Not Goodbye, but....

Hasta Luego, Bogota... we will be back!
Well, we did receive Gabriela's visa today without any problems and we are pretty much all packed up. It's amazing how much stuff you can accumulate a) with a baby and b) living in a foreign country for nearly 2 months. Let's just say we are going home with more bags than we came with but that's ok because we are coming home with something so special none of the rest matters anyway.

For Halloween Gabriela was "Minnie Mouse", well she at least had the ears. We didn't have too much time for shopping for a costume for her but when we did we didn't have much luck finding anything small enough for her. So she was an adorable Minnie and although they do celebrate Halloween here she'll have to wait till at least next year before we are able to take her out trick or treating. It just wasn't possible this year with everything we needed to get done, not to mention it would have been 100% for us and not for her so we easily decided to skip it this year. We had to get busy getting ready to come HOME!!!!!!

We are finishing up packing the carry on and then it's off to sleep hopefully. We are leaving the hotel around 6 in the morning and we'll be seeing some of you just after 6pm tomorrow night!!!! We can't beleive that we are finally coming home and although we are a little nervous about the flights and everything we are just so excited that this is finally happening.

So good night Bogota, we'll see you in the morning and we'll see you again soon.

Ready to come home?

Emotionally and mentally we are ready to come home but we still have a lot to do to actually pack up the last nearly 2 months and return to our happy home. We went to the US Embassy today and everything went really well there for us. We have to go back tomorrow afternoon to pick up Gabriela's completed Immigration Visa. She will be traveling on her Colombian passport but as soon as they stamp her visa in Miami, she will be a naturalized American. We can get her U.S. passport right away if we wanted/needed to, but I think we'll give ourselves at least a short break from that kind of paper work.

It's so hard to believe that we will be home so soon. As my dad used to say to us, we have "one day and a wake up" left here in Bogota. We are sad to be leaving the place where our precious daughter was born but it is certainly time to head home and we are so excited to see everyone.

This is your offical invitation to meet us at the airport, if you want to and are able to meet us at the airport and see little Gabriela; please feel free. The schedule is to fly into National Airport from Miami on American Airlines and arrive at 6:10pm. If we have any problems at the embassy tomorrow with the visa we'll certainly let everyone know but you'll have to check the flights online on Wednesday to make sure that all the flights are on time.

Well, we are very tired and have a lot to do tomorrow so I'm going to sign off for tonight and dream of the little Hodson family seeing our family, friends, sleeping in our own beds, in less than 48 hours!

Enjoy tonights' photos and we'll see you all very soon!

Sweet Sweet Words

In the last 7 weeks or so there have been several words that were oh so very sweet. The words "congratulations your daughter was born on March 1st" might just of been the sweetest. Or I think the first time Monica and I each heard ourselves say "our daughter", or when the social worker at ICBF said "esta es su Hija" (this is your daughter). Ok I'm positive it was the last one but there have been many words that have sounded so sweet in these last weeks.

Well this morning we received some more sweet words, "su Cedula esta lista" (your Cedula is ready)! We received this news at about 8:15 in the morning and so our day was flipped upside down and Monica made some quick calls, we had a little breakfast and then she rushed out to the Cedula office with Gabriela. This is what we have been literally waiting for and we finally have it in hand!!! Monica was also able to go the passport office today and obtained Colombian passports for her and little Gabriela. We wish we had a scanner right now because her passport photo is so freaking cute! We’ll try to get our hands on a scanner so you can all see it!

Ok, so what's left and when are we coming home then you might ask? Well, tomorrow we have an appointment with the Doctor for the US Embassy who has to give everyone getting an immigration Visa to the US a basic physical so before we can go get the actual Visa for Gabriela she has be checked by him. Unfortunately, the Embassy here isn't open for Visa work on Fridays so the earliest we can go is on Monday, which of course we will be there bright and early Monday morning. The Visa has already been approved but there is some paperwork for them to complete so the final Visa will be ready either that afternoon or the following day assuming that there aren't any problems. We are going to call the airline tomorrow morning to ask about flights back to DC for Wednesday next week. This would give us that extra day for the Visa if needed and if not an extra day to enjoy this wonderful city and the great people we have been fortunate enough to spend time with.

In tonight’s photos Gabriela asked her parents some questions. Is it going to be cold in Virginia? Ok for just a sweatshirt or will I need a sweater and hat? Papi, is BMW leather seats always this nice? And lastly, when can I come home to Virginia and show off this beautiful dress?

Quiet Weekend?

We've had a couple of comments about the lack of blogging and more importantly photos of Gabriela from this weekend. So I'll go back to Friday night in order to shed some light and new photos on the situation.

We had made plans several weeks ago to go out to a very cool bar outside of Bogota with Monica's young cousins (19, 22, & 26) so Friday night it was time for Rosario & Jaime to babysit a sleeping Gabriela and we headed out to "Andres Carne de Res" with Pablo, his girlfriend Simona, Maria Alejandra, her boyfriend Nicolas, Juan Carlos, & his girlfriend Lina. The bar was really an amazing place to see and the food and drinks were delicious and plentiful.

Well let's just say that Monica and I are now feeling our age a bit and we required a bit of recovery time on Saturday but it was worth it. We have really enjoyed our time here with all of Monica's cousins and even though we are not leaving quite yet, it was a very nice send off indeed. It will also be a while before Monica and I are out on a Friday night without our baby girl so we enjoyed it but are very happy to be "home" with Gabriela even more.

As I said yesterday we had a lunch on Sunday with Monica's Aunt and cousins as well and then the move to the hotel here kept us offline on Sunday as well.

We are checking on Monica'a cedula every day now and pretty much everyday we are about a day away so it could happen any time now really. We are going to make some calls today to the embassy as well as to the airline to make sure we have everything we need for both and get an idea about the flight availability over the next week or so so we can respond quickly when Monica's cedula is complete. We miss you all and hopefully will be home soon. We would love to have Gabriela home in time for Halloween but we just aren't sure if that can happen or not. They do celebrate Halloween down here too so if we are not home, we'll get Gabriela a little costume and take lots of pictures.

Sweet Tooth?

Well I'm not sure how sweet it is at this point but last night during a two hour crying session in our first night in the hotel, Monica and I noticed something new.... a sharp little point in Gabriela's gums. Yup, last night Gabriela's first tooth broke through. It appears to be her right bottom front tooth and it was hurting her last night!

We arrived at the hotel in the late evening after spending a very nice afternoon visiting with Monica's Tia Livia, Primas Carolina & Livia Estela as well as Prima Andrea. We walked from their home to a nice mall that was built into a large old Hacienda that was built when the land there was a big ranch outside of Bogota and now it is a mall inside the city limits. They have urban sprawl here too! While we were at the mall, we actually ran into 2 of the families that we got to know a bit at the Halifax Hotel. They are both from Norway and are headed home together with their children. It was wondeful to see them again before they left and we exchanged email addresses and even house addresses for something called "mail"; I'm not sure about this "mail" they speak of but maybe it can work.

Unfortunately, no new news on the Cedula this morning so we are going to just settle in here to the hotel a bit and watch them all spoil little Gabriela. Everyone here at the hotel is already in love with her and are wanting to do anything they can for her and for us too I guess. Here we known as Gabriela's parents not John & Monica; sounds about right and we expect this to probably continue for the next... say 18 years or so?

All of you have been so supportive of us throughout this journey and today we ask that you think of some friends of ours from our Colombian adoption group who are going to receive their son Alexander today. At 3:30pm today (Bogota time) Melinda, Moises, & Mateo will be united with little Alexander; so wish them well and we hope to be able to meet them all in person this week. We miss you all and hope to be coming home soon. We have absolutely loved our time here in Bogota and can't wait to return here with Gabriela but we miss you all dearly and are anxious to get started in our lives back in Virginia.

Mid-Day Update

Instead of my typical eyes half shut blogging about our time here in Bogota and our wonderful experiences with Gabriela when I should probably be asleep, I thought I'd throw in a middle of the day post for everyone. Monica and Gabriela are out with our lawyer at the Registration office (birth certificates) because we realized last night that there was an error in Monica's information on the one that they issued last Friday. It shouldn't be a big problem to fix but it's certainly better that we do that now than later. We did a lot of paper chasing yesterday and had hoped for some news on Monica's Cedula, but the only news we received there was that it wasn't quite ready yet and that it would be ready very soon. Let's all hope that the nice people who are working to get Monica's cedula complete quickly will be successul very soon.

Once we do receive the Cedula, we'll make a quick trip to the Colombian passport office for passports for both Monica & Gabriela. Once we have Gabriela's passport, we can schedule our doctor's appointment with the US Embassy doctor who has to give Gabriela a quick physical & then on to the US Embassy for her Visa. This may or maynot sound like much but we are in the final stages really so as soon as we have the cedula we can really start working again and get home to all of our wonderful family & friends.

In other news, on Saturday a wonderful couple from Colorado who are part of our Colombian Adoption group for Colombian families will be arriving here in Bogota and will be receiving their son on Monday afternoon. We are very excited to meet with them in person finally and very happy for them as well for their new addition to their family. See you soon Melinda & Moises!

I've included a nice picture that Amy took while she was here of Gabriela Sophia in her Papi's big arms as well as a lovely photo of Mami y su hija.

Wanting to go forward, backwards will do...

Gabriela continues to be amazing and is developing so well everyday. Tonight she pulled herselft forward a couple of time on her belly using her arms. She only moved a couple of inches each time but she really wants to be mobile. She eventually just started sliding backwards again as she seems to have that down pretty well except for the part about knowing where she is going. She tries to look back but hey... she's moving backwards.. it's hard. She began to try to push up onto her hands and feet tonight but she didn't have anything on her feet to help her grip and just slid back as she pushed up. Oh well, next time we'll try with the footie pajamas on her and maybe she'll have better luck.

We haven't blogged much in the last day or so simply because we have basically been here working, playing with Gabriela and not much else. Yesterday while I worked Monica went grocery shopping with Jamie and Rosario and for once..... Monica was not only on time to meet them, she was ..... EARLY!!!! And those of you who know us, know that this is a major news event. In the evening we visited with Monica's Tia Livia and cousins to celebrate Livia's birthday. We had a very nice time and some great coffee and cake with them and plan to meet with them again this weekend for lunch, which we are all looking forward to.

This evening we walked down to our lawyer's apartment for coffee and toured a hotel nearby that she has negotiated some special rates for her families. It is a very nice hotel and they are offering a great discount for her adopting families. Maybe we will go stay there for a few days and enjoy a little relaxation room service style before we head home.

Maybe tomorrow we'll have something more interesting to report, but for tonight enjoy the photo of Gabriela after she backed herself into a corner.

Cathedral de Sal in Zipaquira Colombia

Today we visited "La Cathedral de Sal" outside of Bogota. We drove about an hour outside of the city with Jaime and Rosario to the Salt Cathedral which was built inside of a salt mine that has been in existence for centuries before the Spanish arrived. We walked about 200 meters down into the mountain and along the way are areas different crosses and statues carved into the salt rock. It was something amazing to see and the photos just don't do it justice because of the darkness of the cave. Gabriela was her typical relaxed self and slept on Monica's chest in the Baby Bjorn for all but the last 15 minutes of the hour and a half long tour.

Tomorrow is a holiday here in Colombia so pretty much everything is closed for the day, but I'll be working as usual tomorrow and then I'm sure we'll find a way to enjoy the evening and the city that has been our temporary home for the past four plus weeks. The photos tonight include a lovely shot of Mami and Gabriela just before she fell asleep on our way into the salt mine, two from inside, and one from outside looking out over part of the town below and the mountains in the background.

Setencia Received!!!!

Today Monica and our lawyer went back to the courthouse and the judge for our case issued the setencia, which means that Gabriela is officially our daughter! We have had temporary parental rights here for the last 4 weeks but she is ours for good now!

Monica still doesn't have her cedula so we aren't ready to wrap up yet, we'll have to have it before we are able to get Gabriela's Colombian passport so we aren't rushing out of the country just yet and since Monday is a holiday here we will almost certainly be here through next week so we should get to meet another American/Colombian family that we have become good friends with from our Colombian Yahoo group who will be here on the 21st to adopt thier 2nd son on the 23rd.

We hadn't thought about it much other than wondering when it would happen, but there is some relief to receiving the setencia. It's official, she is now our daughter forever.

We'll try to post again tonight with a few pics from today, but for now we are off to Juan Valdez for coffee to celebrate!

"Manana"

Monica and our lawyer went to courthouse this morning and unfortunately the judges order isn't complete yet but they asked that we come back tomorrow morning and try again. Monica also followed up on her Cedula which we need in order to finalize some of the other documents for Gabriela here in Colombia. It is still in process as well but they think it will be ready next week. They are trying to get her Cedula investigation complete as quickly as possible when it normally takes much longer. We are hoping that we can receive it next week so we can finalize our other paperwork as well.

Otherwise, I worked today as usual and stayed home with Gabriela who is feeling the pain from those teeth that keep threatening to come in. We later went out for a bit of food at "El Corral" and ran into some of the adopting families that we got to know while staying at the hotel. It was wonderful to see how they are doing, especially the family from Norway who adopted their son at a little over 2 years old. He was having a tough time at first but he looks like he is doing great and is responding to them very well and is even starting to pick up the language at bit too.

I'm working on a couple of new videos but as you know it's hard to capture the best moments on video but we took a couple tonight and hopefully I'll get them ready and posted to youtube.com soon so I can show them to all of you on our blog.

We greatly miss all of you and are increasingly excited about the day when we are able to come home so that all of you can meet our daughter in person and see that we aren't good enough writers or photographers to do her justice. Kids are cute and Gabriela certainly is doing well in the cute department, but it's her personality that has everyone she meets in love with her in seconds. Now I know I had been using the right words when I would say "I can't wait to MEET my child" or "MEET my daughter" because she is already a person with her little personality and it's been amazing to meet her and to love her as we do.

Tonights photos include Gabriela playing with a couple toys before she decided to try to go mobile. She rolled onto the wood floor and then scooted backwards slowly making her way under the chairs before turning over and playing with her pants legs for bit. The other photo was from just a few hours ago, with Gabriela sitting on Papi's chest and smiling and laughing... enjoy and good night.

Happy Birthday Mami Monica

Today was Monica's birthday and we had a nice relaxing day that started with me working, then a wonderful late (late) lunch with Pablo and Rosario. We spent this evening at Jaime and Rosario's house along with all three kids and each of their girlfriend/boyfriends. We had a really nice time and a great dinner and birthday cake for Monica. Gabriela enjoyed all the loving she was receiving and Monica said many times today that she already had the greatest gift in the world and I can certainly agree with that.

Well, it's been a wonderful birthday for Monica and we are going to the courthouse in the morning to check in a few things and also to follow up on Monica's Cedula situation as well. Good night or most likely good morning to you and I hope you enjoy the video below and again Happy Bithday Monica, mi amor!

Gabriela - Video!

Not much to say, so enjoy the first online video of Gabriela thanks to the now very rich folks at Youtube.com.

Secret post...

Monica is doing the dishes and John is doing the laundry. Gabriela is sleeping and I figured I would do a quick sneak attack blog for everyone.

Basically, today was another wonderful day walking around Bogota with Juan Carlos and Pablo. We had lunch at the Pisarro house and then headed out. Afterwards, we had coffee and snacks with Pablo before meeting up with the rest of the family to have sushi at "Wok". It was a relaxing and wonderful day... we laughed a lot and then I said my goodbyes to everyone as tomorrow I head back to the states. Everyone wants me to stay, but I have to get home to my job and my dog and my house and my family... though I am going to miss my new Bogota family & "chickytina" Gabriela very much!

Anyway, I'll end this with post with two words: BUS ROJO! and here are some more wonderful pics of Gabriela from the last few days for you all to enjoy (didn't have time to upload todays pics but you'll enjoy them, nonetheless). :)

CIAO BOGOTA!

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Tia Amy in Bogota!

So John & Monica have invited me to make today's post, since I have had the honor and priveledge of spending the last few days with them in their "home away from home" here in Bogota. The past few days have been amazing, not only being with them and Gabriela (!!!) but also getting to know Monica's family here in Bogota, who I already love a lot (Rosario, Jaime, Juan Carlos, Marie Alejandra & Pablo ROCK!!) and also touring around the city seeing the amazing sights, the beautiful architecture, the wonderful churches and enjoying the fantastic shopping.

So, back to Gabriela, right?! She is so beautiful, and so sweet, and so soft & cuddly. Monica's family describes her perfectly as "juiciosa" which translates as tranquil and calm. She loves to just sit with all of us in the room watching us, or entertaining herself by pulling on her shoelaces and clapping her feet together. She wakes up happy, spends the day happy and goes to sleep at night with a sweet smile on her face - of course, some of that has to do with her Mami cuddling her while her Papi sings sweet songs in her ear each night before laying her down. She likes to sit in the high chair at dinnertime and chew on breadsticks, and she loves to sit on someone's knee, laughing and clapping and swinging her feet. She is amazing and I know all of you will adore her instantly when she finally comes to her VA home in the US. Not that you wouldn't adore her anyway, but her temperament is so laid back and relaxed, that you will beg to be in the room with her as often as possible! :)

So, as you have seen from the previous posts this week, we have gone to many cool places in Bogota since I have been here - Pablo's school, the Artisan shops, the monastery that overlooks Bogota, a local bar, Crepes & Waffles... Today we rode the "bus rojo" to central Bogota, and walked around one of the older parts of the city looking at the churches & strolling the backstreets taking photos. We also went to the President's mansion and witnessed the changing of the color guard. It lasted about 30 minutes and was really cool. Afterwards we went to eat steaks at a traditional Colombian restaurant, and ended the evening with ice cream from McDonald's - yes sometimes, you just need a hot fudge sundae or a McFlurry. :)

So OK OK - on to the photos. Here are a few of my faves from JH & Mon's camera, from yesterday & today. ENJOY!
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Extra Blog Post - Friday night makeup

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Ok, so we didn't post to the blog last night and our Thursday night post didn't have any pictures; so we dicided to give a makeup post for Friday to show what we were up to.

We all got up early and after I worked for a few hours, we went to breakfast at a wonderful place right down the street. We returned to the apartment for a bit so I could work some more and the girls could play with Gabriela. We then went for a walk to Pablo's "Colegio" which is actualy the school that he went to from kindergarden through 12th grade he gave us a very nice tour. We then went to a 4 level shop with all of the hand made Colombian crafts you could possibly imagine. We got some great ideas for gifts but that doesn't mean we bought you anything!

After a little dinner back at the apartment, we went out for our first night out without Gabriela. Tia Rosario stayed at the apartment with our sleeping angel and we went to a pub with Maria Alejandra and her boyfriend Nicolas. Juan Carlos met up with us at the pub later and we had a really nice time. It was a lot of fun to hang out with Monica's cousins and enjoy a few beers which we have had little to none of since we arrived several weeks ago. Gabriela slept the whole time and was her typical bright and beautiful self in the morning.

As for these pictures, I included a few from our night out on Friday night as well as a one of Bogota to complement Monica's wonderful post below about our day today (Saturday). We can only include up to 5 pictures with each blog posting so I'm helping her out with a scenic view photo. The amazing thing is that this photo doesn't even come close to caturing this entire city. It might include a 1/3rd of Bogota. From our pearch high above the city, we could not always see where the city actually ended it is so large.

Amy has come to town!

Our good friend Amy arrived tonight in Bogota after a really long day in the Miami Aiport because of a flight delay that kept her from her scheduled connection to Bogota. But she is here and we are very happy to see her. Over the next few days we are going to be doing some of the sight seeing that we have not had time for or have been putting off until she got here. So we will be taking a ton of pictures to be sure, but for tonight we really don't ahve much to offer.

We also did receive great news that one of our Colombian Adoption group friends received their referral for little boy here in Bogota and they hope to be here in a couple of weeks to be with him. It sounds like we will probably be here as well at least when they first get here, so we look forwar to meeting them and celebrating our new additional with a little ice cream at everyone's favorite place in Bogota "Crepes & Waffles". I know it doesn't sound Colombian but it is very Bogota!

Everyone has been asking for updates on our process in the courts and we haven't posted any because there hasn't been any. Today, Monica did confirm that the court has accepted our case as is so we don't need any documents or updates right now. Since they just completed this stage and Monday the 16th is a holiday here in Colombia and the courts will be closed the earliest that she expects them to get moving on our case will be the week of the 23rd. All of this is speculation but speculation made by someone with more than 20 years of helping families adopt here in Colombia. Monica is going to go the the registration office tomorrow to check on the status of her Cedula as it should have been completed a couple days ago based on what she was told before. Hopefully we'll have good news there tomorrow to go along with great sight seeing photos. We are also going to be making some plans to go the beach for a few days soon possibly to celebrate Monica's 2nd 29th Birthday with our beautiful Gabriela and enjoy some of the warmer weather clothes that we brought for her.... cute for pictures!!!

Apartment life in Bogota

Today we didn't do too much that would be interesting to the outside world. I had a good amount of work today and so we stayed in today for the most part and enjoyed the apartment life here. We did take a walk this evening and bought wood for our first fire in our little fireplace. The apartment has no heat or AC since it's never really cold or hot in this city for very long. The apartment was cool this evening so the fire was a nice way to warm it up and enjoy the time together.

Gabriela has begun two nice developments in the last couple of days, she can sit up on her own and also tonight in addition to her ability to turn herself around on her belly, she can now slide herself backwards a bit on the wood floors. She has the arms part of crawling down but she can't get her legs under herself yet. So she does the next best thing, she slides backwards! It's a lot of fun to see these devlopments and we know that she is doing very well in her time with us. We read the 7 month section in the "What to Expect in the 1st Year" book and she is in line with all of the "should be doing" and is able to do many of the "might be doing" and couple of the "possibly be able to". We're not the crazy parents saying that our daughter is a super genious just yet, but we are very happy that she is doing so well and that her foster care also must have been good because she is doing so well overall.

So since we didn't do much today, I thought I'd post a few pics of the apartment we are in. The basics are that is has 2 bedrooms, 2 full baths, kitchen, dining area, living room, TV with Direct TV in master bedroom, laundry room, & a fireplace. We are in a building that has a 24 hour doorman / security guard and a parking garage, that we have a space in but since we don't have a car that doesn't matter much. We have a cleaning lady to comes 6 days a week for about an hour and half, which feels a little weird for us being from the US an not being rich, but here is very normal and I have to admit, it is nice having the place so clean. I can walk around in white socks and they are still white on the bottom afterward (weird).

I of course included one photo of our beautiful Gabriela showing off her huge smile and one of her new skills, sitting up. In the picture of the master bedroom, that is Monica in the corner reading the 1st year book for other 7 months info. We continue to do well here and are enjoying our little "home", but of course we miss our family, friends, and Virginia and look forward to coming home with Gabriela to be with everyone.

Beautiful Lazy Sunday

Well, we didn't go awywhere special today but had a wonderful day with Monica's family here. We had planned to go to Zipaquirá and La Cathedral de Sal (Salt Cathedral). It has been a salt mine for over 2,000 years and many years ago a cathedral that can hold 8,000 people was dug out inside the mountain. Sounds really cool and we still plan to go, but another day.

We decided to stay local today because Gabriela started the day off with an upset stomache with her first bottle. She began feeling better later so we dicided to join several of Monica's cousins for brunch at our regular hang out "Crepes & Waffles". I know it doesn't sound Colombian, but it a Bogota restaurant and it is really good all day long. After brunch we walked to a great park to enjoy a bit of the beautiful day it had turned out to be after a morning with a little drizzle of rain. We hung out intthe park for a bit as I had to get a little work done. Monica & Gabriela went to her Aunt's home to visit with her and her other cousins, of course they all fell in love with Gabriela and Monica enjoyed her visit.

This evening with Gabriela continuing to feel better, we went to dinner with Jamie and Rosario and enjoyed Colombian chicken and fried yuka (like french fries). All was yummie but we had a little sweet tooth so after chicken it was off to a different Crepes & Waffles for ice cream. Very yummie all around and aside from the sunburn that I got on my bald head, it was a very relaxing day spent with good people and our beautiful daughter.

There are just too many beautiful pictures today so it's is going to be hard to choose, but I'll do my best. I'll be doing something with the rest of the pictures too so don't fret, you'll eventually be able to see them all. First, here are several photos from this morning and the park. She is sitting up very well on her own now and enjoyed a nice seat made out of me. She enjoyed her time in the grass as something caught her eye and the eye of her cousin Maria Alejandra too; but all that excitement of the part doesn't mean that she'll stay awake the whole time! The next photo is of Monica and her Aunt with baby Gabriela at her aunt's home. And last Mom and Gabriela enjoy a great laugh in the Crepes & Waffles.

Enjoying our Daughter's Home Town... Bogota

We had another great day and we decided to go in the old central part of Bogota for a good walk around but before took a driving tour with Monica's cousins through an area that is a National Park that sits above the city and has a beautiful view. There is one view better than this and we hope to go up there very soon. I'll tell you all about that, when we go but for day, we had a great view and it gave a new perspective of just how vast this city is. I knew Bogota was a big city (7 million plus people), but when you realize that from a high spot, that the city takes up all that you can see until you see the distant mountains in the background. It's very impressive, really.

Then we drove down into the central old part of Bogota, had a little coffee along with a Colombian sweet treat (obleas), and strolled through this part of the city. We walked through some beautiful old building, the location where Bogota was founded, as well as the plaza where the Colombian supreame court, congress, and the national cathedral all face into. It was a beautiful evening and we took some nice photos for sure. Gabriela is continuing to do very well and is "talking" all the time now, of course she isn't saying any actual words yet, but doesn't seem to stop her. She continues to just love being outside and must see every thing she possibly can.

We plan on going somewhere very cool tomorrow also, but I'll wait to tell you about it until a) after we go just in case we don't make it there tomorrow, b) I actually know more about what it is. I have also begun taking some photos of our apartment here since we have received a few requests for photos of it so you can see how well we are living right now. Depending on what we do tomorrow, I'll either post some of those tomorrow or Monday.

I also have to tell you something about the last picture. Monica have a little tradition where we always take at least one picture of ourselves, you know where the person with the longer arms holds the camera and pointed back at the two of you and you hope that your faces actually show in the picture... that's what the last one is all about and hey, we actually made it in the shot.

Until then, thank you to all of you for your continued support for all of us. It is such a wonderful feeling for us have this connection to all of you back home during this time and we are always checking for comments the way some of you are checking our blog for updates, so this is certainly something we are getting so much back while we give what we can. We hope that all of you are are well and look forward to next time.