had adopted the girls. One of the parents we met this morning told us "everyone always says what a wonderful thing it is to do this for these kids, but they give so much more to us that we could ever give to them." Well said. People will come up to us to tell us what a wonderful thing it is that we are doing, but in a way it is more for us, because what they will give us will be so much more.
We will save a description of Casa Lanthana for tomorrow, when we have had time to see it in the daylight and a chance to familiarize ourselves with the neighborhood. Based on the weather so far I am glad we adopted from Medellin and not Bogota.

Last full day at the Club

Today was our last full day at the Club. The day was gorgeous! Sunny and about a high of 80, low humidity (see pictures). We leave for Bogota tomorrow afternoon.
The biggest thing that happened today was that we met a family who was spending the weekend here and had adopted two kids from La Casita. The girls recognized the oldest girl of the two this morning at breakfast. They kept telling me they had seen a girl that lived in Casita and that they recognized the mother, who had visited Casita and brought cake and presents. Eventually the girls approached the family (we didn't know who they were) and we met them. We spent part of the day talking to the couple and grandparents. The girls spent some time with the kids at the pool and at the playing area. The kids had dinner together and were very playful, especially with Sucena.
Mirellen also made some friends including a boy her age who she spent most the afternoon with at the pool, playing cards and other games with younger kids in the sand. ( We were not prepared for this so early, we both introduced ourselves to the boy, he was nice and his name happened to be 'Alejandro', so that was a big plus for Alex). The boy left while we were eating dinner. Middle School... here we go! We also spent a big chunk of the morning repacking all of our 9 bags, so that they would meet weight limits of the airlines.
The girls also got their hair done by one of the girls who is a 'recreacionista' or recreation specialist, Lorena, she told me she was a Physical Education major in college. Alexa was here too, she spent most of the day with Milena. We thought it would be neat to begin some kind of exchange program with some of these university students, but it seems getting a US visa is not easy. Maybe a better way would be to work this through two colleges.. we'll have to think about that. It would be another way for the girls to continue to get connected with Medellin. Something that we plan to work on. Most of the Colombian in the Madison area, that we have met, are not from Medellin.
When we met the family that had adopted from La Casita, she explained to us that they have a parents association who tries to get funds for La Casita. However they don't have a connection with couples from outside of Colombia. We told the family we would love to start a U.S. contigent of the association (you guys know we are not busy enough!). She told us that La Casita is in major need of funds, but they do not solicit. We are planning on continuing to raise funds for both Brittany's Hope and La Casita and plan to involve the girls in this process. We think it is important that we give back. Time to go to sleep. We have a long day tomorrow.

Day of Fun, Sun and Swimming

The pictures speak for themselves. We are happy to be here. Hopefully we didn't get too much sun and can enjoy the day tomorrow as much as today.

Leaving Medellin

Today we said goodbye to our apartment in Medellin. More importantly and sadly we had to say Hasta luego to Vicky. She has been a great help, a great resource, but she will always be a great friend. We hope the next time she comes to the US, we will be in her plans. And that we can return to Medellin in the not too distant future to see her again.
As per most of our plans for a day things were more complicated than was originally conceptualized. Sibling squabbles, misunderstood directions, cleaning people showing up before we left, and not having enough luggage for all the stuff made this morning a bit more stressful, but nothing bad. We left only about 30minutes later than expected.
In the grand scheme of our adoption process, we are now transitioning to Bogota and will be heading home starting next Friday. We are staying at the Club Campestre (Country Club) in Llanogrande, just over the mountains from Medellin. We stayed here a couple of weeks ago. This place has many advantages right now. For the adults- no making and cleaning up meals, for the kids- a chance to swim a lot and make new friends, it's 5 minutes from the airport so it's a quick drive on Monday, for the family psyche- it's a place we are all familiar with, but it's not the apartment in Medellin or La Casita, we are moving forward but gradually. It's a great place to transition. Once we start going to Bogota and the US the pace of change will be much quicker. Some of the girls deal with change better than others so this is a good median.
We arrived between 12:30 and 1pm. Besides people on the golf course we seemed to be the only ones here. Most of the afternoon was spent in the pool all by ourselves, except for a woman who did some lap swimming just before dinner. By dinner time there were at least 6 other families in the dining area. Because this is a 3 day weekend the club should be pretty full tomorrow and Sunday.
We need to make a skype call to Mercedes cousin Laisa tomorrow, to start introducing the girls to Laisa and Eric before we see them in Miami on the 21st. Inserting a break from the pool may be a bit complicated, unless the weather is bad.
We may try to skype with others this weekend too.
Coming back here to LLanogrande I could not help but notice how much the girls have changed since we first came. They seem stronger both physically and emotionally, they seem to handle conflict much better and have learned to make decisions faster when it comes to the menu (it helps they know this menu very well). We know how they are going to interact around here, so we feel more comfortable too. The staff here knows them and tomorrow they are looking forward to spending time with one of the weekend recreational staff, Alexa, who they loved spending time with the last time we were here. On our way to the club, we saw a lot of military presence on the road, then we saw a helicopter. We assumed that Alvaro Uribe had landed. He has a farm around here, so most likely it was him.

Sorry, no pictures today. We were so busy cleaning our apartment and trying to move everyone out of there that we neglected to take pictures. We will take pictures tomorrow.

Packing and official documents

Sorry, we have no pictures today. I forgot to bring my camera while I went with the girls to see a movie and play at an amusement park, and Mercedes was home packing all afternoon. The morning was eventful in that we had the girls begin packing. This is the first time they had to pack for a big trip. We will have to figure out 20 kilos is, as this is our weight limit per bag (we know it's 45 pounds). Some girls had an easier time than others. Our packing was interrupted by a painter who came to paint the railing in the balcony. Just after the painter left, our guide and lawyer showed up, to give us the official adoption documents. We did not get yesterday, because the lawyer, Maria Jose, wanted to make sure that everything was organized and complete.
What that means is we have three separate folders and four envelopes of documents. One folder is for us to keep, one folder is for the US embassy and one for our Adoption agency. The envelopes are to be given to the immigration office at the airport when we leave Bogota. Maria Jose made very simple for us, and we appreciate it. We were impressed to how well everything went here in Medellin and how committed these people are. Neither Vicky, our guide, nor Maria Jose (who is not married) ever had children, yet they are committed to helping children find families and families find children. As a woman, I am glad that the girls have had contact with these women on a regular basis because I think they have been excellent role models for them.
In the afternoon, Mercedes stayed home and organized/repacked everyone's bags, as well as started the clean up of the apartment that has been our home for the last month. Alex took the girls to a nearby mall for a movie and amusement. I don't know whether the girls were in a better mood today, but there was a lot less complaining and demanding of things. Alex is assuming this is because if they asked complicated questions he wouldn't understand them anyway. Alex and the girls were gone almost until 6 o'clock. Mercedes got a lot done with less interruptions. We have already bought one extra suitcase and may need to buy another. This will be fine for the international flights, which allow two bags per person. But the domestic flights might charge us extra for extra bags (One bag per person allowed). The girls are getting excited about going to Wisconsin. We look forward to introduce them to all our friends and family. We have not thought out exactly how we want to introduce them, but we don't want to overwhelm them with all the people who have helped bringing them to Wisconsin. So please be patient. We do want them to meet everyone.
Please be aware of the following: The girls do not speak any English, they speak a very different dialect than most Spanish speakers in the Madison area and have not had much contact with people outside of their state in Colombia . However,they've had a lot of good experiences through Casita. We have tried to give them some of what Wisconsin and the US will be like, but until they get there they won't totally understand our explanations and guidance. We hope the weather will be warmer when we get there, that would make it easier. We are looking forward to coming home and using a computer that is more reliable than this one! Tomorrow we are off to Rio Negro to the Club. We will be there until Monday and then we will fly to Bogota on Monday afternoon. We will be in Bogota until the 21st.

Passports, Tickets and packing

Today was the beginning of the last part of our stay in Colombia. We got the girls' Colombian passports (they will get US passports when we get home). The girls were excited to get them, because they have seen us use ours all the time. I like that they have a passport because it's an official document to prove age, identity, etc. Until a kid gets their driver's license, they don't have an official ID. We also acquired some pictures of their hometown. I'd like to show or describe some of them but our computer if having problems again, and won't let us download the pictures from the CD we received.
Mercedes is right when she says that the process has gone much smoother and efficiently in Colombia than while we were in the process in Wisconsin. To give the US officials some lee-way there was a new law that came into effect that added steps to the process that were very different than before. On the other hand the people here are frustrated with the US system. Scandinavian countries takes about 6 months, and once the dossier is finished the couple travels in 7 days. Our dossier process took about the same amount of time but the post dossier time was over two months. Our contacts here are not happy with our agency, but mostly it's the slow processing of couples by US officials.
Next we went to a travel agent to book plane tickets from Medellin to Bogota. Intra-Colombian flights are relatively inexpensive ($125/person and that is because we booked them late and the better priced seats of $75/person were gone) but they have a 20 kg limit per person on luggage (not per bag as in the US, it's per person). We may have to pay extra at the gate when we check in.
Next we took pictures for the girls' US visas. They had to wear black shirts, have their hair tied back, remove all jewelry and no smiling. My only guess is that this very basic picture allows for computer programs that predict changes in appearance for age, hair color and other things. The Colombian passports had none of these restrictions.
After that we came home we wanted to go swimming again but a thunderstorm rolled in so we waited a couple of hours. While I was with the girls at the pool, Mercedes started packing some of the things we won't be using for the rest of our time here like gifts, fancy clothes for our day at court, some books, etc.
Sucena was so tired from swimming that she fell asleep before dinner. She has been a bit grouchy the past few days because she hasn't slept enough and refuses to take a nap (doesn't want to miss anything). I'm glad she will get a good night's sleep. At least she hasn't been fighting sleep so much that she falls asleep while riding a bike.
Everyone has told us that the girls look so happy, and comfortable with us. That it is unusual to have adopted kids bond so well and quickly. I know I had something to do with that, but Mercedes has done the majority of the ground work, and we also have 4 wonderful girls. We also don't want to forget many of our supporting cast of La Casita (especially the director Dona Claudia and the psychologist Maria Adelaida, who happens to be a kid from La Casita herself) and our wonderful guide, Vicky, as well as Maria Jose and Edwin, our legal team.
Tomorrow we get our copies of the legal paperwork, and I take the girls to entertain them while Mercedes does much of the packing. I hope I can solve whatever crisis(?) that comes up.

Climbing the Mountain

Today we went back to a travel site that we visited before. We went to Parque Arvi in Santa Elena. That's the trip up the mountain by the metro-cable (like the ski tesort lift in an 8 person car). We returned to this place because we had bought a package of fun activities but didn't get to use them because of bad weather. Today was gorgeous!
In the high 70s at the park, in the 80s in the city. We left home at around 9:15 and got to the park at almost 11:00 am. We had tickets for the activities already so we only paid for entrance to the park (about $1.75 U.S Dollars). We first went to an enclosed butterfly area. We got to see native butterflies from the region, eggs and caterpillars. Alex took some beautiful pictures. Sucena showed great interest in what the guide was explaining. Then it was on to the boats. Three of the girls got to row on small boats. They had a great time (good practice for Crab Lake). We then had lunch at the restaurant, which has a beautiful view of the park. It's a gourmet restaurant with an Applebees price tag. The girls shared 'tipicos'--this is a plate with rice, beans, an egg on top of the rice, fried yellow plantains, ground meat, chicharron (thick cut of leaner bacon),chorizo sausage and a small arepa (Heart attack on a plate). It's funny how we are eating all these fatty things and still are losing weight. For the final activity, Alex and some of the girls did a 'Zip Line'. We are not able to attach videos on to this blog with this computer, sorry, but Alex went down first. The instructions were given to Alex in Spanish and he did not understand he had a break, (the guy used the word 'freeze' instead of 'break'--freno), so he slammed against the mattress or foam pad. He figured that's why they told him not to wear his sunglasses. The girls were itching to go on the zip line, the age limit was 10, so three of our girls could go on. The first to do the Zip Line was Mirellen, not surprisingly she is our future athlete. Then Milena went on the Zip Line. Yesica could not decide whether she wanted to go or not. I told her I didn't recommend that for her but it was her decision so she had to decide. She went, but slammed kind of hard against the foam. She was fine. By the time the Zip Line was done it was time to go, so we ended up not going to the insect area (bummer!), but it takes a long time to go from the park back to the city (Metrocable twice--train-taxi and Vicky's car before we could get home).. The cost for transportation (round trip), plus a package of four activities (Butterflies, Boats, Zip Line, Insect Farm) and entrance to the park is 12.50 per person. Our meal at the gourmet restaurant was 50 dollars for 7 people. The snacks we bought on our way to the park were 25 to 50 cents.. Snacks included, homemade potato chips and plaintain chips, sweet roasted peanuts, lemonade-homemade, freshly cut mangoes with lime juice and salt. Delicious... the most expensive thing was a big bottle of water which was 2,000 pesos (about a dollar)... MEDELLIN, we will miss you! It felt we were back to Bay Beach in Green Bay, except a lot warmer... Enjoy some our shots from today.. When we got back our bedroom door was locked and we could not get in, so we had to call the manager to let us back into our bedroom. In the meantime the two older girls and Mercedes went and got stuffed animals for the girls. We had already selected bookmarks with poems for each girl. We met individually with them before going to sleep and gave them their poem and a new stuffed animal as an 'adoption' gift for yesterday. They were all very happy. Tomorrow we finish our paperwork here and start packing (Yikes!). Time is flying by..