another day another peso

Okay today we went to a kind of outdoor science museum that had an aquarium attached to it. It was pretty cool as it had native colombian species of reptiles and fish in there. The view of the mountains was spectacular from the 3 rd floor. Our driver/guide brought us on a spine tingling amusement ride/drive there and then brought us to a mall called san diago mall afterwards she then informed us she needed us to take a taxi home as she needed to get home and shut her windows. about 25 minutes later we found out what she was taikng about as we saw the largest downpour I had ever seen. The mall had the electricity go out and we got trapped on the top floor for awhile as a foot of water washed through the lower floor. The entire mall then goes into kind of a hive of bees type activity and gets the water out in a matter of minutes. Karen and Tatiana had a Maria melt down as they were trying to buy her a stroller. We have no idea why she was so dead set against it but after an hour or so she caved in and now loves it. Tomorrow we meet with the officials at the orphanage for the last time and then we wait for the court date. Tommorrow night I will post pictures.

Day 7

We had some great news today our case got assigned to the fastest adoption court in medellin. So with some luck we could be out of here and to Tatianas house by a week. They do have some really cool stores and malls here. We feel a little safer now and we try to have Logan and Karen not speak english unless they have to when were out in pulic just as a precation. Logan was able to get a bunch of games for his DS today for very little money so he is happy. Tomorrow our plan is to go to a really cool kids park in centro Medellin and maybe go out to eat somewhere. Now to tell you a little about our guide. First of all our adoption place told us we were going to have someone else. Our guide is really nice but I speak more spanish the she does english which is a problem when your a guide. Second of all her driving could only be described as a cross between Juan Pablo Montoya and a psycopath running from the institution. She means well but we all fight over who has to sit in the front seat because that is the most likely person to be killed.  Having said that her driving was a little better today or we have had all of the fear run out of us. The great war between the guides I think is over and we can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Day 6 of our adventure

 We are really starting to see Maria come out of her shell and really show case her personality.  Tatiana is here after a long and frustrating trip from the airport in Bogota. She probably could have come by bus and got here faster. Tatiana says that Maria is very smart which could be good or bad depending how you look at it. The good part is obvious  the part we worry about is that she communicates way beyond a normal three year old. Which make one wonder how easy english will be for her. Her first words in english were Green, Cookie, and Beautiful. She is now singing the Head and shoulders knees and toes song in her own accent but she loves it. Our thoughts are to post pictures starting on wednsday after our meeting with The ICBF. The culture here in medellin is very strange for instance The Hotel manager Marlena whom Maria really loves and calls Mom works about 15 hours per day and 6 days per week. Her pay is about 60 to 70 dollars per week. Yet she always seems happy and will bend over backwards for you.  We are a little worried about this place being Americans despite what locals say there is an element of danger for us. The good thing is that when taxi drivers ask questions about us Tatianas explanation of us adopting seems to help if they had any bad intentions toward us. They seem to respect Americans that adopt from thier country. Having said that Tatiana is a little out of her element here and we will all be happy when we get to Bogota for the final leg of our journey.  My next log will talk about our guide here, god love her but it's like going bungee jumping everytime were with her.

Colombian Thanksgiving

No doubt the wierdest thanksgiving i have ever spent. We were able to call home thank to our fellow hotel guest/adoptive mother she has this thing called magic jack you hook up to your computer and call to the usa free. I will try to find one tomorrow. We also heard from our cute little neighbor girls back home via a text. Maria seems to be coming around and taking to us a little more. We still don't understand most things she says except the important ones like chi chi which means I gotta go dad. We are expecting our other daughter Tatiana tomorrow morning and we think things will be a lot smoother, Logan is still the only one that can get Maria to sleep and im just waiting for the payment demands to come. Other then that our thanks giving turkey was a ham sandwich and doritos washed down with some coca cola lite. Tomorrow we eat out a couple of times and saturday we are expecting to meet a woman from the orphanage that has a special relationship with Maria Fernanda and wants to see how shes doing and get to know us. Apparently she likes her so much that she had brought her to her own home on a number of occasions. We seem to have gotten in the middle of some kind of wierd war between two rival guides for the orphanage down here in medellin that both want to help us or possibly one up each other and we had to put our foot down today and hope that with Tatiana here the communication will be much better. Stay tuned for the next soap-opera update.

A new Ebertz

Well we picked up our little Maria today and as expected she does'nt  speak a word of english. She is however pretty fluent in espanol for a 3 year old. We think we have an instant bond she seemed at first to have taken to papa and when she needed something she wanted mama especialy at bed time. Logan was the one however that got her to bed. We were told not to post pictures until the legal work was done. Other families have posted pictures but we don't want to take any chances of slowing the process. Because there is some hope that we may be done with everythin by the 15th of December. We will be meeting with our lawyer tomorrow and will know more about the process.  Our other girl Tatiana is going to be coming on Friday which is exciting for everyone.

Wild Trip to Medellin

 Our trip started this morning at 3 am we left msp at 605 having no breakfast thinking we would eat in Miami little did we know that our connecting flight to colombia was leaving 10 minutes after we landed. We did however smell the food from the restaurants as we sprinted down the gateway. To make matters worse the plane did serve lunch and I could see Logans eyes light up as he heard the words Chicken sandwich from up ahead,It was not to be however because by the time they got to our row they ran out of chicken sandwiches. Oh well im sure the baggie of fruit loops satisfied a whole day of hunger for him.  The airport in Medeillin is tiny by our standards and the custom lines were long but we made it through only to have a long car journey to get to the hotel.  The little hotel however is fantastic they cater to adopting families and seem like real genuine people. We met another lady thats adopting who speaks fluent english and spanish as she is originally from Colombia and has been residing in Miami. Thank God for her because although they can understand Logan perfectly, He's having a little challange with there accent and speed. Im sure he will get it in time because for whatever reason they love talking to him. I think its the whole Blonde american speaking pretty fluent spanish that has them fascinated. We are suppose to get Maria tomorrow and we can't wait.

Meeting with Maria

We are so excited we met Maria today via Skype. She is so beautiful and funny it's like having a mini version of Tatiana. I can't wait to see her in person.  Thank god we have Logans spanish to rely on for communicating with the adults there. The Spanish in that city is very rapid and I think they were slowing it down for Logan. The whole thing lasted maybe 10 minutes but all of hearts are going a mile  a second. We should be talking to Maria 1 more time on Monday and then hopefully meeting her in person on wednsday.

4 days to go

We got some good news today the orphanage where we are adopting from thought it would be good for us to skype with our new girl Maria.  Which I Thought was a great idea so she could get use to seeing us before we get there.So hopefully that will happen soon. We also moved Logans room downstairs in preparation of our new family member. I don't think Logan was to keen on his old rooms color,(pink and yellow) but he loves his new room. We are still trying to find out if it's okay to post the 2 pictures we have of her.  Stay tuned

GETTING PACKED

I don't know if any of you have planned a 2 month trip with a picky eating 8 year old to a foreign country . I'll be the first to tell you I'ts not fun. Karen and I are so excited to see our new daughter we almost forgot how excited we are to see our girl Tatiana.

The first leg of the journey

This is the first blog entry so I should get you all up to speed on what's happening. As some of you know we started out 4 years ago wanting to adopt from Colombia but as we looked into it more it seemed like Peru was the way to go. Little did we know about the head of the adoptions there having anti American views. As we mired and rotted in there program we became more and more convinced we had done the wrong thing, Thus we went back to the beginning and started over in the Colombia program. We had no delusions of grandure mind you, we fully expected another 3 year wait with little communication.  We were wrong the people of Colombia are not only kind and caring for there children they are also wonderful at making expidited decisions. just a few months after getting in our dossier we got A welcome but un expected referal for a beautiful 3 year old named Maria. It didn't take us long to decide on the refrral. And it didn't take us long to know that all of the pain misery and waiting was for a reason. Today is Wednsday the 17th of November 2010 In exactly 6 days we will be with our new family member. We are running around frantic trying to prepare for the long time away from home with no income coming in, but it will all be worth it when we hold her in our arms and tell her we are her new mommy and daddy.