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.