Thursday, April 3, 2008

Counting Down


“Only 8 more days till we go!” This is the first thing Emilee said this morning when she woke up. She and Nate are counting down. First Nate was counting down until the day we left and Emilee was counting down until our Gotcha Day. She finally conformed to Nate’s strategy. When he was saying 11 days left she was saying 14 days, so Nate’s countdown sounded better. They are getting really excited.

We had our “call” with Julie on Tuesday evening. Julie is an angel and absolute angel! The call lasted for an hour and forty-five minutes and she spoke with us as if we were the only family she had to deal with. Never rushed and she covered every detail from start to finish. You can’t help but get off the phone with her and have a burst of excitement; I couldn’t imagine a better person to be in her position. I took pages of notes and feel very comfortable with each step we will take while in Colombia. She even had a little insight about the orphanage our children are at and what kinds of things are popular in Colombia for their ages. She reminded us of some of the institutional behaviors we may see from them due to them being in the orphanage for over 3 years. Lots of food for thought…in a good way.

The plan is to have us stay at El Refugio, however our reservation will not be confirmed until next Thursday, the day before we leave. The website to El Refugio is www.geocities.com/casahotelelrefugio/index.html
You can see some photos to help you get a visual of what it will look like.

Last night I finalized my lists. I assigned tasks to each day from now until we leave, to help not feel so overwhelmed at what is left to do. Much of it is just thank you notes, last minute shopping, packing and general house cleaning. But the little stuff adds up, like taking the dogs to my aunts, cleaning out the refrigerator, notes to teachers at school and just “stuff”.

I also finished all of our video clips. I did video tours of the house and bedrooms, videos of the pets and then various family members made video messages for the kids so I worked on that too. Oh, just remembered I wanted to save those to a dvd in case something would happen to my computer…better add that to my list.

The showers are this weekend, so I am really looking forward to that. We also have a baseball tournament on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, and Emilee has a band concert. So it will be a busy weekend but full of fun.

Run, Run, Run, Fun, Fun, Fun

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

And the excitment continues!!!

Nicole said...

Sounds very exciting!!! I have to say that your are VERY organized. Can you make me a copy of your list when you get back? Ha. Ha.

David and Sheila Derr said...

Oh Beth, we are so excited for you guys!!!! We can't wait to see the remainder of this adoption journey unfold!!!!! Whoo-hoo! 7 more days now! (I am writing from work and it is a little past 2 a.m.!)

We may very well have an opportunity to see you guys while in Colombia...Dave and I had our 'Gotcha Day' confirmed for April 29th in Pereira...although we will fly to Bogota on the 26th, and, I would suspect, stay over a day or so there before moving on to Pereira...we will just have to see. It would be fun if we all had the opportunity to meet up!

Juniper said...

Okay...so I have become a blog watcher now! LOL I check for new blogs every day...sometimes a couple times a day too.

I am excited to read you latest blog. It was good to see you today and to catch up and get the scoop first hand. :0) I am so excited for you and your family! You have such awesome kids and I know they are just so excited and can't wait to meet their little brother and sister too!!

It sounds like you are gonna have so much to do this weekend. It will be great though!

I remember when you first told me that you were gonna adopt two kids from Columbia, and now here you are with only a week left until you get your babies and bring them home! OH MAN! I am SO excited for you!! WOW! How quick it seems to have all gone by...looking back now of course!

Can't wait til this weekend! Luv ya!

Laura S said...

Phew! I am tired just listening to your schedule... and thats before you add packing and things like that! Have a great weekend.

Jamie said...

Hi, I am a mom of two biological daughters. My husband and I want to adopt and are researching right now. I am going to keep up with your story. Have you had a positive experiance with this agency and country? I am curious about how long the stay in country is.

John, Patty, Tiffany & Brian said...

Hello Beth! I am so excited for you guys. Our stay at El Refugio was nice. We stayed in room 1 which was the smallest room but the other rooms are bigger. We were the only American family there. Most of the families that stay there are from France but we still communicated just fine. Everyone was so nice. Hope you have a great stay also. German has been home 3 days now and seems to be adjusting just fine. Take care!

Anonymous said...

Hi Beth, I just talked to Val and she told me the GREAT news! CONGRATULATIONS! It sure brings back memories of when I got Liz from Peru in 1989.. she was 4 months old and is now a freshman in college! Your Jessica looks a lot like Liz! Have a wonderful trip and God bless. Donna Maycox and Liz