Weekend of Family & Fun

sorry for the slacking in blogging...it's been much busier and crazier (in a good way!) here with my family in town. here's a little breakdown of the fun we enjoyed over the weekend:

friday: see pictures from previous blog...we mostly just hung out during the day and it ended up raining really hard for about 2 hours in the afternoon. luckily, we had just returned to my parents' apartment from some coffee and shopping at the santa ana mall when the down pour began. we let cruz nap while we waited out the rain and at the first sign of a break, we headed out to el corral gourmet for a very late lunch. it was DELISH! that night we hung out at hotel paris and took part in the super fun 5th birthday celebration for eloina. there was yummy cake, champagne (her family is french after all!), music, dancing and lots of laughing & celebration!

saturday: we took a very fun train ride to zipaquira and la catedral de Sal (the salt mine & cathedral) with our friends (and amazing tour guides!) jose & dario. the salt cathedral was absolutely beautiful and amazing and the train ride was lots of fun. we ate empanadas, drank hot chocolate and discovered how beautiful colombia is outside of the big city. after the tour of the salt cathedral we also got to stop in the small town of cajica for lunch...we ate at a very authentic colombian restaurant where heath, my dad and dario all dined on (pigged out on!) a traditional colombian meal. mom, mel and i stuck with pollo (chicken) and it was delicious as well. after our meal, we re-boarded the train and headed back to bogota. dario and jose then invited us to their homes for coffee & tea and we got to meet karina, dario's wife, and sebastian, their son. they have been the most gracious hosts/tour guides and we are eternally grateful for their kindness and hospitality! saturday night we were stuffed, but still managed to choke down dinner here at paris. it was an early to bed night for all of us as we were exhausted after our big day. oh, mel did get to witness us giving cruz a bath...it went great...and then he decided to pee on me in his towel, so back in the tub he went! gotta love him!

usaquen train station

did i mention there was a band on board?

the train!

reedy family is on board

dario & cruz (cruz cannot get enough of him!)

grandpa roger & jose

train models?

beautiful colombia countryside

in the salt cathedral

the view of zipaquira from above

grandpa's traditional meal - a little bit of everything!

tia mel rocks!

sunday: market day! we met my parents in front of carulla grocery store at 9:30 am for a day of hitting the markets. we started out at the market at la fontana hotel and it was beautiful there! cruz got a new toy AND some new little shoes that his daddy couldn't resist. from there we made a pit stop at juan valdez for coffee before continuing on to the markets at hacienda santa barbara. we strolled through the first section of the market where grandma judy picked up a new colombia bag and then by that time we decided it was lunch time, so we stopped in the hacienda food court where we ran into the jaenisch family. we had just started the next section of the markets when it started to sprinkle...boo! grandma & grandpa quickly found another cute toy for cruz and then we decided to head out. the rain didn't seem to be letting up and cruz was ready for a nap. heath decided to stay at the apartment while cruz slept so the rest of us headed to crepes & waffles for ice cream. yum!!! we then went back & picked up heath & cruz and headed back to paris. due to the fact that we didn't get much shopping done at the second market and that it was tia mel's last day in bogota, we then strolled back down to unicentro mall and hit a small market type shop there so she could pick up a few colombian treasures. if it sounds like we walked a lot that day, we did! 8 MILES!!! yep, we're definitely getting our exercise down here. our sunday concluded with personal pizzas here at paris. the perfect ending to a perfect day.

hotel la fontana market - beautiful!

the johnson girls by the beautiful hotel la fontana roses

chillin after the markets!

thank you for coming to meet me & for visiting my country tia melissa! we love you!

Photo Recap

we've been having lots of fun with tia melissa and grandpa & grandma johnson! here are a couple photos from their visit so far....

tonight we also had a party for little eloina's 5th birthday! it was quite the fiesta and eloina loved grandma judy!

all of the hotel paris kiddos!

Lazy Day

today has been a pretty lazy day here in bogota. i ended up getting sick last night...had a fever of 101.3...so that was no fun. i ended up going to bed about 8:00 and actually slept really well and woke up feeling fine. yay! we took it easy this morning and just went on a short walk and stopped at subway for lunch. i know, sounds boring, but we were totally craving it! our lunches are always so heavy (they are delicious, but huge!) and we just wanted something light and kind of 'comforting' from home. daddy and cruz spent some time on the computer and then chilled on the bed for a while.

this afternoon, mommy and cruz walked up to mimo's for ice cream with mary, lauren, ben & jack and john, nic, athena & alton. just after we started walking it started raining! we were quite the site with our umbrellas, stroller rain shields, etc. we made it and enjoyed our ice cream and waited out the rain. it finally let up a bit so we got everyone all covered up again and headed back. always an adventure here!

john was teaching cruz to clap!

grandma & grandpa johnson and tia melissa are now on their flight from atlanta to bogota! we cannot wait to see them!!! they are supposed to arrive here at 9:45 tonight. freddy, everyone's favorite driver, is picking me up at 9:15 so i can go greet them at the airport. mel is staying here at paris with us and grandma & grandpa rented an apartment nearby. we are so excited to have visitors and introduce them to cruz!

hasta luego!

Cruz is 8 Months Old!

my friend lauren made me a sign!

mommy was jealous that most of cruz's pics are with daddy, so here we go!

Defender of Minors!

today was another big day for us! we enjoyed a walk to the santa ana mall with the zuge family this morning (let's just say it's always an adventure crossing the street...pedestrians do NOT have the right of way!), purchased train tickets for our trip to the sal cathedral this saturday (also an adventure in itself...i really should have learned more spanish - it's always a challenge trying to explain myself using gestures, a louder voice, etc) and then this afternoon we had our defender of minors meeting. the DOMM (my new acronym) is very important because it basically determines if they will let you adopt your baby or not. we were told that we would be picked up at our hotel at 2:20...if you know anything about colombian time, meetings tend to run on the 'late' side. well, today was a little different. at about 1:50 there was knock on our door that our ride was here! heath was in the shower, i was still in sweats and cruz was sleeping in his comfy clothes! we raced into action and all got changed and ready in about ten minutes! i was pretty impressed with our quick change. before our DOMM, we were supposed to go have some paperwork notarized at a notary office. when we got there and checked our paperwork, i discovered that heath's name was misspelled as heat. poor guy! usually he gets keith in the usa, but now he apparently will be called heat down here. i panicked a bit at first as i thought this might mean our DOMM would have to be postponed, but luz called our attorney and found out that we could get it changed tomorrow and return for notarizing (ginger, where are you when we need a good notary?!). from the notary office, we then headed to a red cross building for our DOMM. we had been warned that we could be waiting for up to two hours for the DOMM, but luckily for us we only waited about 25 minutes and then our meeting began. we were asked several questions about how things are going for us, what our normal days and nights are like, how we are bonding, etc. we signed a few papers and that was it! much easier and quicker than we thought it would be. tomorrow morning we will head back to the notary office, get our papers notarized and then luz will get them to our attorney's office. the attorney then sends them to court and our court waiting period begins! yay!

morning play time

cruz needed a snack while @ the DOMM

this shirt says it all!

buenos noches!

Field Trip

today was a big day for us! this morning we met with two psychologists from los pisingos...they came to visit us at hotel paris and asked us about how things are going as a family of three, how cruz is bonding with us, how his routines are, etc. it went well and was very quick.

this afternoon we got to go on a field trip to tour los pisingos! we had a great time...a driver picked us up a little after 2:00 and then we picked up luz stella and headed to LP. carlos greeted us once again and actually gave us the tour! we thought that was pretty cool that the director spent all that time with us. we presented him with several gifts for the children which he really appreciated. the smallest items mean so much to them. we gave them a variety of gifts including some small fleece baby blankets, baby caps, crayons, cars, socks, etc. carlos then walked us through the entire facility. we got to see where cruz spent his time during his first 7 1/2 months of his life. it was amazing how many children were there....140 total, including 35 babies (under 6 months!). the children were beautiful and made you want to pick them all up and take them home with you! we were very impressed with how clean and organized LP is. the children are very loved and are well taken care of. we were even able to see the daughter of another family that will be traveling soon and were able to take some pictures of her for them. i was so happy we were able to do that as it's so hard to only have one picture of your child for so long. speaking of which, carlos did present us with two additional baby pictures of cruz...one appears to be when he's really little and we think the other one might be from after referral (december?). after our tour we headed back to paris where cruz crashed for a nice pre-dinner nap.

after dinner, heath brought cruz up to our room and they were playing on the bed when i came up. cruz has been so close to rolling over (from his back to his tummy) and he was getting even closer as heath was laying next to him. heath ended up getting up to use the bathroom and while he was in there, cruz did it! he rolled over! he was so excited and started laughing and giggling - it was adorable. heath was a little bummed that he missed it, but then he did get to witness it again a few minutes later. we're amazed at how much stronger cruz seems to have gotten in just the week he's been with us.

we also had some good news from luz stella - we have our defender of minor's meeting tomorrow afternoon at 3:30! once that is completed, our paperwork heads to the court system. yippee!

here are a few pics from our field trip:

colombian carseat:

older baby room (where cruz was last):

one of cruz's caretakers & his friends:

baby cribs

snack time!

good night!

Weekend Update

sorry for the delay in blogging...things have gotten much busier and more exciting around here since our friends arrived! here are some highlights from the weekend:

saturday:

-all 3 american families made the trek to exito (like a wal-mart/target) for supplies. we were quite the site as our group of 12 strolled the sidewalks of bogota!
-we enjoyed juan valdez with the zuges while brian got his haircut
-cruz wasn't much for napping after we returned, so i took him for a walk in the stroller to the park
-after coming back from the park, i learned some sad news...my co-worker, bruce, lost his battle with cancer and passed away; our thoughts & prayers are with his family during this time. i was so hoping to make it back so i could introduce cruz to him
-saturday night another family moved into hotel paris...they are a french family that adopted a 7 year old girl and 5 year old boy
-after dinner, a few of us enjoyed some wine and cervesas while the kiddos played :)

cruz & his buddy alton!

sunday:

sunday is the best day in bogota! it is market day and they also block off several of the busy streets so that people can walk, bike, rollerblade on them. we didn't make it to the markets last week, so we wanted to be sure to do so this weekend.

-after a yummy sunday morning breakfast of pancakes, all 3 american families and the new french family packed up and headed to the market near santa barbara hacienda
-cruz LOVES the baby bjorn and having daddy carry him in it
-we strolled through several markets; heath got a new leather bracelet and i found this really neat 'lamp screen/shade'...very hard to describe, but very cool. the scene on it is of the candelaria district in old bogota
-it was a beautiful, hot, sunny day and after i made my purchase i started to feel a little icky...i thought i just needed to eat, so we stopped at a food court at the hacienda plaza mall, but that really didn't seem to do the trick
-we all decided to head back to the hotel at this point....remember, how i said that bogota traffic is so crazy and busy? well, on our walk home, we witnessed a boy on a bike get hit by a car pulling out of a parking garage! thankfully he was ok, but we couldn't believe it! our group was 1/2 across where he got hit and the other 1/2 was still on the other side...we are so thankful that we were all safe, as was the boy. lesson learned in being very cautious! pedestrians do not have the right of way here
-back to my feeling icky story...after we arrived back, i decided to try and lay down...i was cold, a little pukey feeling, etc. after about a 2 hour nap, i got up and we found out that luz stella was here to meet with us regarding our monday appointments. i barely made it down to see her (heath had cruz) and as we were talking, i had to excuse myself. yep, i tossed my cookies. ALL of them. needless to say, it did make me feel much better. i need to make sure i drink lots of water (heath is making sure of this!) and take it a little easier in the sun. another lesson learned.
-due to my illness, i had to miss out on pizza night here. boo! i'm sure my chicken broth was just as good. :)

cruz loves the baby bjorn!

cruz and his pals at the crazy tree!

scenes from the market:

Look at the Big Boy in a High Chair!

My friend Lauren makes me LAUGH!

Hasta Luego!
The Reedys