Hodson's Colombian Adoption Journey

Time Flys When You're With Gabriela!

2007-05-07T20:33:00.000-04:00

Well it's been a fast and fun couple of months since our last time we posted here on the blog and I just thought I'd catch it up a bit. On March 1st we celebrated Gabriela's first birthday with our family & friends and had a terrific time and Gabriela got to enjoy her first cake.

The past few months Gabriela has been blossoming so much it has been amazing to watch and enjoy. We had a great visit at my mother's cabin for just before Easter with Monica's sister and nieces. At the end of the visit, Gabriela took her first couple steps without holding anything during Easter Sunday mass! After that, she started easing it in to it taking a few more steps each day but after about a week or so she was hustling all over the house, sidewalk, and anywhere else she could.

She doing so well overall and is talking more with a mix of both English & Spanish and Monica and I are now also trying to teach her a little baby sign language too. She has developed a full blown obsession with the "Itsybitsy Spider" which we have certainly had fun with singing along with her. She says "hi" & "bye" in English still; but loves to point in the air looking for an "avion", or ask for a drink of "agua" and much more.

Gabriela was baptized yesterday, in a small gathering at our church along with two other little ones. The entire family came together again and celebrated this beautiful day. As you can see by the photo below, Gabriela was absolutely beautiful in her gown but at the end of the ceremony she wanted to back to the holy water to play & splash.

Well, as I used to say in Bogota; "it's getting late" so I'm going to call it a night. Enjoy some photos of Gabriela from the last couple of months. These photos include her brilliant smile, fun with birthday cake, walking in the grass with her "Gran-Mare", playing with her friend at a mall play area (this one is new to us), and of course one of Miss Gabriela Sophia in her baptism gown with her beautiful mami.

What...11 Months Old!!!!

2007-02-05T22:53:00.000-05:00

Well, Gabriela is now 11 months old and she is doing very well. She has discovered the joy of climbing up the stairs but not so much with the climbing down yet. She is now up to 3 intelligible words (we think); "baby", "hi", & "bye". She recently started with a couple of walker toys to help her walk a bit, but for now she is happy riding around on her car and discovering the buttons and music. And last but certainly not least, she is learning her animal sounds. Or at least one animal sound. That's right our daughter.... can moo like a cow!

So as you can see is as beautiful as ever and is doing very well. She is still in the lower percentiles for hight and weight, but is growing steadily and is certainly very healthy.

I hope you enjoy some of the latest photos with her new hair style. In the first she is cracking up like she usually is but I'm not sure about the 2nd. It looks like she is telling me off or something.

Hodson's Visit Kentucky

2006-12-31T11:17:00.000-05:00

Monica, Gabriela, & I decided to drive from Virginia to Kentucky to visit our good friends Amie, Justin & their son Spencer who live halfway between Lexington, KY & Cincinnati, OH for New Year's weekend. When we decided to visit Kentucky we also contacted one of the families in our Colombian adoption Yahoo Group who live in Lexington and have just last week received the referral for a beautiful baby girl in Medellin, Colombia. Monica and I tried to help them narrow down the long list of questions that they have now that they are planning their trip to Medellin to adopt their beautiful Sofia.

These photos of our family with Juan Fernando & Jennifer, Jennifer with Gabriela, & our good friend Justin sitting with his son Spencer & Gabriela

Feliz Navidad y Prospero Ano Nuevo!!!!

2006-12-29T23:59:00.000-05:00

My goodness have we been busy since we've been home AND we can't believe that the 1st will be 2 months since we've been home and our little Angelito will be 10 months old!!! She is blossoming so incredibly much...she is crawling quickly, pulling herself up to stand, starting to imitate us, and so much more!!! Every day is such a wonderful day and we are so incredibly happy!!!

This Christmas was wonderful! We spent a wonderful time with our family and friends!!! And yes, Gabriela was more interested in the wrapping paper than anything else! We will say though, that her expressions and her personality are FANTASTIC!!!!

Enjoy the photos and cheers to you all!!!

Get Up, Stand Up!

2006-12-06T09:05:00.000-05:00

Gabriela just stood up for the first time on her own. She is also transitioning from her "army crawl" that she has been doing to a full crawl on her knees; but she just doesn't have it down fully yet.

Can Gabriela be President one day?

2006-12-06T08:59:00.000-05:00

I acutally don't know that the Constitution deals with international adoption, but I do know that Gabriela Sophia is now a United States Citizen! Having been home for just under 5 weeks, we received Gabriela's citizenship package on Monday. She will always be a Colombian citizen as well so she has the best of both worlds.

It's cold here in Virginia!!!!!

Happy Thanksgiving!!!!

2006-11-25T11:11:00.000-05:00

Settling in at Home

2006-11-13T19:34:00.000-05:00

We have been home for a couple of weeks now and are trying to settle into our rutine as best as we can. We had a beautiful family gathering on the first Saturday that we were home and although we were very run down and I was actually sick by then, it was so nice to have both of our entire families here with Gabriela. She actually seemed to recognize the faces of much of her family from the photos that she looked at every day while we were in Bogota and also the voices of her Abuelas from the telephone as well.

This past Saturday we had a big "Welcome Home" party for Gabriela at Tia Maria's house and Gabriela enjoyed being the star of the show and all the wonderful and generous gifts she has been given by everyone. Our old friend Mary came all the way from Rhode Island and our great friends Amie, Justin, & their son Spencer drove all the way from Kentucky for the party! She has received so much love from everyone and we appreciate all of the support and love we have been given as well.

We hope you enjoy a few of the pictures from this magical homecoming and we will try our best to continue to post reguarly with updates in the life of Gabriela Sophia.

On our way Home!!!!

In the airport with my two Abuelas!

I'm so happy with my Tio Jim!

So much fun with my two Abuelos!

I finally have my own highchair and boy am I having fun eating!

Home Sweet Home

2006-11-01T23:03:00.000-05:00

No photos tonight since I have no idea which bag the camera cable is in, sorry! We arrived safe and sound and on time tonight although we had a crazy day, but in the end all worked out as it was supposed to. We were met at the airport by a great gathering of family and some good friends as well. It was so beautiful to see so much of Gabriela's new family there waiting for her and for us.

The family then helped us get all of our bags back to the house, which is strange to see after so long by the way; and a hot dinner was waiting for us. Everyone was so excited to finally meet Gabriela and it was a lot of fun to see her with her cousins especially. Thank you to everyone for doing so much for us while we have been gone and for the amazing welcome home.

The day stared at 4:30am to get to the airport 3 hours before our scheduled 9:25 flight. Unfortunately, we were told that the flight had been canceled due to problems with the plane. The nice people at American Airlines helped us transfer our ticket to Miami to a big Colombian airline, Avianca; however this flight was scheduled to arrive in Miami an hour later than our previous flight leaving a very short time for Immigration and Customs. I'm still not quiet sure just how we made our connection in Miami, but we did!

Gabriela was really very good on both flights, sleeping for the firt half of each flight and playing most of the 2nd half. She did get a bit bored at the end of the 2nd flight but wasn't too fussy as long as we tried to entertainer her. Monica is now feeling a bit under the weather and I'm feeling pretty run down myself. So on that note, I'm going to stop blogging and go to bed.

By the way, Gabriela is sound asleep right now in her own crib in her own room and our dog (Zuny) is sleeping outside her door.... Life is Good!!!!!

Not Goodbye, but....

2006-10-31T23:27:00.000-05:00

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?

2006-10-30T23:09:00.000-05:00

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!

Wonderful time with our CAC Friends!!!!

2006-10-28T22:18:00.000-04:00

In this group photo John and I are holding Gabriela, Melinda is holding Alex and Moises is holding Mateo.

This is Mateo. Melinda and Moises were united with Mateo when he was 3 days old!!! Mateo is 5 years old in this photo!!!

This is Alex. Melinda, Moises and Mateo were united with Alex on Monday! Alex is 1 year and 10 months old in this photo!!!

John was taking a surprise photo of Gabriela and I jumped in to also get in the shot!!!

John, Gabriela and I at El Parque 93!!!!

Yesterday was such a wonderful day! After a nice long day of shopping with Gabriela, Maria Alejandra, Nicolas and Esteban (Nicolas' brother) we met up with our friends from the Yahoo Group Colombians Adopting Colombians (CAC)!!! It was so wonderful to finally meet such a wonderful family face to face and see them with their precious children and us with our little princess!!!! It was so wonderful to meet one of the families that we have been in constant communication with throughout our entire adoption journey! There are several other families who will also be traveling here to Bogota within the next couple of week and unfortunantely we won't be here to meet them, but hopefully our paths will cross sooner than later!

I can't believe that we are really going home! I am sad to leave Bogota and the family here, but I am thrilled to be coming home to see my parents, John's parents, our brothers and my sister and all of our wonderful friends!!!! We miss everyone from so much!!! We are counting down the days before we arrive home; however, in the meantime, we will enjoy the remainder of our time here! Thank goodness that the weather the last couple of days has been wonderful!

Hugs to you all!!!!!

BABY, WE'RE COMING HOME!!!!

2006-10-27T00:46:00.000-04:00

For the most part today was a rainy day, but that didn't bother us one bit because in our eyes the sun was shining bright!!! It's amazing to have this wonderful feeling of being able to breath without constraints! John made the very important call to the airline and AS OF NOW our plan is to come home on Wednesday night around 6pm to Washington National Airport!!!! The reason that I am saying that AS OF NOW is because if something additional is needed for all of our paperwork with the Embassy on Monday we may need to have change it, but we honestly don't see anything that will keep us from coming home on Wednesday!!! We are VERY thrilled to be coming home to our wonderful family and friends; however we are sad to be leaving our wonderful family and friends here.

We continue to be amazed that everything that we worked so hard for is finally a reality! We are all so incredibly happy and are very much in love!!!

As we finish up this portion of our adoption journey many of our "on-line" friends are either already here in Colombia or on their way to Colombia to fulfill this portion of their Colombian Adoption Journey. We wish you all of the best and we will continue to keep you all in our prayers!

Enjoy the photos!!!

Much love to you all!

Monica, John and Gabriela

Sweet Sweet Words

2006-10-26T00:11:00.000-04:00

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?

2006-10-24T12:21:00.000-04:00

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?

2006-10-23T12:15:00.000-04:00

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.

No new information

2006-10-20T10:05:00.000-04:00

So I just made the call to find out about the status of my cedula and it's not finalized just yet. So, we'll just be spending the day here in the apartment packing up because we'll be heading to the Suite Jones Hotel on Sunday due to our month lease ending on Sunday and the owner not being able to comply with our request as it wasn't available.

Enjoy these wonderful pictures of Gabriela which were taken on Wednesday and Thursday! We'll make sure to post the photos taken today asap...we know that all of you need to have your Gabriela-fix!! 8-)

Who's Who? 2

2006-10-20T08:36:00.000-04:00

Some additional photos from my birthday!!!

1. John and I with Gabriela

2. Juan Carlos (my cousin's oldest son) with Lina

3. Maria Alejandra (my cousin's youngest daughter) and Nicolas
4. The family at the dinner table
5. Tango, the family dog and Gabriela's favorite dog in Bogota!!!!

Who's Who? 1

2006-10-19T19:59:00.000-04:00

Last night we were sitting here looking through the majority of our photos and I was still in awe of how wonderful my 30th birthday was. The entire day and the week that followed were absolutly fabulous!

The pictures in this post and the post to follow are from my b-day with the Pizarro family so our family and friends back home can see who we have been spending all of our time with!

From the top, left to right...
1. Rosario with Gabriela in her lap
2. Jaime (my cousin) and Rosario
3. Pablo
4. Pablo kissing Gabriela on her check
5. Pablo, Simona, Rosario, Me, Gabriela and John

Mid-Day Update

2006-10-19T12:20:00.000-04:00

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...

2006-10-17T23:55:00.000-04:00

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.

Feliz Cumpleanos Tia Maria Isabel!!!

2006-10-16T23:35:00.000-04:00

Hola Tia! Feliz cumpleanos!!! Cuando te veo te voy a dar un abrazo muy grande y un beso! Tu sobrina - Gabriela Sophia

P.S. Un abrazo y un beso muy grande para...Abuelo y Abuela...Mi Tio Diego y Tia Beth y mis primos Alexandra, Amanda, Dylan y Carlin

Cathedral de Sal in Zipaquira Colombia

2006-10-15T23:04:00.000-04:00

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.

Ciao Amy!!!!

2006-10-15T21:11:00.000-04:00

We didn't want to let too much time go by without thanking Amy for her visit to Bogota! We had such a wonderful time and thank you so much for bringing the Cheerios!!!! Gabriela has been learning to feed herself with one Cheerio at a time!!!

Un mensaje de Gabriela...Buenos Dias!!!

2006-10-15T21:05:00.000-04:00

BLAH...BLAH...BLAH...BLAH...MA...MA...MA..MA...PA....PA...PA...PA....GA...GA...GA...GABRIELA

We wanted to share with everyone what we see every morning...a wonderful huge smile every morning!!!

Enjoy!!!

Shines Brighter than 2,000 Year Old Gold!

2006-10-15T00:09:00.000-04:00

As I sit here and write in our blog, John is beginning to sing the Paul Simon song…”I hear the drizzle of the rain…”, for the past few days it has rained more than what we had experienced in our time here so far. It really hasn’t been that bad because the sun peaks out every once in a while.

Our “Cielito Lindo” (beautiful sky – what my mom called me growing up) had a bit of a rough start to her day because she is teething very badly and is in so much pain. She didn’t have much of an appetite today and we didn’t force her to eat…because when she is hungry…she let’s you know…

After her morning nap we walked to The Pizarro Family home and then we went out and had some delicious meat skewers and arepas with cheese…YUM!!!!! We then headed down to El Centro of Bogotá and went to the Gold Museum (Museo del Oro)! The museum focuses on the people here in Colombia before the Spaniards and teaches you about their culture through their artifacts in gold. It was amazing to see the craftsmanship of the pieces that were found. We saw pieces that were from 50 BC! SO AMAZING!!! After seeing the museum we headed to a gallery to browse…I LOVE WINDOW SHOPPING!!!! We then headed up one of the mountains via the Circulvanal (highway) which allows you to have an amazing view of all of Bogotá! We ended the night at a Chinese restaurant where the food was very tasteful. I’m sure some of you are wondering how Gabriela was…WELL, AS ALWAYS…she was juiciosa!!!! She is such a great little girl who isn’t fussy at all!!! We really do feel so lucky to be parents to such a wonderful little bundle of joy!!!

Enjoy the photos of our day today!

Many thanks to Rosario, Pablo, Juan Carlos and Jaime!!!

Hugs to you all!!!

Oh, and just in case you were wondering when we are coming home…we don’t know as of yet we are closer than we were but won’t know until at least when we have my cedula in hand. We are looking forward to coming home and in the mean time just do what we are doing, hang tight and enjoy your day!!!

Con mucho amor!

Monica, John and Gabriela

Setencia Received!!!!

2006-10-13T17:54:00.000-04:00

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"

2006-10-12T23:10:00.000-04:00

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

2006-10-12T01:51:00.000-04:00

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!

2006-10-11T22:06:00.000-04:00

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

Secret post...

2006-10-10T01:49:00.000-04:00

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!

aj

Tia Amy in Bogota!

2006-10-08T23:17:00.000-04:00

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!
aj

Extra Blog Post - Friday night makeup

2006-10-08T02:06:00.000-04:00

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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.

Great Day on Saturday!!!

2006-10-08T01:18:00.000-04:00

Oh what a day we had! Since we didn't post any pictures yesterday we thought that we'd share as many photos as we can.

To start things off John made breakfast for Amy and I!!! What a wonderful man!!! We then headed up to Monserrate which is an old Monastary and church that sits up on top of a high mountain top just outside Bogota. You have an amazing view of the entire city and it gives you a new appreciation for just how large this city reallly is and gives you a new appreciation for this beautiful city. http://www.mytravelguide.com/attractions/profile-79073805-Colombia_Bogota_Cerro_de_Monserrate.html
We went up there with Amy and the family and we took some amazing pictures! After being at Monserrate for several hours, we walked through the heart of downtown Bogota and had a nice meal at a 42 year old Italian restaurant. After dinner we heading to Crapes and Waffles for dessert!!!

John and I had decided to wait on doing some of these sight seeing things until Amy was here visiting us! Gabriela (as always) was our sweet little angel and was taking in all of the beautiful views in between her naps!!!

Enjoy the photos!

Amy has come to town!

2006-10-06T01:28:00.000-04:00

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!!!

2006-10-05T01:39:00.000-04:00

Hola!! Esperemos que todos esten muy bien! Nosotros estamos muy contentos y pasandola muy chevere! Okay - so I'm sure that most of you don't understand what I just wrote, so I thought that I'd be nice and give you a break and continue to write in English! All is coming along great with us! Over the last couple of days John has been very busy working so things have been rather calm for us! The weather on Tuesday was cold and today was warmer, but still with a cool breeze! Both days we spent a good portion of the day in the house and in the evening we went out - walking around and having a great time! I can't wait until all of you have the opportunity to meet Gabriela! She truly is such a well behaved little girl who is laid back and easy going!!! We are so lucky to have such a beautiful and amazing child!

See...look at the picture of her...she is amazing!!!! She is content entertaining herself with the new toy that we bought her at this 2nd hand store geared towards children (of course we washed the toy very well before letting her play with it) and with the Dragona behind her which was a gift to Gabriela from our family here in Bogota!!! Muchas gracias!!!!

Over the last couple of days Gabriela has really advanced in sitting up by herself, standing while she holds on to our fingers and from a sitting position pulling herself up and standing! She has really strong legs...we bought her an inflatable ball and John thinks that she is going to be a great soccer player!!! Hopefully Alexandra, Amanda, Dylan and Carlin will all be able to teach Gabriela some soccer tricks so they can all play together!!!

I can truly notice that Gabriela is hitting a time where she is growing...today we gave her a 5 oz. bottle in the morning, she took a nap and woke up and I gave her some mashed potatos along with lentils with potato, carrotts and rice in the afternoon I gave her an 8 oz. bottle, several hours later I gave her a 6 oz. bottle, several hours later some fruit and then her last 6 oz. bottle...she is eating much more these days so I am working on having food already prepared! I'm really trying hard to get the routine down and to get the hang of things! So far, we are all doing well and as always...John is absolutly wonderful with her and with me! I'm including another photo of John with Gabriela which I really love...she is giving him a big kiss!!! She is so wonderful!

We are so excited because our friend Amy will be arriving tomorrow afternoon and will be staying until the 10th of October...so our postings for the next 5 days will be great because we are planning on going to some wonderful places!!!

Apartment life in Bogota

2006-10-02T23:44:00.000-04:00

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

2006-10-02T01:00:00.000-04:00

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

2006-10-01T01:08:00.000-04:00

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.

Fun & Relaxing Friday!!!

2006-09-30T01:10:00.000-04:00

Well, today was a very laid back type of day! We started off the day listening to children songs and much to our surprise, we noticed that Gabriela was bobbing her head to the beat of the music!!! So our little gril will hopefully have the rhythem to dance salsa!!! Shortly after this fun time, we headed out in the drizzling rain for a nice family walk to the bakery for some fresh bread and deserts for lunch since we invited Mercedes Helena (our attorney) for lunch along with Rosario! We had a great time and the lasagna that we made was a great hit!

After lunch Mercedes Helena and I went to El Centro (Downtown) to the Juzgado (Judges) to see if anything had happened with our paperwork. Not much has happened and we'll have to attempt to go back on Tuesday and on Monday we'll have to go in person to follow up on my Cedula. While I was out and about John stayed home with our little Chicky-Monkey and Rosario! Our little Angel took a 2 1/2 hour nap for Papa and when she woke up she was full of smiles and laughter!!!

John is such an amazing father and husband! You can just tell how much he is having with Gabriela in the picture that I posted!

As you can see from the photos above, Gabriela is smiling for the camera! It's actually been really halarious because she'll be serious and as soon as she sees the red light for the camera she'll smile really big! I bet she is getting herself ready for the Little Miss Virginia/Colombian beauty pagent! HA HA HA!!!

Hugs to you all and stay tuned for some great photos of our apartment!!!!

Love you all!

What are pictures worth?

2006-09-28T01:12:00.000-04:00

Ok, so I don't have a lot to say about today. It was a beautiful day here in Bogota and the weather was very comfortable as it is every single day and we had a fabulous time with Gabriela. Monica and cousin Rosario spent some time this afternoon at a relative of Rosario's house while I was planning on going, I had to catch up on some of my work back home. At the house, Gabriela discovered her new best friend.... a very hard breadstick. She can hold it, eat it, and it feels great on her painful gums. We will be buying some first thing in the morning.

I'm going to let the photos do the rest of the talking for tonight, so good night or good morning when you read this and we hope that everyone is doing well and we look forward to when we are able to see everyone again and you all can meet our little angel. There are two photos of Gabriela sitting in Monica's lap this morning and one with her best friend the bread stick. She is getting so much better as smiling even with the little red light just before the camera flashes and of course anytime we can catch her sticking her tounge out, we have to post one of those!

Coming to Bogota

2006-09-27T00:33:00.000-04:00

Today, was as I post basically every time... another great day. It's hard to believe that this time two weeks ago that we hadn't yet met our daughter and now she is everything to us both. Tonight as we had helped her fall back to sleep after her poor painful gums woker her up, we both couldn't beleive how lucky be feel right now and just how beautiful she is. I can say that there are times that I look at her she is looking at me with those big brown eyes and I feel like I've been punched in the gut she is so beautiful.

Tonight we found out two wonderful things, first that our friend Amy is going to be coming to Bogota for a long weekend visit next Thursday! She had mentioned a while back that she was interestedin coming and we have been talking about it since then, but tonight she bought her ticket! It's is going to be so much fun to have her here in Bogota and we can't wait for her visit.

We also found out that a great friend in our Colombian Adoption internet group has been approved for their adoption and is being assigned to the Bogota office just as we were. It is possible that they could receive their referral for their child and be here before we leave! We have never met in person but have been of tremendous help to each other in our group and over the phone over the last several months so we hope we can meet them and their new child as well here in Bogota soon.

As you can see in today's photos, Monica and Gabriela look great together and Gabriela is already getting ready for her first Jimmy Buffett concert.

Let's go for a walk...

2006-09-26T01:42:00.000-04:00

In the neighborhood we are in, we can get to pretty much everything we really need in a short walk. Even short enough for me to do on my old knee. This afternoon, after spending a nice morning working, drinking coffee and playing with Gabriela in our apartment; we decided to take a walk to the park which is about 3 blocks away. Well, Gabriela decided that it was time for a little sleep on the way there so we kept on walking. Later we met up with Rosario at a coffee shop in a mall, then we walked to the store for wine, crackers, cheese and Spanish ham.

It was another wonderful day here with Gabriela. She is doing so well although she is really starting to feel those teeth coming in but we are doing our best to help her through it. This morning she spent about two hours on the floor (on a clean blanket) with several of her favorite toys and she is really trying to push herself toward them and although she can't really move forward yet, she can rotate herself around on her tummy about 180 degrees or so.

Not that this was going to have been in doubt but Monica is really a natural mother already and Gabriela is so comfortable with her. It is really beautiful to see them together. She did fall asleep in my arms again in part due to my singing; which I can't say for sure is a compliment to my singing, but I like to think that I have a little fan.

I'll hopefully be able to post tomorrow how things are going with our papers through the court that our adoption has been assigned to. I should have more information tomorrow so anything that affects or hints at our timing, I'll be sure to post.

Well, I'm going to keep it short tonight because it is very late. We all hope that everyone is doing well at home and we miss everyone and we'll hopefully see everyone soon.

Bogota is Beautiful & Gabriela loves to see it!

2006-09-23T20:02:00.000-04:00

In a very short time we learned something very important about Gabriela, she loves to be outside. When she is upset for one reason or another, we know that we can take her outside for a quick walk or just stand around and she calms right down. She is very curious wants to see everything with those giant brown eyes of hers and furtunately for her and for us, Bogota has a lot to see.

Yesterday, we moved from the hotel we were staying to a lovely two bedroom apartment that Rosario (cousin Jamie's wife) found for us. It is in one of the best areas of Bogota and is wonderful for walking around and is less than two blocks to a great super market and a less than 10 minute walk from Jamie & Rosario's home. Gabriela has a lot more room for us to put her on her tummy more for some great exercise.

We moved in yesterday afternoon and we have already been taking advantage of this great walking neigborhood. Gabriela and I took a quick walk to the store this morning for some juice and fresh Colombian breads. This afternoon we walked to Jamie & Rosario's for a great lunch and later a walk to the Juan Valdez coffee shop.

We greatly enjoyed our time at the hotel where we were staying and the people we met there both in the staff and the other adopting families were wonderful and it was an experience that we would not ever change for anything. We now have great friends in Norway and Holland to go along with all of the great Colombian friends that we have made here.

Gabriela right now is happily playing with "Tango", the Jamie & Rosario's 4 year hold Huskie. She is facinated by dogs and Tango is doing very well with her. We can wait until she gets to meet Zuny!

The photos in this posting are of Rosario who has been not only helping us with something nearly every day, but is also great source of entertainment for us and expecially for Gabriela. The other photos are Gabriela reaching for Tango and to respond to a specific request for a photo of me with my little angel Gabriela, one of the two of us just after I fed her a bottle and then sung her to sleep.

Great Time!!!!

2006-09-22T01:01:00.000-04:00

HELLO!!!! Gabriela is so precious and wonderful!!!! We can't believe that last Thursday was our "Gotcha Day"!!! We are all getting the hang of things and we are beginning to know Gabriela's signs such as when she is tired or hungry. We haven't yet gotten to recognize all of the different cries yet, but I'm sure that we'll get there sooner than later! She has such a great temperment and is so much fun! For example, last night while my family was visiting us Gabriela and I started a new and fun game...she'd open her mouth and let a sounds out and I would put my finger in the outside of her mouth and it would make different noises...we all laughed and have continued to play the game various times each day!!!!!

Today we walked the city streets of Bogota not in search for anything in particular. We ended up at a wonderful park that is close to the hotel. We met up with my cousin, Pablo, for lunch and after lunch we met up with my other cousins and ended back up at my cousins place. It truly is crazy how quickly time flies when you are having fun! We were having so much fun that we had to make a detour back to the hotel so that John could change his shirt that Gabriela had just spit up on! When we arrived at the hotel, Gabriela and I weren't ready to head back to our room so we went outside and laid down on the grass and dirt and played for some plastic cups. It was so much fun and we were finally able to get a photo of her smiling!!!

First Peluqueria.... Hair Salon!

2006-09-21T01:07:00.000-04:00

It's pretty late at night and we are all exhausted; but today was another great day with our beautiful daughter. She doesn't like being hot at all but you have to keep small children bundled pretty well here when the sun isn't out and her hair was always making her very hot so today we took her for her first haircut (that we are aware of) at the salon (peluqueria) where Monica's cousins go. They did a very nice job of cutting her hair for all of $10,000 pesos which is a little over 4 dollars. Later that day when Monica went back to the salon for her own hair cut and style, one of the women there filed Gabriela's nails for her. She is going to be expensive one day I tell you!

Otherwise it was another great day and I'll just post some more great before, during, & after pictures from her haircut.

Busy Day & Good Day

2006-09-19T23:52:00.000-04:00

Ok, so everyday is a good day right now, but today was a good day both because we had a wonderful time with Gabriela as always, but also because we accomplished a lot today.

We had our super early appointment with the Director of ICBF for Bogota this morning. It went very well and she asked us a few questions about how we were all getting along together. It was time for Gabriela's fruit snack, so Monica fed her while I held her in my lap there in her office. While Gabriela was eating her snack, she was laughing and showing how comfortable she is with us.

This morning at 8:00am we had our interview with the regional director of ICBF and it was a very nice short "chat" more than an interview. She asked us how Gabriela was doing and how we were doing with her and not much more. It was time for Gabriela's fruit so Monica and I fed her a mango snack right there in her office. So she was able to see how we are working as a team and see that we are all taking to each
other very well so far.

After the meeting, we did a little paper chasing at the home of our lawyer and then rounded up our full dossier for the courts and we headed downtown to the courts building. We were assigned to one of the courts (or judge) which our lawyer says som people don't always like him, but that she has a great working relationship with him and is pleased that he will be our judge.

Our lawyer also did tell us that not much will happen over the next two weeks or more, so if we want to head out to San Andres, Santa Marta, or Cartagena; now is the time to do it. We'll see how everything goes over the next few days and we'll look into a little family vacation.

I had some work today from the hotel in the afternoon so Monica took Gabriela to a pediatrician that was recommended by her cousin's wife. Monica and I wanted her to get a good checkup and she has seemed a little congested the last few days and we just wanted to get a qualified opinion on how she is progressing and her health. Monica really liked the doctor and Gabriela is in perfect health.

Here are Gabriela's latest stats:
Age: 6 Months 19 Days
Weight: 14.1 lbs (tiny little thing)
Length: 25.2 Inches

I am also just very happy to say that things are going very very well with us and Gabriela. She is an absolutely wonderful nina and everyone we meet is captivated by her calm and happy personality as well as those giant expressive eyes. She is sleeping through the night every night and we are getting better and better at giving her a working rutine of bottles, food, naps, & sleep. As we get better at these things, she is even more relaxed and happy.

It's been a long day and I'm berry tired!

2006-09-18T22:50:00.000-04:00

As you can see, we are back with photos!

We've had very nice days the last two days spending time with Monica's cousins. On Sunday they took us to breakfast and then we had an evening cookout with their extended families as well. Today we spent a good amount of this afternoon running around Bogota, helping us with our camera situation amongst other errands.

So the camera is now in an authorized Canon service location being fixed and will be ready next Monday. Obviously a week with no camera during this amazing time in our lives is just not something we can stand for, so we purchased a new little Canon to tide us over and also to give us a more compact option for when we are out and about town. You might ask why did we purchase another Canon? Well, first of all we just plain like them and second the problem with the first one it turns out is not a result of poor quality. Let's just say that "user error" from nearly 18 months ago finally caught up with the camera.

Since we only got the camera up and running this evening, you'll have to enjoy this wonderful photo of Gabriela passed out cold after a long and fun day. We have an appointment with the Bogota Director of ICBF first thing in the morning tomorrow so wish us luck both with the appointment but also just getting up and out that early in the morning with our little angel.

"Mamma don't take my Kodachrome away"

2006-09-17T22:49:00.000-04:00

Ok maybe our digital camera doesn't use Kodachrome but the lyric is quite fitting. This morning as I was about to load some new photos from our camera to the laptop and then on to Gabriela's loving fans the batteries ran dead in the camera just after giving it enough juice to turn on. No big deal we thought, we'll just buy some new AAs and we'll be good to go in no time. Well, when we put the new batteries in, nothing happened. It won't turn on, it's actually frozen with the lens extended since it never had a chance to shut it's self down before the juice completely ran out of those batteries.

We are doing everything that we can to either get the camera repaired or buy a new camera as quickly as possible. Not only do we want to be able to keep all of you involved with the addictive photos of beautiful Gabriela, but we also of course have to have a camera to record this amazing time in our lives. We don't want to have to buy a new camera here because electronics are not cheap down here at all, but we'll do if we have to. We actually thought about buying a new camera before we came down, that might be a little smaller for better fit in our pockets; but obiously we didn't buy one.

I have a few new pictures on the memory card for my camera so if I can at least get them off and onto a disk, I might have new pictures for you tomorrow night but otherwise, I'll let you know how it goes with the repair/shopping.

On to really important things, like an update on us and Gabriela! The past two days have been really special, she is really beggining to show her personality which is just wonderful. She is so calm and so very curious about everything. When we walk down the street with her, she just looks at every possible thing that she can see. She also has been talking a lot with us, no actual words but she is becoming more and more vocal, although there might be a "mamamamama" sound. Unfortunately, I'm going to have to be called "bababa" if I want to claim one of her sounds. My favorite is one that she was really getting into tonight, "blah, blah, blah, blah". Now obviously it's just her working on her ability to make language sounds, but the irony is so great for someone who can't talk yet to say.

That's all for now, she is sleeping welling and nice and early, and we are going to try to catch a little rest ourselves before we takle a new day. Monica is taking Gabriela to get a haircut tomorrow, so we hopefully will have a camera very soon. If anyone has any good ideas on the camera fix, please email us.

2nd Night a little more sleep

2006-09-16T11:31:00.000-04:00

I first want to let everyone reading the blog how much we enjoy reading the comments that everyone has been writing. It's a little bit difficult that we aren't able to share a little of this time directly with our closest friends and family so everyone's warm and loving comments are really special for us. Keep em coming!

Yesterday Gabriela began feeling a little better although we had to take it easy on her tummy. We were invited to dinner at Monica's cousin's house here in Bogota and we had a wonderful meal with Jaime and his wife Rosario. Gabriela feel asleep just before dinner (late Colombian dinner) so didn't get to have any of the delicious steak and potatoes that we had. Jamie and Rosario have been so kind and very helpful for us and are very excited for Gabriela. The pictures here are from last night and one is with Gabriela, Monica, & Jamie; and the other is Gabriela sleeping in my lap at the dinner table.

Since Monica had to rush down here to Colombia so quickly last week, I ended up doing all of the shopping and stuff for Gabriela and that included all of her clothes. So please note the photo of her sleeping in her cool green shirt and kahki's.

Yesterday evening and so far this morning, she is feeling so much better. She is gulping down her bottles without problems, knapping in the late morning as she should, and in general her personality is coming out. She is very calm and playful and loves to see everything and try to copy us. Obviously she cries when she is ___________ (fill in the blank: hungry, sleepy, cold, hot, dirty, or wants Monica), but she is able to recover so much faster now that she is feeling better. She is also very comfortable now with both Monica and I and we are becoming much more comfortable with caring for her. That said, we are so very completely in love with her and we just stare at her and can't believe that this little angel is our daughter.

First night, good night...

2006-09-15T12:39:00.000-04:00

After a long day for Gabriela without a nap and not able to keep anything down for very long, she finally decided that it was time to rest. She slept from about 11pm to 5:30am and Monica and I slept although lightly about the same amount of time.

She woke up this morning a bit refreshed and ready to start with some light amounts of milk and delicate foods. She had a morning bath and breakfast and mid morning snacks went very well. We later went for a walk around the neiborhood with Monica's cousin Juan Carlos who showed us where the 24 hour drugstore and all of the resaraunts are located.

Monica had her in the Bjorn and he was very happy to see the world around her with those big brown eyes. She has begun to attached to us both, however much stronger with Monica so far. I am happy to see her attaching so quickly and that Monica's touch can bring her so much calm so fast. Gabriela and I have had some wonderful moments as well, like this morning when she slept on my chest for about a half hour or so.

Several of Monica's cousins have already been to the hotel to visit with her and as you can see, those eyes have everyone in love with her.

We are trying to put her down for a nap right now and she has other plans, but we are working on it. Until later, all is "chevere".

Gabriela Sophia!!!!

2006-09-14T23:22:00.000-04:00

This is going to be the short and sweet version with much more to come tomorrow along with more photos. Today we were presented with our beautiful Gabriela Sophia and I can honestly say it's been an amazing experience already. She is so beautiful and unlike how she appeared in her photo, she is a tiny little thing and is swimming in her 6 - 9 months onsies.

She has had an upset tummy this afternoon from her morning meal (we think) and was not feeling well. Even still she has been such a princess and is already lighting up our lives.

It's been a long day and I give us 50/50 odds on our chances of sleeping much tonight. I'll be back online tomorrow morning and tell you all the details, but for tonight all you need to know is that she is beautiful and we are completely in love.

In the air in a few hours, with my daughter in a day!

2006-09-13T09:33:00.000-04:00

Well, I'm off to the airport now to meet with Monica and her cousin's family in Bogota. So I'm signing off probably until late Thursday night when I can take a few minutes to at least give a quick update on how everything went and hopefully a couple of photos of Gabriela Sophia.

Thank you to all of you for your support and of your heart. We had so many amazing people go out of their way to do such nice things for us this week and we are really very grateful.

I think I'm about to explode with pent up excitement!!!!!
I'll talk at you soon from Bogota Colombia!

An Adoption Visa in the hand is better than...

2006-09-11T14:07:00.000-04:00

An Adoption Visa in the hand is better than......well pretty much anything at this moment. The consulate in DC processed my application very quickly (2 days) and this morning handed me my passport with my Adoption Visa inside. So in "legal" terms I am ready to go. In most other terms, I have a lot of work to do, but I'll get it done and be in the air 48 hours from now (knock on wood).

It's Official - Thursday at 1:30 pm

2006-09-09T17:52:00.000-04:00

I truely can't believe that it's actually happening, but I better start because it's all set and confirmed that we will be presented with our little Gabriela Sophia at 1:30 on Thursday! If you want to mark the moment along with us, Colombia is in the Eastern Time Zone but doesn't observe Daylight Savings Time so right now they are 1 hour behind Eastern Time.

I'm starting to calm down from the high stress of this past week and I'm sure that the new stress of the trip will set in soon, but I'm enjoying the calm right now and just focusing on getting to Gabriela. Monica is doing very well in Bogota and is going to book our hotel in the next day or so and is searching for the type of baby blankets that come from Colombia that she loves so much. We actually have two Colombian baby blankets on our own bed so she really loves those blankets!

We received a wonderful gift in the mail today for Gabriela from one of the wonderful families that are part of the Yahoo Group that we are a part of. Thank you so much again Melinda & Moises; we can't thank you enough really.

Update from Bogota (via Virginia)

2006-09-09T00:10:00.000-04:00

After beging very anxious all day having not heard from Monica yet about her meeting this morning, I spoke with Monica this evening and I am very happy to report that the meeting went very very well. She feels very comfortable that they are doing everything that they can for her to get her cedula quickly and that they are understanding of the situation. Obviously I'll feel more comfortable when we have our baby Gabriela in our arms and Monica has her cedula, but for now good news is good news and I'll just focus on Gabriela (as if there is anything else in the world I could be focused on right now).

So I'll try to sleep a little better tonight and focus on getting everything together for my travels on Wednesday.

Thanks again for the support.
John

The Air Up There....

2006-09-08T12:32:00.000-04:00

Well I heard from Monica last night and she is safe and sound in Bogota now. I was worried about her because she does have asmah and she is a bit on the high energy side so going slow and taking it easy are not her style. She told me that she was a little winded at first but is doing fine and was heading to sleep early.

She is going with our lawyer today to meet with the people who are helping her with her Cedula so please keep her in your thoughts and prayers that everything goes well.

I also called this post "The Air Up There" because I'm definitely feeling the effects of, let's call it emotional altitude right now. I'm on cloud nine on one side, but I'm also very anxious and stressed about getting everything ready for my trip and everything. So I'm a bit winded myself and probably not sleeping very much, but how can I when I can't get the face of my daughter out of my head? I can not wait to see her in person, I look at the photo over and over and I keep trying to find something that helps me to actually begin to know her.

Thank you all again for all of the shared excitment and warm wishes, we really appreciate it so much.

John

On Our Way!!!!????!!!!

2006-09-07T17:55:00.000-04:00

Well, Monica is now officially in the air on her way to Bogota. Her flight left a few minutes ago from her connection in Miami and we are at least a little bit calm for the first time this crazy week. Tomorrow morning, Monica and our lawyer are going to have a meeting to get her Cedula (Colombia ID) application processed expedited for her. They feel they can get it done quickly and be able to give her a cedula number or temporary cedula soon and then get her the actual cedula as quickly as possible.

They seem to be wonderful people who want to do what is best for a family trying to come together.

I went to the Consulate in DC this morning to drop off my application for my Visa. I brought my father in law with me as I was a bit worried that it was going to be difficult. The whole thing took about 3 minutes from when we walked in the door. I had everything already filled out and all of the documents that they asked for (and some extra just in case), and I'm supposed to pick up my visa on Monday!

We have our appointment now at ICBF to receive Gabriela Sophia on Thursday, ONE WEEK FROM TODAY!

Everything is so crazy!!! But our families and friends have been amazing and are stepping up left and right to help us out.

Thanks again to everyone for all of your support and help, we are really so greatful for everything.

What a crazy roller coaster ride!

2006-09-06T19:49:00.000-04:00

Ok so the lastest update is that Monica just spoke with our lawyer who has spent all day trying to make things happen for us. Well, she wants Monica to fly down to Bogota tomorrow so that she can meet with the right person for what we need on Friday morning. After pleading our case and showing them how we have done everything by the book and the referral for our little baby girl; they are going to try to get Monica's Cedula for her in record time. It looks like I am going to be going down to Bogota as early as next Wednesday so that we can be united with our daughter on THURSDAY NEXT WEEK!!!!!

I'll have to scramble to get my visa and everything else ready and let's just say I'm not the spontanious one so I'm freaking out a bit but I know that I'll be fine once we have her in our arms.

This doesn't mean we are over the challenge, but it is good news and we just want to keep building off of that good news.

Good luck to everyone!
John & Monica

Introducing....

2006-09-06T12:23:00.000-04:00

Name: Gabriela Sophia Hodson
Date of Birth: March 1, 2006
Weight at Birth: 6 lbs 13 oz
Length at Birth: 19.69 inches
Blood Type: AB

A healthy, beautiful, and happy little girl who is developing very well and is in line with where she should be with other children her age has just officially entered our lives and our hearts! Actually, the love that we have her for has been there since before we saw her picture or we read all of her medical files.

It truly is so wonderful and we continue to be amazed with how our adoption journey has gone. We are sure that many of you have read our postings yesterday and we are still concerned and stressed about what we are faced with at this moment; however, Monica will be traveling at any time to begin working aggressively with our attorney on the current situation. We have been praying and have been optimistic that everything is going to work out.

This is our daughter! It’s so wonderful to actually say these words! It seems that fate is bringing us together because as a number of you have mentioned to us, we began journaling our adoption experience on March 2nd – which it turns out was less than 24 hours from when she entered this world!

Because both of us are making many phone calls and doing everything that we can possibly do along with our other responsibilities we will continue to update the blog. So, please continue checking the blog as your source for updates.

Too Easy?

2006-09-05T20:26:00.000-04:00

Well things have been moving along so smoothly that we were almost waiting for the other shoe to drop. Well after the extreame high of yesterday, the proverbial other shoe has most certainly dropped.

After all the discussions and all the assurances, it does now appear that in fact in Bogota especially Monica WILL be required to have her cedula (Colombian National ID) to go through the family courts for our adoption. As it was initially mentioned to us the courts in Bogota are very conservative and very strict.

So, it looks like Monica will be flying to Bogota in the next couple of days to try as hard as she can to obtain her cedula in record time. Our attorney is reaching out to her contacts to see if we’ll be able to reach our fate…our destiny.

Prayer and/or best wishes are more than welcome and appreciated. We are to say the least "STRESSED", but still trying to keep an optimistic perspective on things. We hope and have been praying to God that this mistake doesn't somehow keep us from our daughter.

We are looking forward to receiving her photo and information tomorrow!

We'll keep everyone up to date with anything that we can.

John & Monica

The day we received the referral for our daughter...

2006-09-05T08:28:00.000-04:00

So wow, now that you have seen the quick posting that we posted last night with the amazing news of our referral for our daughter in Bogotá, I thought I'd write something a little more "John" and well tell the whole story.

Monica and I went to visit a great college friend of ours over the weekend in New England who introduced us 11 years ago this very weekend. All weekend long anytime we talked about our future baby people were saying "she" and "her", and this was new to us as it had not been happening very much at all until this weekend. Then we received an email from our lawyer in Bogotá on Friday night that told us that she was going to go to the ICBF office on Monday (yesterday) and hoped to have good news for us. Then there was a posting from a great friend of ours in the Yahoo Group that we are a part of for Colombian families adopting from Colombia. She told us that sister in law in Colombia was told over the weekend that they matched a lot of families & babies this week in Bogotá. We were bouncing off the walls with nervous energy after that and driving the 8 hours back to Virginia today just couldn't happen fast enough knowing that there might be the biggest message of our lives waiting for us while sitting in traffic on the I-95 is painful to be sure.

But sure enough when we arrived home there was an email message from our lawyer letting us know that we had been blessed with a little girl. It was so amazing to begin to actually say that we have a daughter and it really still all just beginning to sink in.

But to tell this story of today or of this weekend doesn't begin to tell our journey that led us to today. It's both a unique story and a story that is echoed throughout adopting families. One of our favorite parts of the story though is how after finding out about this mysterious thing called Parent Initiated Adoption after finding a posting on a Colombian information site from a woman here in the US who called herself "kitsmom" who detailed a direct path to adopting from Colombia that is open to everyone but especially beneficial to Colombian families. While we were excited beyond belief we were also wondering if we could possibly pull something that unknown off, then a woman named Hillary started the Yahoo Group that I mentioned. She and her Colombian husband adopted from Colombia last year through Parent Initiated Adoption and she wanted to create a place for others to talk and learn about this small but wonderful path to adoption. This group has allowed us to ask every question that struck us and to share our journey with other couples who without a group like this we would have never known existed. Just knowing that we were not alone in all of this has helped so much to relieve the added stress that might have come otherwise.

Because of all of the support from all of our family and friends and from the Yahoo Group, we are where we are today, with a referral for our daughter.

Continued good luck as always and we will continue to update everyone with any and all information that we can.

John, Monica and "Baby Girl".

IT'S A GIRL!!!!!!

2006-09-04T17:31:00.000-04:00

WE JUST FOUND ABOUT 15 MINUTES AGO THAT WE HAVE A LITTLE GIRL!!!!!

OUR ATTORNEY TOLD US THAT SHE IS A BEAUTIFUL HEALTHY LITTLE GIRL BORN ON MARCH 1, 2006!!!! WE SHOULD RECEIVE HER FULL REFERRAL DOCUMENTS ON WEDNESDAY, SO WE WILL BE ABLE TO GET A BETTER FEEL FOR THE TIMELINE FOR WHEN WE WILL TRAVEL TO PICK UP OUR PRECIOUS LITTLE GIRL AND EVERYTHING ELSE AFTER THAT. AS SOON AS WE KNOW MORE...WE'LL LET ALL OF YOU KNOW!!!!

WE LOVE YOU ALL VERY MUCH AND THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH FOR ALL OF YOUR SUPPORT!!!!!

Baby Blankets, Strollers and Diapers - OH MY!!!!!

2006-08-24T23:10:00.000-04:00

Well, it's amazing how we feel as we wait to be united with our baby. We are so anxious and excited. We just can't wait for the moment where 2 become 3 along with our wonderful Zuny Zun-dog!!!

Our baby is going to be spoiled with so much love...a ton of hugs and a trillion kisses!!! My sister and nieces were in Florida for a couple of weeks with my parents and last night they came to visit us and brought the baby A TON of gifts! It's halarious because almost everything was Frog related! They even brought back a gift for Zuny...they are so adorable!!!!

It's all so funny how we decided to go with a Frog. It came down to one day realizing that we liked Frogs and it also didn't hurt that we had heard that Frogs were good luck...so voila! We picked the wall color and the accent colors in the nursery based on a Kids Space Decorating book that we have! The color of the walls are so soothing and they really do fit with our personalities and the overall soothing feeling that we like to have throughout our home. We know that eventhough the walls are in the blue family that the room will be easily decorated for a girl or for a boy OR both (must be said just in case we have twins)!!!

OK, so lately many family members and friends have asked us if we have registered and we kept on pushing back saying...not yet...it's too soon...we aren't ready to register...we aren't sure what to register for; however, things have changed...tonight we registered at Babies R Us (we're still making some edits so please give us a couple of days) and we are going to begin our registery at Target as well!! It was a little bit of a challenge to make certain decisions on what to register for because all we know is that our baby is between 0-1 year old, but we did the best that we could do with the information that we have and we had a BLAST!!!! One of my good friends came with us to do our registry...we highly recommend taking someone with you who has had children (within the last 3 or 4 years) to walk you through it all. It can be overwhelming, but we had a blast!!!

THANK YOU JEANNIE!!!! WE REALLY APPRECIATE ALL OF YOUR HELP AND ADVICE!!!!

I really want to find a jogging stroller that is lite because she wants to begin walk/run routine again and really want to go on long walks with the baby and Zuny. John has found the "man diaper bag" that he wants to carry, but one of Monica's friends asked us why we wanted to have 2 diaper bags. She did bring up a good point so that's been one thing that we've been talking about and need to make a decision soon because really why do we need 2 diaper bags? I came across an add in People with a fantastic website www.diapeesandwipees.com and of course the one that I likes is back ordered, but that's OK cause we have a little bit of time...but hopefully not too long!!!!

Fate is Sending Us to Bogota!

2006-08-21T21:47:00.000-04:00

WE ARE NOW IN THE FINAL STAGES!!!!!! WHOOOO HOOOOO!!!!!

Our baby must like a little bit cooler weather, because this weekend we received an email from our attorney in Colombia letting us know that our Dossier was sent to the regional office of Bogota! We are very excited about this, because Monica has many family members in Bogota...so this is VERY exciting for us! One of us or possibly both of us will be in Colombia with our child for up to approximately 6-8 weeks...it'll all depend on how quickly the court system moves things along. So, Monica will be calling tomorrow to find out when we will be matched up with our actual child...who knows how long it'll take now.

We also were told that we had been approved for a baby 0 to 12 months old. Prior to this point we only knew that our child would be younger than 24 months, so it is wonderful to know this detail. Of course we would have been fine with any age baby that would have been blessed with but we are happy to know that we will be able to experience this extra time with our child.

We thank God everyday for this wonderful blessing of final being able to be parents and to love our child with all of our hearts! We can't wait until we receive the news that we have our child!

Thank you all for your continued support, love and prayers. We love you all very much!

Feels Good to Have Approval

2006-08-07T18:26:00.000-04:00

Well approval feels good in general but it's really great when we received notice from our lawyer in Colombia that our dossier and application had been approved by ICBF in only 2 days! This typically takes anywhere from 2 to 4 weeks so we were not at all expecting this to be done so quickly at all.

So those of you keeping score, our translations were completed a week early and now our application was approved in record time. This means that any concept of a timeline that we had been thinking of is now completely meaningless. We still don't know what the wait will look like from here at all, but we do know that our file is either in transit to the regional office where we will be adopting from or is already there by now.

We are now scrambling a little bit to make sure that our "must get done" list is in good shape but it is the best possible scramble we've ever been a part of. Each crazy step is filled with both some anxiety and great excitement that we are just that much closer to being united with our child.

Application Officially Filed!

2006-07-30T11:13:00.000-04:00

We received an email from late Friday night from our lawyer in Colombia that the translations of all 24 documents in our dossier had been completed as of Friday morning. Our lawyer also stated that she had already picked up the completed dossier and presented it with our official application to ICBF (the government agency who oversees adoptions in Colombia)!

Amazingly we now already have a case number and our lawyer has the name and information about the individual at ICBF who is going to be reviewing our dossier and application and has worked with this person before. We were not counting on the translations to be completed in time for our application to be submitted this week so we are so excited at how quickly it is going for us right now. Of course knowing that it could be just a matter of a few months from here until we are united with our child is amazing and maybe just a little bit scary too.

Our Baby's Future Nursery

2006-07-29T10:45:00.000-04:00

We wanted to share with everyone a little taste of the room we have created for our child after we return from Colombia. Thanks to Monica's parents for helping with all of the painting, her brother and his wife for the beautiful crib, and especially all of our baby's future cousins for our baby's first stuff animal; the frog that is waiting for it's owner to come home.

Breaking News: Adoption Dossier en route to Colombia!

2006-07-16T19:30:00.000-04:00

After a few late nights this past week putting all of the final touches on our adoption dossier, we received the final document that we were waiting for on Thursday. We sent two copies of our dossier to our lawyer in Bogota, one copy contains mostly copies of the documents is for her records and the other is the official dossier that will be submitted to ICBF.

The translator in Bogota is expecting our dossier this coming week and typically takes a week or so to translate the entire thing. Then our lawyer will present us to ICBF and then we are really rolling!

We can’t believe that we have actually finished all of the adoption requirements here in the US, especially since we have not had the agency doing all the paperwork for us and we have done almost everything ourselves.

What’s next you might ask? Well, now it’s time for us to:

1) Wait for any news or emergency needs for changes to our dossier

2) Begin working on our baby registry

3) Get prepared to become parents (as if that’s really possible)

We are hopeful that from this point it will only be a matter of months before we are united with our baby in Colombia, but we are also conscious that there are a lot of things outside of our control that may affect the timing. So we are trying to be optimistic about the timing but not lock our hearts around a particular month or anything.

A little letter from Homeland Secruity

2006-06-21T21:31:00.000-04:00

Tonight as I was finishing walking the dog I stopped off to check the mailbox. In our mail along with the usual catalogs, credit card offers, and coupons junk; I found a letter addressed from "Department of Homeland Security; U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services".

Monica and I quickly opened the letter and received the great news that we have been approved for our child's advance visa application. This document that we received today is called I-171H and is valid for the next 18 months. We couldn't send our application to Colombia without this approval since Colombia certainly doesn't want to grant an adoption for a child that won't be able to go home to the United States with their new parents. So now that we have our Immigration approval, we should be able to send our dossier down to Colombia within about a week or two as we are still tying up the last few loose strings with some other papers.

We are getting very anxious as we get closer and closer but this was a great milestone in our journey toward our being united with our little one. This is a happy day for us and we wanted to share it with everyone who has been so supportive and excited for us to beginning our family.

Up Next: Visas, Apostilles, & Dossiers - May 20, 2006

2006-05-20T12:20:00.000-04:00

As Monica posted yesterday, we received the amazing news that our Home Study is complete!

Now the Home Study needs to be sent off to Immigration so that we can get the pre-approval for an Immigration Visa for our child. This could take as little as 3 weeks or as long a 2 months, hard to say. Each state has their own office that processes these so it's just a matter of how fast they are and how much is on their plates.

The only other big thing we need to do to finalize our dossier is to send all of our documents to the Secretary of the Commonwealth of Virginia to have a certificate attached to it called "Apostille". We need this attached to each of our documents as a means to make these documents legal internationally for countries who are part of the Hague Convention , which Colombia is.

We are so amazingly happy about the progress we have made so far and how much closer we are to being united with our child. OMG, we have so much to do to get ready for a baby!!!!
Exciting, no?

Our Home Study is OFFICIALLY complete!!!! - May 19, 2006

2006-05-19T22:45:00.000-04:00

Tonight when we arrived home from work...we checked our email and our Social Worker had sent us her draft of the Home Study....we reviewed it and sent it back to her...we are only TINY STEPS away from receiving our FINAL HOMESTUDY!!!!

We are so excited!!!

Our Social Worker did such a great job and the Adoption agency here has been fantastic as well!

...now we are going to begin to focus on the baby's room and on what we'll need for the baby!!!

MORE EXCITING STUFF!!!!

Hopefully, we won't have to wait too long for our baby! Right now, it's way too early to tell how long it'll take...BUT, if all continues to run smoothly...we will be united with our child sooner than later!!! We can't wait until our special day!!!!

So what exactly did we need to do to get our Home Study scheduled? - May 14, 2006

2006-05-14T10:21:00.000-04:00

So many people have asked what we have had to do to get to the point where we are today so we are going go back in time just a bit...

As we stated in an earlier posting, we attended a great seminar F.A.C.E. (Families Adopting Children Everywhere). John did a ton of research late one night and came across the option of a PIA or Parent Initiated Adoption from Colombia. We saw that there are 2 specific adoption agencies in the Metro Washington DC area and we decided to attend both informational meetings. By the time we attended the final information meeting, we knew who we wanted to work with! So, we had to present the PIA process and procedures to the Director of International Adoptions to make sure that we could hire them to complete our Home Study and Post-Adoption visits. By the end of this interview we walked away feeling so confident and filled with joy that we were able to hire the agency for these specific a la carte services!!!

Before we were assigned to a Social Worker we needed to complete several items required by the Adoption agency which were:
1. Complete and submit our initial Adoption application - references were provided
2. Formal meeting with the Director of International Adoptions
3. Attend 2 mandatory Pre-Adoption classes (attended 4/19 & 4/29)
4. Complete the Home Study Checklist

Only after we had completed these 3 initial steps, then we would be assigned to a Social Worker! Before we move forward with where we are now and what we still need to do...many of you have asked what was on our Home Study Checklist...so...here it is....

Home Study Checklist:

Some of these documents are for the adoption agency and others will be a part of our foreign dossier.

Autobiographies - 5-8 pages double spaced each
General medical forms completed by physicians, including copies of all requested laboratory results
Letter from psychologist (required for Colombia)
Recent copies of Federal Income Tax Return
Copy of marriage certificate
Copy of birth certificate(s)
Employment letter for each applicant stating applicant's title, length of time employed and annual salary
Copies of certified, "life-long" driving record from all states in which the applicant(s) have resided in the last five years
Guardianship agreement from designated guardian(s)
2 sets of photos of the applicant(s)
Signed corporal punishment statement
Signed statement of Childhood Immunization Policy
Written plan of evacuation from home
Executed fee agreement
Signed Statement of Understanding

The deadline that we gave ourselves to complete EVERYTHING listed above was by April 29th which was the date of our last Pre-Adoption class...we met our deadline!!!

Recently we also had a wonderful opportunity to meet our Colombian lawyer while she is visiting her daughter who lives VERY close to our house! We have spoken with her several times over the phone and she has great references but it was especially great to be able to meet with her in person as she is going to be such an important part of our lives for the coming months. She has also given us a checklist for documents that are needed by ICBF in Colombia for a Parent Initiated Adoption.

Colombian PIA Checklist (Additional to all Home Study documents):

Complete ICBF adoption application
Birth Certificates (s) - Notarized and Apostille by the birth states
Marriage Certificate - Notarized and Apostille by the state of where we married
Explanation of Names - Notarized document where it will show the various names that we may have but that they are all legally the same person with the same identity

Woo Hoo our Home Study is almost complete!!!! - May 8, 2006

2006-05-08T21:26:00.000-04:00

Things are moving along really smoothly, please continue to have us in your prayers!

Here's the update on our Home Study...

1st appointment - Joint appointment with our Social Worker - Monday, May 1st
Our first appointment with our Social Worker was great! She is so nice and we all had the opportunity to know one another as we work towards our goal...uniting with our child! This first meeting was to really get to know who we are as a couple regarding our communication style, what we thought our parenting style would be like and a number of other topics. One thing that we discussed was our family and friends and if we felt that overall everyone supported our decision on how we chose to begin our family.

2nd appointment - Monica with our Social Worker - Monday, May 8th
3rd appointment - John with our Social Worker - Monday, May 8th
Our 2nd and 3rd appointments were both individual appointments with our Social Worker. She asked us about our extended family, our immediate family and asked us more questions about ourselves along with any other questions that she may have had.

4th appointment - Social Worker will come to our house - Tuesday, May 16th This is our final Home Study appointment! Our Social Worker will be coming to our house to make sure that it'll be a safe environment for our child and make sure that we have an extra room for our child as well...and to meet Zuny ;-)

An additional step in our Home Study was to have a local reference meet with our Social Worker face to face...this appointment has already taken place...so woo hoo...we are on our way to receiving our final Home Study write up!!!

Things that are pending or in progress:
1) Interview and hire translator in Colombia
2) Complete ICBF Application
3) Explantion of Names that's notarized
4) Letter from our medical doctor stating that we are in good health
5) Letter from a psychologist stating that after analysis that we suitable to be good parents
6) Create a 5 page photo album of us and our family...including Zuny ;-)
7) Once we have all of our documents, we must properly leagalize all of our documents in conformity with the Hague Convention. - we will need to travel to Richmond with our complete Dossier (Dossier is our complete adoption application that will be delivered to the ICBF in Colombia)

There may be some of you asking what the Hague Convention is...well...well explaine that to you. The Hague Agreement is a multilateral treaty, to which 80 countries adhear to its laws. According to the US State Department website, "The Convention covers adoptions among countries that become parties to it and sets out for such adoptions certain internationally agreed-upon minimum norms and procedures. The goal of the Convention is to protect the children, birth parents and adoptive parents involved in intercountry adoptions and to prevent abuses."

8) Letter signed by both parents (that's us!!) to our lawyer in Colombia so she can legally represent us in the Family Courthouse and ICBF in Colombia!
9) Go back to Immigration and request for Permission of Entrance for our child - Immigration will have to send specific documents to the US Embassy in Bogota while we are there.
10) Complete the I-600 form - this we will complete when we are in Colombia with our child at the US Embassy in Bogota.

My future is so bright...I've gotta wear shades...

2006-05-01T20:29:00.000-04:00

Zuny is looking forward to playing and loving our child!

Homestudy scheduled!!! - May 1, 2006

2006-05-01T20:22:00.000-04:00

First things first, we’d like to thank everyone for your continued support! We are overwhelmed with joy with the amount of positive vibes that are being sent our way!

Today, we have some very exciting news to share with everyone! We received confirmation that all of our paperwork was submitted AND we received a phone call AND email from our social worker, Rosalyn “Roz”! We are thrilled that in the same day that we received confirmation of receipt of our paperwork, that we also made an appointment with our social worker! To us, it seems that all is running smoothly!!! We will be meeting with her on Thursday (May 4^th) morning in their Bethesda office! So, our homestudy is officially beginning TODAY!!!! Our meeting on Thursday will be the first of 4 meetings with Roz. After this meeting, the following 2 meetings will be John and Monica individually and our final meeting will be will be in our home!

Additionally, Mercedes Helen, our lawyer in Colombia, is visiting her daughter who lives in Falls Church which is very close to where we live! So, we have an appointment to meet with her tomorrow night (May 2^nd) at 8:30!

Please continue to say prayers for us so that everything continues to run smoothly!

Completed One Stage... On to Another - May 1, 2006

2006-05-01T08:12:00.000-04:00

On Saturday Monica and I had our final session of our Pre-Adoption class that our agency requires all prospective adoptive parents to take prior to beginning the actual Home Study interviews. This class focuses on some of the particular needs and challenges that are often a part of the lives of children that were adopted. This class was an excellent requirements as it made us truly think about the life of adoptive families. This could not have come at a better time then now as we have been focused on process, process, process and of course the amazing day that we will meet our child.

Also Saturday marked another happy day for us; we completed every last document and paperwork requirement to begin our Home Study Interviews. This was the deadline that we had set for ourselves and we met it. Having now completed all of the pre-home study paperwork, and the pre-adoption classes, we are able to proceed in to the next stage.

Mid April Adoption Update - Apr 18, 2006

2006-04-18T10:44:00.000-04:00

Well since our last post we have been working on every possible document that you might be able to imagine, but things are progressing well so far. Tomorrow we will have our first session of our Pre-Adoption classes at the Barker Foundation. John has just completed his autobiography that will help the social worker get to know a little of our background before the interviews begin and Monica is working on her's and will be done soon.

As soon as these last few documents are completed and we begin our classes we can begin the Home Study Interviews which will proceed over several weeks also alowing for time for the socail worker to write the extensive report that is needed. So overall, things seem to be going on track at the moment so we are just going to keep pushing forward and fucusing on the outcome.

Old Jeep Willys Loaded Up With Coffee in Colombia

2006-04-18T10:37:00.000-04:00

The Begining of Our Colombian Adoption Quest - Mar 2, 2006

2006-03-02T23:28:00.000-05:00

Ok so this isn't exactly the beginning, but it is the first blog update since we got started. This past fall Monica and I attended a great adoption education course called F.A.C.E. and over the next couple of months educated ourselves and attended information meetings at a couple of different adoption agencies here in the Washington, DC area that have programs in Colombia. With Monica's family being from Colombia we knew that we wanted to try for Colombia first. Along the way we found bits of information online about "Parent-Initiated" adoption. This means that instead of having an agency here in the US, use all of their connections and lawyers, we would have to hire our own lawyer in Colombia and apply directly to the federal government of Colombia. The benefits are that the process is much less expensive and more importantly much, much faster.

We traveled to Cali, Colombia in December and stayed for nearly 3 weeks with Monica's large family and had an amazing time. It was very special for the both of us on many levels, one of which being the fact that we knew that one day we would return to this country to adopt our first child. The people that we met in Colombia were truly amazing and the country is so beautiful.

So here we are today in the begging of March and Monica is working on here dual-citizenship with Colombia and we have decided to work with a great local agency called The Barker Foundation for our home study and other services that are required for all adoptions. We are hopeful that we could actually be making a 2nd trip to Colombia this year, this time to return with our child. We have a ton to do over the next few months and then comes the wait, but we are hopeful that the wait wont' be too long and we are going to work like crazy to complete all of our processes and documents in the next 3 months or so.

South for the Winter - Dec 18, 2005

2005-12-18T23:27:00.001-05:00

Monica and I are headed south to Cali, Colombia on Thursday 12/22/05 . We will be visiting with much of Monica's family including her parents, sister, nieces and her many other family memebers who live in Cali. We'll try to make a few postings to our new blog here while we are down there so you can follow along.

Monica & John at Linden Vinyards

2005-12-18T23:27:00.000-05:00