Kariana enjoying the quilt that Great Grandma Priebe whipped up before we left the states.
We are practising sitting up but there is some laying down on the job.
Cole and his chicas on Gabby's last night in Colombia.
Check out my grown up girl wearing her first pair of jeans!
Not much going on the last few days. The Kopka’s left this morning and the hotel has been pretty quiet ever since. I am so excited for them to be able to go home and sad for those of us left behind at the same time. All we can do now is wait and hope for a fast approval process. The more prayers the better so please join in!
Joe, Leah, I, and the kids took a long walk this morning. We hit the bank and mainly just walked around. ATM’s are everywhere here and our bank cards seem to work in any of the banks but only the Citibank ATM’s let Kerry and I take out our daily limit. ATM’s also tend to give you the best exchange rate. Seeing our balance in pesos still cracks me up though. Seriously, we are peso millionaires!
I think Kariana may be coming down with something. She had much more spit up today than normal and tonight she was pretty clingy and fell asleep on my shoulder without a bottle which is unusual for her. During our walk she fell asleep in the baby bjorn while she faced out which she has never done before either. She may be cutting some teeth though. She has drooled a lot since the day we got her but I think she is going for some sort of drool record lately. Plus, whenever she grabs my finger, she wants to put it in her mouth now. She hadn’t shown any real interest in putting stuff in her mouth until the last few days so maybe I’ll see a little tooth soon.
I have Skyped with Kerry and the boys the last couple of days and I feel loads better. I love technology!! It was so great just to see them doing fine and all settled in at home. They talk to Kariana on the camera and she is just fascinated with seeing the images on the screen most of the time.
Since my days don’t consist of a lot of news worthy events any more, I thought I would share some more about Bogota. Some of these are things I have been asked and some are just things I have observed.
Clothing styles: for the most part, people of Bogota dress very similar to those in the U.S. However, they do tend to dress up a little more than we do most of the time. I see t-shirts on some people but most of the time its polos or sweaters for men and blouses for the women. One fashion trend that is very popular here is skinny jeans. For those of you who don’t know what those are, they are SUPER tight jeans worn by women that usually have some sort of spandex in them. The first time we were walking around, Kerry said “How do those women get into those pants??” with this look of awe on his face. They also tend to dress very warmly. The temps are 50’s in the morning and get up to the 70’s in the afternoon but the people dress like its winter. I am not kidding, I have seen women wearing puffy winter coats with the fur around the hood and the hood pulled up around their face. You see a lot of scarves both as accessories and for warmth. The people here tend to be thin (although I have seen some bellies on some of the men but no really big people) and a few inches shorter than Americans. (I really shouldn’t call U.S. people Americans because Colombian’s are also Americans, just South Americans but you know what I mean). However, the women were these high heels that make my feet hurt just looking at them. I can’t believe how high some of these shoes are. Keep in mind that we are in a really big city so I can’t say that everywhere in Colombia is like this but this is what we see here. The funny thing is that the women where these huge high heels and usually I am still taller than them in my tennis shoes. We know that Kariana’s mom was 5 foot 1 inch which is probably an inch or 2 short of the average woman height here. Her dad was 5 foot 10 which is probably about average for men height.
Clothing and toys are expensive here. Some of that is due to the exchange rate. I am told from some of the families that have been here to adopt a couple of times that the exchange rate use to be a lot better than it is now which makes things more expensive from our perspective. Toys and baby gear (like a walker or stroller) especially are high priced. From what we could see, they were almost double what you would pay at home. Food seems to be about the same, maybe just a little higher but we don’t have to buy a lot of that since our meals are prepared for us. Just like at home, you can find cheap and expensive restaurants. They have excellent pineapple here and other fresh fruits. In fact, they have fruits here that I didn’t even know existed and I’m not sure what their called either. Fruit is very popular and many of the street vendors sell either whole fruit or individual servings of cut up fruit for a snack or lunch.
That’s it for today. Talk to you soon,
Cresta
Joe, Leah, I, and the kids took a long walk this morning. We hit the bank and mainly just walked around. ATM’s are everywhere here and our bank cards seem to work in any of the banks but only the Citibank ATM’s let Kerry and I take out our daily limit. ATM’s also tend to give you the best exchange rate. Seeing our balance in pesos still cracks me up though. Seriously, we are peso millionaires!
I think Kariana may be coming down with something. She had much more spit up today than normal and tonight she was pretty clingy and fell asleep on my shoulder without a bottle which is unusual for her. During our walk she fell asleep in the baby bjorn while she faced out which she has never done before either. She may be cutting some teeth though. She has drooled a lot since the day we got her but I think she is going for some sort of drool record lately. Plus, whenever she grabs my finger, she wants to put it in her mouth now. She hadn’t shown any real interest in putting stuff in her mouth until the last few days so maybe I’ll see a little tooth soon.
I have Skyped with Kerry and the boys the last couple of days and I feel loads better. I love technology!! It was so great just to see them doing fine and all settled in at home. They talk to Kariana on the camera and she is just fascinated with seeing the images on the screen most of the time.
Since my days don’t consist of a lot of news worthy events any more, I thought I would share some more about Bogota. Some of these are things I have been asked and some are just things I have observed.
Clothing styles: for the most part, people of Bogota dress very similar to those in the U.S. However, they do tend to dress up a little more than we do most of the time. I see t-shirts on some people but most of the time its polos or sweaters for men and blouses for the women. One fashion trend that is very popular here is skinny jeans. For those of you who don’t know what those are, they are SUPER tight jeans worn by women that usually have some sort of spandex in them. The first time we were walking around, Kerry said “How do those women get into those pants??” with this look of awe on his face. They also tend to dress very warmly. The temps are 50’s in the morning and get up to the 70’s in the afternoon but the people dress like its winter. I am not kidding, I have seen women wearing puffy winter coats with the fur around the hood and the hood pulled up around their face. You see a lot of scarves both as accessories and for warmth. The people here tend to be thin (although I have seen some bellies on some of the men but no really big people) and a few inches shorter than Americans. (I really shouldn’t call U.S. people Americans because Colombian’s are also Americans, just South Americans but you know what I mean). However, the women were these high heels that make my feet hurt just looking at them. I can’t believe how high some of these shoes are. Keep in mind that we are in a really big city so I can’t say that everywhere in Colombia is like this but this is what we see here. The funny thing is that the women where these huge high heels and usually I am still taller than them in my tennis shoes. We know that Kariana’s mom was 5 foot 1 inch which is probably an inch or 2 short of the average woman height here. Her dad was 5 foot 10 which is probably about average for men height.
Clothing and toys are expensive here. Some of that is due to the exchange rate. I am told from some of the families that have been here to adopt a couple of times that the exchange rate use to be a lot better than it is now which makes things more expensive from our perspective. Toys and baby gear (like a walker or stroller) especially are high priced. From what we could see, they were almost double what you would pay at home. Food seems to be about the same, maybe just a little higher but we don’t have to buy a lot of that since our meals are prepared for us. Just like at home, you can find cheap and expensive restaurants. They have excellent pineapple here and other fresh fruits. In fact, they have fruits here that I didn’t even know existed and I’m not sure what their called either. Fruit is very popular and many of the street vendors sell either whole fruit or individual servings of cut up fruit for a snack or lunch.
That’s it for today. Talk to you soon,
Cresta
Hello!
ReplyDeleteWE ARE HOME!! Made it safe and sound without any problems through Atlanta. All of the kids were incredible travelers and we had a great reunion at the airport tonight. The kids are currently all snuggled in their beds...:)
Just wanted to let you know we made it, but that we are still thinking about you guys and have been all day. It is so strange not to be in Colombia yet. Give Kariana a "gentle" hug from us ;-), and we will continue to pray for a speedy court process to reunite all of you soon.
Love,
Patsy, Jon, Will, Jake and Gabby