Two Weeks Home and Doing GREAT!

We keep being asked how everything is going. In a word--FANTASTIC! The kids have adjusted amazingly well. They have transitioned as flawlessly as we could expect, and we are so proud of the way all three of the kids have adapted to being a family of five. Time has absolutely flown by and I couldn't believe it when I noticed today that we have been home for two weeks. We continue to be blessed by visits from family and friends which has been wonderful. It's been a blast introducing Maria and Andres to all of these special people. They usually win over hearts very quickly as they love to greet people with hugs, kisses and/or huge smiles.

Matt eased back into work which was nice. The kids were able to handle his full-day absences once he got back into the swing of things. I wasn't sure how things were going to go with me parenting solo, but the kids have been great. Luke is a HUGE help, and I have to say that being a mom of three has been a million times easier than I ever expected. I don't know if it's because I prepared myself for utter chaos or what. But when I think back to how difficult it was to parent an infant, I feel so blessed to be in the here and now with a 2, 4, and 8 year old. They are all pretty easy going and I have thoroughly enjoyed every day I have spent with them!

There have been a number of things that make us laugh. For example, for the first few days at home, I kept finding Maria and Andres over by our air vents. They thought it was the neatest thing that cold air came out of them. I guess living in a stable climate of 60 degrees, they've probably never experienced air conditioning to that degree. They also find it fascinating when the garage doors open magically. I'm sure they have electronic garage doors in Colombia, but they clearly haven't seen any. Maria still squeals each day when we pick out a new outfit to wear. Andres--well he could care less. He just wants to get to his cars or the dog toys. Which leads me to our 15 year old dog, Max. He has done very well with the kids. Pretty much ignores them. Poor dog, I wonder how many years I have shaved off of his life by bringing three kids into his life. I have a feeling he'd be vying for the "oldest dog in the world" title had those factors not entered.

Their language continues to get better. They seem to understand quite a bit of what we say, or at least they are indulging us Andres tries to mimic sounds. He still points a lot rather than use word and says a lot of Mama and Papa for pretty much everything, but we have also added "choo choo" "dog" (which sounds nothing like dog but has the same vowel sound and "Dre Dre" which is what we call him sometimes. Unfortunately, with his speaking deficiency, he can't express himself when he gets upset so he likes to hit his brother and sister. If any of you have any ideas of ways to work through this, I would love it. I really am trying to get him to make sounds, even, but he's much more content and comfortable with hitting to express himself. Maria does a good job of repeating words and uses words like "chips," "water," "bubbles," "thank you," "please," and "I love you" whenever she has a chance. But I am most proud to say that I have two Jayhawks to add to the fan base. Maria loves to listen to the Jayhawk fight song and the Rock Chalk chant. Whenever they see a Jayhawk, Andres gives it a strong point of the finger while Maria screams"Jayhawk." It's music to my ears and they both look fantastic in crimson and blue!

People keep asking us what the most difficult part has been since we've been home. Well, as I could only think of two things, there hasn't been much that's led to difficulties. The first one is bedtime. The kids are not real hip on going to bed. I try to remind myself that I, too, was like that as a kid. Then I got married, had kids and, well, the rest is history. Anyway, they love to take baths and play in the water. They are pro tooth brushers (or at least Andres is a pro toothpaste eater) but they hate it when it's time to get into bed. We try to soften the blow by reading them stories. Matt reads to Maria, Luke, mainly, reads to Andres while I lay beside them. But when it's time to turn the lights out, mayhem. It took a few days to get Andres to stay in his bed. But now, he may squawk for 15 seconds and he's done. A real faker, he is! Maria, on the other hand, is a little different. She hates it and screams and cries. At one point, it got pretty bad (especially when I was out of the house--go figure on that one. She couldn't stand the sight of me the first few days we had her and now she can't stand to go to bed without seeing me--that's PROGRESS!) So, I decided to try some consequences. These kids love their fruits. So I promised her lots of fruits if she went to bed without crying. The first night, she cried/screamed. So, the next day, no fruit. The next night, NO CRYING! I was so excited. She's gone back and forth but we have gone two night in a row now with no crying. So, maybe we are making headway. The second part that's been tough is dinner time. You know, when it was the three of us, if Matt was going to be late, or if we were having a busy night (which is frequently) I shoved a Kid Cuisine in the oven for Luke and made myself a sandwich. Easy enough. Well, those days are gone. I have found it quite difficult to plan, prepare and serve a meal for five in a timely manner without it taking up a good portion of our evening and our real "family" time to go outside and play. I may have to look at one of those places that prepares meals ahead for you and then they can be frozen. I don't know. Something is going to have to change. Or maybe I'm just going to have to just give it time so I can adapt and get better at the whole thing. Thank goodness my in-laws stocked our refrigerator and pantry before we got home. Outside of running to Sam's Club for milk ($2.99/gallon which is why I go there since we go through 4+ gallons a week!) and a few other things, I have not had time to go to the store and do some full out shopping. I hoped to tackle that yesterday but it looks like it may be the weekend or later before I get the chance again. We have a pretty full weekend ahead.

Well, if you are wondering what else we have been up to here are some pics to show you:

Enjoying new toys

Playing dress up

Riding a bike

Watching balloons go up into the sky

Celebrating Luke's 8th birthday!

Discovering concrete can be beautiful

Learning what a sprinkler is

Slipping and sliding

Cheering on Big Brother Luke

Loving each other and our family every day

And eating like crazy! (Note for these final two pics: The kids acted like they had never had tacos. Andres decided to stab his with a fork, and Maria ate hers from the top of the shell.)

Last Days

As you can imagine, it is has been pretty hectic since we returned from Colombia. I will try to give a quick blog entry for our last two days in Bogota.

Last Tuesday, our last full day, we woke to some more typical Bogota weather. However, as the day progressed, the rains became more frequent and stronger – even by Bogota standards.

After breakfast, we spoke with Carmen about the possibility of going to Monseratte. As she did each time we asked about Monseratte, she took us outside, pointed in the cloudy direction of the mountain and explained that this would not be a good day to go. So, we opted for plan B, a trip to the Botero Museum, instead. Our cab driver drove us around the narrow, hilly streets of downtown Bogota for a while. Some were closed and we couldn’t tell if he was lost or just having difficulty being routed in different directions. Finally, he stopped and talked to one of the security people watching a closed street and we learned that the Botero Museum is closed on Tuesdays. At that point, although it was cloudy and sprinkling a little in places, we told him to take us to Monseratte.

We arrived at a fairly nondescript looking building and purchased tickets for the “train” to the top. This train basically consists of one car with staggered compartments for people to stand on the 2-3 minute ride to the top of the mountain.

It was kind of misty and overcast at the top of the mountain, but we could still see most of the city below. However, the real beauty of Monseratte isn’t the only in the surrounding views, but also in the church and structures at the top of the mountain. Here is the ride up.

The house where we "landed."

A few views from the mountain.



Of course there were more stations of the cross as we walked up the path to the church. However, I found these a little more interesting than the “salt crosses” of the Cathedral of Salt (the extremely subtle symbolism was kind of lost on me at that place).


A few more views from the mountain top.



The church at the top of the mountain.


I am assuming this was a Catholic church, but I have never been in a Catholic church where Christ was not on the cross and was on the ground like here. I will have to ask around about this (like my family Catholicism expert Aunt Carole) and would welcome answers from anyone.

Luke asking for, and needing, a prayer.


I liked this Jesus statue but it kind of reminded me of "Buddy Jesus from the movie "Dogma."

Looking back out the doors of the church, you can see another mountain peak where they have a big Jesus statue - like the one in Rio De Janeiro except smaller. It was kind of cool.


Los ninos outside of the church.

Although we had to take a "train" up the mountain, we had to take the cable car back down. Here are some views.





After the tour of Monseratte, we arrived back too late for lunch at the compound. So we went to a little restaurant near the compound that had always looked interesting, “Sopas y Postres.” Traci and Luke tried the empanadas (our first in Colombia), but we decided we like the ones from the Colombian restaurant in KC a little better. That really isn’t too fair of a comparison since this place isn’t really known for empanadas.

After naps, we ran out to the kids hair styling salon to get Maria’s hair done again before we returned home. Of course, once we arrived another serious downpour started. On the way home, we put Maria in the stroller usually used by Andres because it could be covered by a big plastic sheet (I wasn’t about to blow $12 on a hairdo only to have it get rained on). Traci tried to keep Andres and herself covered under an umbrella, but the rest of us pretty much arrived back at the compound drenched.

As I recall, dinner was rice and meat balls. Afterwards, I ran out to one of the local coffee shops to get some souvenir Colombian coffee. Nothing like waiting until the last minute to get all of your shopping done. When I arrived back, Oscar, our attorney, and “the dress lady” stopped by the compound. They both needed money for the services they provided during out stay. We were very happy that the dress lady could complete our order before we left. She said she employed 4 additional ladies to help her get things done. I know that the boys got matching sweaters and I think Maria got 2 dresses (I wasn’t too interested at this point. I just knew we were going home the next day).

Night time brought few surprises. I still hadn’t started packing and Traci was pretty much done getting herself and the kids’ stuff put away. We didn’t have any internet access that night, so I had only clothes packing to do that night. I don’t know if it was all of the activity going on in the room or what, but Maria couldn’t sleep. We tried hanging my “ruana” over the bunk beds to sort of shield her from the light. A few minutes later, though, she began to sob and cry. Maybe she was just overtired or maybe it was kind of hitting her that she was leaving – we don’t know. Traci and I sat with her for a while and talked about all of the fun things that the next day had in store (she loves to fly on airplanes and we talked about that for a while). We showed her some videos of the house and her room which got her to calm down to the point where she could finally go to sleep.

The next morning, Traci got up a little before 5 and I got up a little after that. Andres, our escort, was supposed to arrive at 6:00 a.m. to take us to the airport. We got all of the bags arranged in plenty of time for me to have a cup of coffee before we had to leave. Andres went with us into the airport. We were ushered into a line and then he asked for all of our passports and took off somewhere. We didn’t see where he went and pretty soon we would be reaching the end of the line where we needed our passports. We were starting to get a little nervous and let a few people go past us before Andres finally showed back up He wasn’t gone long but we were on guard for that minor catastrophe that would keep us from getting home. I think he must have gone to pay the “exit tax” or whatever it is called. I remember reading that we were supposed to pay one, but I don’t recall doing that ourselves. We got our tickets and into the boarding area without too much of a problem and in plenty of time for our flight. In fact, we even got to have a little breakfast before settling into to the waiting area.
Here are Maria and Andres waiving goodbye to Colombia.


Just a bunch of photos from the plane.




Andres figured out how to mess with the headphones jacks between the seats. The poor lady sitting next to him did not have a good 4+ hour flight to Atlanta. Eventually, Andres fell asleep, but he woke up and pretty much cried and whined the last hour of the flight. Consequently, he sat with me on the second leg from Atlanta to KC.


The trip to Atlanta and, later, through customs were pretty uneventful. In fact, customs went a lot faster than we expected. We did get stuck on the runway in Atlanta and were about an hour late getting off the ground. However, we were able to give plenty of heads up to our families who would be waiting for us at the airport.

We arrived home at 7:15 on Wednesday night. Luke, Andres and I had to sit in the second to the last row of the airplane – so anyone who thinks we were trying to be last off the plane for dramatic effect is wrong. It was great to see our families and friends again. Luke’s buddy, Behr, came to the airport and surprised him. I know he was missing his friend, and I think Behr was a little bored without Luke around too.

That night the kids didn’t get into their beds until around midnight. We had food, people stopping by the house a lot of great stories from both continents. It was kind of like a small party.
There were some gifts.




Apparently, people had been reading our blog and had heard about Andres' diapers.

Maria got a new pair of earrings. . .

and they got lost in the shaggy carpet about as quickly as the box was opened. We never did find it, but Nana Sharon fixed it the next day and got new ones.

And, of course, we had the Maria dance. Papa Denny sang while Papa Bill and Papa Ron took turns dancing with Maria. She loved it.


That is pretty much it from our last couple days in Bogota. I will try to update again in another blog entry about how the kids have been doing in our first week back – and, not to spoil it, but they have been doing great.