Day 13

Another good day! This just keeps getting more fun!
We seem to be falling into a "slow moving morning" routine. I love slow mornings, but it might be hard to break the habit once we get home! Oh, well. I'll deal with that then. There will be so many changes that will just be one of many.

Since this morning it was kind of cool, Brent took the kids to play soccer. They love it. I especially enjoy seeing Cait get in the game and play too. She is starting to really bond with Jonathan in a cute way. He loves sitting near her and will often slip his hand in hers as they walk. I didn't expect this, so it is very special!

Luisa, I'm noticing, is more of a homebody. She will most always prefer to stay at the apartment- unless we are going to the pool  or for bunelos!  Today she didn't want to play soccer so I stayed in the apartment with her. She enjoyed listening to Spanish kids songs while she colored. I was hanging up laundry, but when I came back to check on her, she was in the boys' bedroom cleaning the room! She is super organized (poor child- she doesn't yet know how messy her mom is) and was disgusted by the sloppiness of her brothers. She folded all the blankets and clothes that were on the floor. I'm so impressed by her skills! Earlier she asked if she could make something in the kitchen. I couldn't understand what she was saying so I told her to show me. She starts cutting up a bunch of different kinds of fruit in a bowl! Ensalada fruta! Fruit salad!

We spent many hours at the pool, even skipping lunch because they didn't want to stop swimming. I got the chance to sit and talk with the other adoptive family for a while. This past week we hadn't seen them too much due to our different schedules. It is so nice to sit and connect with other people going through the process. They are an awesome family!

When we came back, we heard from Nora, our attorney. She said that our case was admitted to the judge! That means that all the administrative paperwork/review was done and now the judge can sign! He has between 1 and 10 days to sign for sentencia. This is wonderful news! If the court was going to ask for any additional clarifications or paperwork it would have happened during this time, so it is wonderful that they didn't ask for any additional info and slow down the time! 

We are hoping for a quick Sentencia so we can get home faster! I'm ready! I am looking forward to starting real life together with our kids in the US! I am LOVING Colombia, but it is just not home.  Though, as much as I am ready to go, I think about the chicos and how each day closer we get to the US, the closer they get to losing their homeland and culture. That makes me sad, too. Everything in adoption has its bittersweetness. Gaining a family can only come through loss. Healing only comes through grief. Joy in a family replaces untold pain in early childhood. So it is only fitting that my anticipation of going home is mixed with sadness in ripping them away from theirs.

We decided to take a walk UP the hill (we'd only been downhill before) and around the big loop. It is an interesting mix of super fancy apartment complexes like ours and run down buildings across the street. Still this area is the wealthiest of the city. I learned today that we are  in a small pocket of wealthy citizens. Most of Medellin is slums of the worst kind. I hope to get a chance to see some of that area because that is where our kids were born.

We had ice cream at the end of the walk. Jonathan ended up with some gross kind of mango-y type icecream. Some of the flavors here are really weird! Cait and I also walked down to the Panderia. It is  a bread bakery that is popular here. Oh, my goodness! The bread was amazing! I could get addicted! I got it to have with Baked Ziti that I fixed later. It is our first "American" meal that I have made that they have never had. At first Luisa practically spit it out of her mouth at the first bite! Cindy didn't want it, but I told her to Pruebua- try it! So she did! And she liked it! She didn't want me to put any on her plate, but if I put little pieces on mine, she would eat off my plate! When Luisa saw Cindy eating it, she couldn't be outdone. So she ate some too! I don't think she liked it very much, but she still ate it! Jonathan ended up spending most of the dinner time in his room- can't even remember now why, but it was low key and he ended well.

Grant, Jake and Luisa have this WILD silliness going on. They get completely out of control when the three of them sit together. At dinner, Luisa started imitating Jonathan's crying and she was hysterical! She loved the audience so it kept getting more and more dramatic. I think Brent got some of it on video so if you want to see it, let me know and I'll send you our picassa picture link.

The rest of the night was quiet and wonderful! Everyone was happy and went to bed wonderfully! Thank you Lord!