A day of rest and recuperation

Today everyone slept in a bit. I think it was much needed sleep for Jessica and Joaquin. We spent the morning just playing around Zuetana and taking it easy. It was much needed day of recuperation for me. A little more school time then a little more playing. There is a room we hadn’t showed Jessica and Joaquin here yet because it’s an upstairs room and we didn’t want to be chasing them up and down the steps. So we decided to make that our room where we will have “school”. But today the activities director was using it for English lessons for some older kids from the other Zuetana. Our school time is really more of a time for us to start introducing them to the idea of getting on a plane and about everything in the United States, as well as some English vocab, letters, numbers etc. We don’t spend a lot of time, but enough to help them get used to the idea and it helps as being part of a routine. Today was the first day we really started talking about their house in the US and getting on a plane. Joaquin was very interested at first but had a short attention span. Jessica however, couldn’t wait to work with some books with daddy and then watch videos of the house, animals, her room etc. They both said they were ready to go on a plane to their new casa, seeing the videos made them pretty excited. We also introduced the idea of daddy leaving a few days earlier but that they would be getting on a plane with me and meet daddy in the US. They were very receptive and excited.



Nate and Eric went back to Maku together and I stayed with sticky fingers and Jessica here at the casa, along with Emilee. Tomorrow in the morning we are going to Monserrate which is a mountain top you can go to and see a view overtop of Bogota. We have been wanting to go, I hear you can get some great photos. We will have lunch out, then in the afternoon Emi, Nate and Eric are going bowling with a group of people from the Zuetana houses. I think I will stay back with Jessica and Joaquin, I think two trips in one day will be too much, but we’ll see.

This evening we had everyone from the Zuetana houses, that wanted to come, to sit by the fire and roast marshmallows over the fire in our fire place. Yesterday the activates director was telling us of her plan and we told her how to make smores. She loved the idea and said she may try it tonight. The Colombian people seemed as if they had never roasted marshmallows, how odd is that. The Colombians were all excited.



Just a few other things to mention. One of the German families left today and the other went for sentencia today. Another family from the other house also heard of their sentencia today. It’s great to celebrate with them. It’s such a big deal, you get to go home just a few days after sentencia. The family that left today had a little girl, adorable, and all morning before she left she would come up to all of us, over and over again and say “Ciao” and every time she heard an airplane she would run outside and point to it. She was only about 2 - 2 ½ yrs old.

Nate has become a coffee drinker. He now has coffee after every meal. Not sure how healthy this is, but hey, we’re in Colombia right? Also after racking our brains on gifts to bring back we realized we hadn’t bought any Joan Valdez Coffee. So sis and bros, guess what your getting? We’ll bring some back for our parents too and of course for us. We’ll see what else we can find.

This is what a real man looks like while drinking coffee


Jessica is doing much better. She has been very good and when she starts to get upset about silly stuff, she catches herself and straightens right up on her own. She has been a happy little girl for two days now. Last night was tough for a bit but she was sooo tired. We’ll see how tonight goes.

For anyone preparing to travel, one of my biggest suggestions is to buy a webcam and have your family members get one too. We get on the webcams everyday and talk to our families back home. It’s been great for us in feeling not so far away and a wonderful tool for Emi and Nate. We just use Yahoo Messenger to call computer to computer and then use the webcams to see each other. Oh and it’s free! It’s wonderful. Emi and Nate know they can call back home any time they want to their grandparents or aunts and uncles. We call and IM all the time, and it’s great for Jessica and Joaquin to see our families faces and tell them who is waiting for them in the United States. It was so funny today when we showed them the videos on the computer of home and the dogs. They kept talking to the dogs as if they could hear each other. They think if they see something moving on the computer it’s the webcam. Very cute.

One funny story about Joaquin. Remember Nate is in charge at bath time with Joaquin. So the other night we hear this “Bang” in the bathroom when the boys were taking a shower. Eric peeks his head in and sees Joaquin hanging from the hand sprayer flying all over the shower like Tarzan. Nate just looks at Eric and says “What am I supposed to do about him?” Oh my my…we have our hands full..smile!

Also Jessica and Joaquin are quite the schemers. We have two little windows to for our cabin and Joaquin realized he can fit through. Sometimes when we are out of the cabin in the yard or in the main house we will close the door so they don’t keep running in and out of the cabin. Well the windows don’t lock so it’s no use to shut the door because Joaquin will just crawl through the window and help himself. Jessica has even talked him into climbing in and opening the door for her so she can get in too. I’ll have to keep a close eye on them. Smile

Ahhh, sneaking through the window? Busted by mom with the camera


And finally…Last night Nate and I were up blogging and everyone else was asleep. All the sudden Emilee started talking in her sleep. She said, in Spanish, Uno mas o dos mas? Nate and I thought it was pretty funny, mostly just that she was talking in Spanish.

So what do we do on a day that we don't leave the casa?

We jump rope

We watch Joaquin show off his moves

We watch Shrek for the 10,000th time since we've been here with our amigos

we do puzzles

We ride horses

We play with polly pockets

And we play with monkeys