Family Dinner at Fogon de Piedras

Mommy and Daddy at the Restaurant Sweet boy and his mama

Two fun loving boys about to become three!

Today we've mainly hung out at our hotel. Last night we ate at the hotel's restaurant, Fogon de Piedra (see above). It was delicious! I had a soup called Sopa de Maiz with corn, potatoes, egg noodles, delicious! Josh had pizza (of course) and Frank had a parillada of meat with a yummy baked potato. We also found out that Josh has wonderful photography skills as he tooks the photo of us. We turned in early as I wasn't feeling so great and even Josh said he was tired.

I'm going to get ready for a meeting with Nora this afternoon so, I'll post more soon after. Hugs!

Medellin: Love at First Sight

We are very excited to announce that WE HAVE ARRIVED!!!
After a fun day full of unexpected surprises, we are very excited to be in our lovely hotel room at the Intercontinental in Medellin. Our day started off this morning with our check in for Spirit Air at the Ft. Lauderdale/Hollywood International Airport. The sweet girl behind the counter looked at our adoring 7am faces and says, "I'm sorry I cannot let you board this flight as you do not have a return ticket and the US requires that all citizens have a returning flight." I was very proud of Frankie... I thought he was going to blow a gasket but he calmly explained that we didn't know this as the Spirit Air line website didn't inform us. After back and forth (involving the manager as well) we ended up having to buy return flight tickets which we booked for Sept 5th on a Spirit Air lines flight from Bogota. We weren't bothered by having to buy the flights, we were just upset that we didn't know this from the beginning otherwise we would have booked a round trip flight. Of course we do not expect to be returning on Sept. 5th (hopefully much sooner!) so, we'll have to pay the extra fee to change the flights once we know when we will actually be able to return home.
Josh was thrilled to be able to "test out" his Leapster video game system which we said he could use on the flight to Colombia, but poor guy... one of the batteries blew and he couldn't use it at all during the flight, but he was fine with it (especially since we brought a back up... the laptop with fun DVDs!) He did sleep for the first 45 minutes of the flight. As we approached Medellin Josh said it all. He looked over at me and said, "Mom (it's not Mommy anymore... :( mature 4 year old) look there's Medellin, isn't it beautiful?" I had to agree. As I looked through the window we saw the most beautiful mountains surrounding a gorgeous city... the birth place of my baby boy. I have to say.... I love the US and there's no country like it in the whole world, but Colombia is so very dear to me. Whenever I travel here, I feel at peace, like it's home away from home.
The airport was great... customs, awesome. I'm not used to that... flying home to Miami customs is daunting! Luis drove us to the Hotel and the 35 minute drive was gorgeous! Throughout the drive you can see the gorgeous countryside and mountains... and the temperature, DIVINE! A cool 70 degrees. We even drove through a cloud on the way to the hotel... Of course, Luis also mentioned that we arrived at the perfect time... for the Festival de las Flores (Festival of flowers). This week there are exhibitions and events that commemorate the occasion and we should see amazing flowers and exotic birds.
At our hotel we met our delightful guide, Gloria. She is so very sweet! She sat down with us and we talked about places we hope to visit with her while we're here and what we can expect during the next few days. So far we hope to meet with Gloria again on Tuesday as well as our Gladney rep, Nora (Tio Raul's sister). All is set for our meeting with Jonathan on Wednesday... and we are thrilled!
Thank you all for your love and prayers, I'll post more tomorrow (along with pics)... I seem to have the sniffles today so pray that my red and drippy nose will disappear for Wednesday! We are filled with joy today and as I prayed this morning, NOTHING will steal my joy this trip (not buying last minute return flights, sniffles, dead batteries or anything!) I will praise the Lord each day, thanking Him for the opportunity to come back to Colombia and love yet another wonderful, precious baby. I am humbled that He has allowed us to come back and experience this all over again and trust me, we are going to soak up every minute!
Thank you to all of you who love us, are praying for us and taking this journey alongside of us... you truly bless us and we are asking our Lord to bless you immensely!
love, Love, LOVE you all! xo

We're LEAVING on a jet plane... don't know when we'll be back again...

The date is set!
Sunday, August 1st Frankie, Josh and I will board a Spirit Airlines plane for Medellin! I'm beyond excited... thrilled actually. I think this time around I will soak up this experience so much more. The first time with Josh I was so nervous and worried and this time I am a little too, but I'm much more excited. I can't wait to meet our precious baby boy and get to know him.

The plan is that we'll arrive on Sunday around 1pm, go to our hotel and chill. We thought we might be able to receive Jonathan on Tuesday but now it seems that it will be Wednesday, August 4th. The ICBF lawyer assigned to his case has had a change in schedule and so, for that reason Wednesday should be the day. Due to the chicken pox concerns, there is a possibility that Jonathan will be delivered to us at the hotel (to avoid our exposure to the chicken pox), but we're still waiting to hear on that. Either way... I'm hoping by this time next week I'll be a new mommy yet again!

Not sure how long the whole process will take but we've mentally prepared ourselves for a month...either way, I can't wait to relive this amazing experience with yet another sweet baby boy. I'm thrilled to visit Medellin and go back to Bogota.

Overall, I'm so thankful to my heavenly Father for making this possible. He knew our boys before we were even matched with them... His love for us is overwhelming. I'm so thankful He's taken us down this path. It's more than I could ever hope or dream for!

What a difference a DAY makes!

Jonathan Standing in one of the cribs at Casa de Maria.

What a cutie pie!

Well, we do have lots to tell today...

This morning we had our appointment for the VISA at the Colombian Consulate in Coral Gables. We met with Monica who was so nice. She processed our paperwork and told us to come back in one week to pick up the visas. I had prayed for "favor" all morning long being that VISA paperwork makes me so nervous... but it went super great. I panicked when I realized that instead of bringing mine and Frank's passports, I brought Frank and Joshua's. DUH! Thank God we didn't need them today and I had brought the copies I needed of mine. There is so much paperwork involved for an adoption VISA... police clearances, our referral letter, a letter from the orphanage, bank statement, our letter of intent, passport photos, etc. We were helped by the lovely ladies over at DocuRapid (Jenny, Maritza and Marta) who translated and apostilled docs for us. They are so fast! It's only about a block from the Consulate too...

We also got three updated pics of Jonathan today. He is looking like such a BIG BOY! With Joshua's ears and Frank's eyelashes, he's definately a handsome little one.

We also found out that there has been an outbreak of Chicken Pox at Casa de Maria. There are 6 children who have it and because of that, the health department will not allow any child to go in or be released from the orphanage for the next 30 days. This means that we will not be able to travel at the end of July as we thought. Our new anticipated travel date is Saturday, August 7th. Of course that is if everything goes well. We've been so up and down with the travel date... first the 24th of July, then we were told maybe the 17th of July and now August 7th. I pray that we won't have to wait any longer than that! Of course this news saddened us a bit but we know that our timing isn't the Lord's timing and He knows what's best. I will continue to pray that He watch over our little boy and protect him until we can hold him in our arms.

We love you Jonathan! Please keep praying for his health and the health of all the children at Casa de Maria...

New Updates!

Two weeks ago we had our "Travel Talk" with our Colombia Director, Raul Velez-Velez (who we affectionally call Tio Raul). He told us that our approximate travel date is Saturday, July 24th. We are so excited! Of course that would be if all of the paperwork goes through the necessary channels without delay. So far, that has been the case so, we are hoping by the 26th to meet our precious baby boy.

In the meantime, we've been trying to stay busy. Here is a before and after picture of Jonathan's room. For those of you who followed along with Joshua's blog, you can see that it's pretty much a slight derivative of what his room was (with less painting involved). We've tried to be what I call "sensible", this time and just work with furniture we already have, etc. The rug pictured here is my absolute favorite! When I was a little girl in Leominster, Mass. my mom used to take me to a park closeby... she says it was really just a little patch of grass not far from our house, but I always called it "el parque". So, when I laid eyes on this rug it reminded me so much of my mom, I HAD to have it. Now with each child, I have to incorporate it because it reminds me so much of her. I know our creative heavenly Father has created even more beautiful "parks" in heaven and that someday my mom will be able to play with my children there as she would've here. :)

The room theme is much like Joshua's... cars, planes, trucks, etc. The reason we did this, once again, to be practical is because we have a toddler fire truck bed that we hope to move Jonathan into (eventually) so this way the room theme will match for awhile.

For my next post, I'll tell you more about the travel talk and details of our hotel... I'm definately going to soak up every moment of this journey. Much of the time with Josh was first time mommy jitters, but this time, I hope to truly enjoy Colombia and my family. I want to get to know this little one, appreciate him and thank God for him each and every moment.

In parting words, I'll leave you with this.... Josh and I enjoy watching the Duggar family on TLC's 19 Kids and Counting. Yesterday, Josh ran up to me out of nowhere and said, "Mommy, now we're TWO KIDS AND COUNTING!" I looked at him, laughed and said, "I'm not too sure about the AND COUNTING part, but yes, we are now TWO KIDS for sure!"

Love you all.

Paperwork, Paperwork and MORE Paperwork!

Ok, so the past two weeks has been all about that... Paperwork! It seems that the new I-800 form is very detailed and tedious to fill out so, we had to fill out a ton of papers and send them to Gladney for review and process. Frank and I went down to the police station yesterday to have new fingerprints taken and today they'll be sent via FedEx to WV for processing. We also put together a small care package for Jonathan which included:
-a Cloth Cube Rattle with pictures of us on it
-a small Backyardigans Penguin (Pablo) that Josh picked out for Jonathan
-a blanket
-a homemade DVD with messages from us to the baby, including a tour of our house

We hope that will get there before we do so the caregivers at Casa de Maria can play it for him. We did the DVD in Spanish of course, so he would be able to understand! :)

Now all we have to do is wait. We were told the INS approval takes 6-8 weeks so, we are definately looking at sometime in July or August for travel.

Jonathan's room is taking shape... we still have the queen bed in there (does anyone need a queen bed?!) But Frank built the crib and we picked paint colors. We're going to paint Jonathan's room, our bathroom and the boys' bathroom so we can have a partial upstairs makeover. Jon's room will be green, the boys bathroom blue and I think our bathroom will be beige. I think the boys bathroom will be ocean themed (I found a super cute set at Target). I'm excited and eager to keep things moving along.

Well, stay tuned... we're getting very excited and anxious!
Love you all!

It's a.... BOY! Again!

That's right, ya'll... our call came last Friday while I was conducting my library inventory. All of a sudden I look at my caller ID and it says GLADNEY and I'm like... No way. So of course when I pick up, one of our friends, Gilma Ines says... "Sandy, is there anyway we can get Frank on the line?" and then I was shaking even more! Once she got us both on the line she told us we had been matched with a beautiful baby boy in Medellin. She immediately sent us his picture and when we opened it, it was love at first sight! He is so beautifully precious and the resemblance to Josh isn't just coincidence. Truly this is the child God has chosen for us. All of my mental notes of "pink" flew through the air and I knew... this was the way it was meant to be. I am going to be the mommy of two rough and tough boys! (Please begin to pray for me!)

We've decided to name him:

Jonathan Samuel

(Gift from God)

Stay tuned as we post more of our adventures (pictures too!)

Love you all and can't wait to embark upon this journey again!

Colombia, here we come!