Travel Portfolio

We received our travel portfolio from CHI this weekend. We had the nieces all weekend, so I didn’t have a lot of time to look over it. But I did scan through it when the girls were sleeping.

One thing the kids wanted me to look into in our packet was what shots we will need in order to travel. The packet has no info on shots, so the kids were very excited. I will have to double check with our representative just to be sure.

Also, there is a family who sent their dossier to Colombia just a few days before we did. They found out this weekend that their paperwork is already translated and will be in the hands of the ICBF next week. They are adopting 3 children under age 6, so we should be close behind them.

I feel so helpless right now. I feel like we should be renovating the house or something so we can accommodate two more children. However, there is nothing we can do until we have ages and gender. I was just telling Eric I wanted to take a week off work to go through all of our closets and clean them out. Just kind of go through everything in the house and organize (…nesting…hmmm?). He said I should wait till the end of the year. I just know once we get the call it will be hectic trying to get everything ready to go. 4 weeks seems like a long time to prepare to travel after receiving the referral, but the time will fly by with everything we will need to do. There is some paperwork we sent over that at the time we receive our referral, if these items are more than 6 months old, they will have to be redone. (FBI records, medical letters, and new employment letters with a current date)

I have started doing a bit more research on the country itself. As I have been pulling up various sources to read up on the history, people, culture, climate and so forth, I found some cool descriptions.

Just in case you don’t know, Colombia is bordered on the northwest by Panama, on the east by Venezuela and Brazil, and on the southwest by Peru and Ecuador. Through the western half of the country, three Andes Mountain ranges run north and south. The eastern half is a low, jungle-covered plain, and the Amazon and Orinoco Rivers, inhabited mostly by isolated tropical-forest Indian tribes.

For example, one source/opinion says: “If something should be said about Colombians and Colombia, it is that everything here is done passionately: living, partying and arguing. ‘Intense’ might be a word that describes not only 44,000,000 warm hearted people but that also applies to the whole of experiencing Colombia: the lavish green of the Amazon, the deep blue of both oceans and one of the most exuberant and diverse fauna and flora in the planet.”

Another site advises: “Colombia is such a beautiful country, their people are always happy despite the hardship they've been through, go to Colombia with an open mind and heart and you'll be guaranteed to come back full of great memories.”
Also, it is noted that Colombian jewelry is incomparable and the emeralds are among the most perfect in the world. My birthstone is an emerald. I may just have to do a little shopping J
That’s all for now…hopefully you will hear that our dossier has been translated sometime this week!!!