bodner001

The kids have started working with a tutor, for an hour, a few times a week.  They are learning a lot and doing well.  We are so excited they love to learn!

Today, we had our BIG meeting with the "Defensor de Familia".  The Defensor spoke to the children and made the decision that the kids are very happy and would be a great fit for our family.  This means we are officially approved to adopt our kids, and our adoption case has been sent to court!  We will know by Friday or Monday, which court and Judge our adoption case has been assigned to.  Then our wait begins.  We are one step closer to bringing our kids home! Dressed Up and Ready To Go  Our Kids with the Defensor 

This past Sunday, we started the day with an Easter egg hunt at the hotel.  There were nine kids, and everyone had a great time.  Our kids collected lots of candy and balloons! Every Sunday, many of the streets are closed off from traffic, here in Bogota.  It is a great opportunity for people to get out and run, bike, and walk without worrying about cars.  There is a big flea market where you can buy many different Columbian souvenirs and crafts.  It was a beautiful day, and we really enjoyed the day together, eating candy and buying souvenirs.

We gave our kids crosses for Easter and have been reading the Easter story to them in their children's Spanish bible.  We are excited to bring them to our church when we get home.  We hope you all have a very blessed Easter!

We found a website called Disney Latino ( http://www.disneylatino.com/ )  On the website, there is an area called Disney Junior.  There are many different learning games, and it is all in Spanish!  The kids learn so quickly and love working on the computer. 

We went to the Science Museum today in Bogota, and everyone had a good time.  There were a lot of interactive activities, and we had the opportunity to see the movie Rio in 3D.

It is hard to believe that it has been one week today, since we met our kids!  We have had a busy first week filled with lots of activity.  The kids are doing great, and we are so excited to be here with them!   There are two parks within walking distance of the hotel, so we try and go each morning after breakfast. This is Colombia's rainy season, so it usually rains here every afternoon.  The kids have a great time, and a lot of times we go with other kids from the hotel. We enjoy lots of time in our room coloring, painting, and putting together puzzles.  One of the biggest hits around the hotel are balloons.  They provides hours of fun! Our first big outing this week was to buy dress shoes for our big meeting next Wednesday with the Defender of Minors.  The kids are excited to dress up and wear their new shoes! Yesterday, we had a great time going to a mall.  We played in an area decorated for Easter and had som...

We took a trip today to the Salt Cathedral.  It is about an hour away, and it is the number one tourist attraction in Colombia.  The scenery on the way to the Cathedral was beautiful, and we all had a good time.  We ate at another great Colombian restaurant and enjoyed more Colombian traditional food.  We will look forward to another trip later this week.  Thank you so much for sharing this with us!

We had a nice meeting with our agency representative in Colombia last night.  Tomorrow is the start of Holy Week here in Colombia.  So, all of the government offices are closed until Easter.  We have our first big meeting with the Defender of Minors on April 27th, the Wednesday after Easter.  Our adoption will then be submitted to the court on Thursday, and we will find out on Friday, which court it is.  Some courts process adoptions quicker than others, so we will have to wait and see.  We are excited to move to this next step!  It is hard to believe we have now been in Colombia for one week. We had a special lunch today with a lot of Colombian traditional dishes.  The kids loved it and here are a few pictures. 

After breakfast, we headed to the park for more play time.  Our kids love to run, jump, and climb on all of the playground equipment.  We took lots of pictures and here are a few.  The kids are doing great, and we are really enjoying all of the activities we are doing together.  Today, we had the fun of watching Curious George in Spanish, as we rested after lunch.  Then, we headed out for our first big family outing.  We went shoe shopping!  The kids need to be dressed up for three different meetings while we are here.  We brought new tennis shoes for them but needed to buy dress shoes.  So, we successfully purchased three pair of shoes from a sales person who only spoke Spanish!

We had a great first day full of laughs, smiles, and activity.   There is a park right around the corner from the hotel.   So, after breakfast, we went to the park for awhile and then played back at the hotel, until it was time for lunch.   The food is wonderful here and our kids will be very spoiled by good cooking by the time we come home.   After lunch, we played games, put together puzzles, colored, and used watercolor paints for the first time.   We decided we needed to rest before dinner so we watched a little bit of Mickey Mouse, in Spanish again.   Then we had dinner, took baths, read books, and went to bed.   A busy but great first day!   It was the chef’s birthday, here at the hotel, so our kids made birthday cards for her.   Now it is bedtime for us.   We will post again tomorrow.

Today was a VERY special day!  Our children are precious, and they look exactly like their pictures.  They are so warm and loving, and we can't wait to learn more and more about each other.  It is supposed to rain and be in the 60s for the next few days, so we plan on just staying at the hotel and enjoying valuable time together.  We watched a little bit of the Disney movie Alladin this afternnon, crawled up in bed together.  It was in Spanish, and the kids loved it.  We didn't understand a lot of it, but that is ok.  We brought lots of bilingual Spanish books, art activities, coloring books, games, and puzzles to enjoy together.  The kids said they take the bus to school every morning at 6:00 AM, so I think we will be taking a little nap every afternoon!  We will continue to post pictures and give you updates.  Thank you so much for all of your kind e-mails!  Here are a few pictures of when we first saw the kids...

We are all settled in and ready for our kids!  We are so excited to see them, and it is hard to believe tomorrow is the big day.  We are staying in a hotel that is like a big house for adoptive families.  There are currently three other families here adopting children.  There is a wonderful support system, and we are excited that the kids will be surrounded with food they are used to, and everyone speaks Spanish  here.   We think this will be great for them during this time of transition.  They have already asked about school and are excited to learn.  We are looking at an English tutor for them, once they get settled in.  We are very excited to do cooking classes with the kids and the chef here, and there are two parks within walking distance.  The food is great here so we will definitely love the exercise!  We took some pictures of the room and will post more tomorrow after we get our kids.  Our kids will be presented to...

We made it to our hotel in Bogota late last night, and we were spoiled from the moment we walked in.  We are staying at a hotel that is like a big house for adoptive families.  When we first got here, the hotel staff thought we might be hungry so they made us grill cheese sandwhiches and homemade hot chocolate.  We spent today unpacking and getting settled in.  It was cold and rainy outside.  We get to meet with our agency's representative tomorrow, and we will have a chance to meet with our kids' social worker on Monday.  Tuesday, which is Presentation Day, is right around the corner!  Here are a few pictures: We are waiting at the airport.  Bogota, here we come.  Dainis enjoyed his first cup of Colombian coffee.  It doesn't get any fresher than this!  Our first authentic Colombian dinner..spaghetti and meatballs! 

The past week has been a whirlwind of activity.  We got a very exciting call from our agency last Friday morning, April 1st.  We received our travel dates of April 8th, and are so excited!!  The next step was to get our Special Vistor Visas.  We needed to have our airline ticket confirmations in order to apply for our Visas, so we quickly contacted the travel agency we had been working with to book our flights.  On Saturday, we were off to Los Angeles to get our Visas.  The Colombian Consulate opened up on Monday at 9:00 in the morning, so we were one of the first in line.  Our hope was to submit all of our paperwork, get our Visas, and head back home.  Unfortunately, it took a lot longer than planned.  Our Visas were not available until Tuesday afternoon, but we arrived home late Tuesday night with Visas in hand! Once we got back home we needed to finish our packing.  We have a lot to take:  our clothes, cl...