We're home and the kids love the snow!

We made it home to Alaska last night after a stopover for a few days at Christmas visiting Grandma & Grandpa in Oregon, and then we drove to Washington to visit their other Grandpa yesterday. We finally took that final plane ride bringing us home to Alaska and it feels so good to be home. The kids are enjoying their new home and are still finding toys and cool things to entertain themselves. They absolutely love the snow outside and have engaged in several snowball hurling events during the past day. It snowed while we were visiting my dad yesterday in Washington and the day before at Oregon they had their first experience with snow falling. They're real troopers as they love the snow and sometimes even make snowballs with it without their gloves on, and they don't even mind it. The cold weather doesn't bother them and we are so blessed. Like any mom, I''m having to remind them to wear the appropriate outside weather coats and gear before going out, but they really do love the snow and even don't mind the cold weather which comes with the joy of snow. Last night we saw a moose on the road and stopped to look at it and Fabian especially thought that was cool.

I for one am happy to begin to settle back into my own house and am excited to get a routine going here with the children. Still so much to do though but things will fall into place better now that we are home! There's so much I cannot wait to post on in regards to our journey and I hope to get all caught up within the next few days because I really need to express how wonderful God has been to us in His infinitive faithfulness! As the year end draws near also, I feel a great need to reflect on all God's goodness too! It truly was the year of jubilee for us and so many other of our friends! We're blessed in so many ways and I can't wait to share so much more of the highlight of our journey with you! Stay tuned.

All done here in Bogota

Okay, I just have a minute to write as I sit here at Archie's in Bogota. We're staying at Betty's Place and have been without internet for a few days now so there's been no time to write and update posts. We have been in Bogota since Tuesday late night. We picked up visas today for the kids which gives us the go ahead for travel. All systems are go and we are set to fly out tomorrow morning to the US. God is so good to us and opened up some seats tomorrow on flights -- what wonders He has given and continues to bless us with! We will update more when we have a chance. Our love goes out to everyone! Gotta run as there's a terrible thunderstorm out there and we are under the awning at Archie's pizza using the internet. Anyone who knows me well knows how much I cannot stand thunderstorms and lightning so I'm off to hide under the table now. REALLY!

Quick update on Sentencia -- yippee!!

Yesterday the good news came and we got sentencia! Unless you're a spanish-speaker or adoption-literate, you might think sentencia... that doesn't sound good to have... especially in a third-world country or so, but trust me, we came here hoping to get sentencia at the earliest time possible! We wished for it and expected sentencia to come much sooner, and as each day passed and we didn't hear of our sentencia, we grew more discouraged. Trusting in the LORD became so much of our needed focus! (and just as a sidenote, as I was typing that last sentence, I did not emphasize nor did I touch the ALL CAPS key -- which again is just clarification that the Lord is ever present here, and I definitely have goose bumps all over right now!)

There's many examples of how much He guides us through this and helps us through the setbacks and in the next few days as I gather a moment or two about, I hope to write of how extensive God's touch has impacted us and in the many miraculous ways He has shown us of His love! It's just simply amazing and I know on the quick timeline I have right now I wouldn't do any justice to the beautiful displays God's shown us of His glory!

Today was the day we were scheduled to leave Colombia but we clearly have missed our flights. Our business here still involves another week of paperwork to finalize everything then we will be cleared for travel. We're finding that changing flights at this busy time of the year is proving to be a costly endeavor. It was devastating news to learn yesterday to learn that we needed so much more money for our plane fares home! It seems to be cheaper to abandon the tickets in hand because the change fees paired with the difference in fares now are way too costly, and what we'll end up doing is just purchasing one way tickets to our destination. At this time of the year the airlines have us over the barrel for sure. And our visas are set to expire soon so we would need to get out of here at our earliest convenience anyways!

Please pray along with us that God direct me as I seek out travel arrangements. I pray also for God's faithful provisions as this is taking such sacrifices in ways not known to many. We know God will provide "just enough" as He is and always will be faithful! We ask that you hold our family up in prayer this week as we continue to work our way through the adoption process.

Thank you for looking in and feel free to leave comments. A glimpse of home always means the world to us and we love to hear from you! Knowing you care really means alot! I hope to blog more later on the wonderful things God is doing in our lives here... but for now, Ciao!

God Bless,
Genece

Quite the enjoyable evening!

This won't be a lengthy entry because I'm just exhausted and it's very late. We just returned from a nice evening out in Cucuta. After our 2 and a half hour swimming excursion in the late afternoon, we were surprised by a phone call from our interpreter Alexandra who at our attorney's wishes wanted to invite us for an ice cream or a coffee in the early evening. We rounded up the crew and went to the mall for a very enjoyable visit with our attorney and Alexandra at Juan Valdez coffee. MMMmmmmm, very tasty coffee and wonderful treats which I'm going to have to write the name down of what they were, but they were wonderful tasting! We found out our case may be progressing now and we could possibly hear something very soon regarding sentencia. We wait patiently as the Lord prepares us to proceed! And we continue to pray! As much as we enjoy Cucuta and all it has to offer, and enjoy the beautiful Colombia as we've grown to know, we certainly do want to continue this adventure and get home before the Christmas holiday travel goes berzerk!!!! Our flights are scheduled for Friday so it's looking like we'll need to change the flights to a later date. But what later date??

After the mall we went to this park with many decorations and lights displayed. It's just amazing how many light displays they had out there. Like a little town with little buildings that you could walk through and they were all decorated and lit up. A huge tree was in the middle of this arrangement. Just so awesome of a sight, that's for sure! We took tons of pictures so I hope they turned out okay and you're able to tell a lot from the pictures.

We took a drive around Cucuta which was very enjoyable! Then we went to grab a burger at Carritos, a very nicely decorated restaurant downtown decorated so nicely in periwinkle colored lights everywhere. An outdoor restaurant... and very busy... and very tasty... and even had a dog that took up temporary residence seated just under Marissa's seat, until Fabian kicked it one too many times (perhaps on accident but who knows, he's all boy and a little fiesty at times.) Marissa didn't even know the dog was there until halfway through the meal.

The kids made friends at the pool today and I'll have to report on that probably tomorrow because I'm too tired right now.

Well, off to bed now and more later. Ciao, Genece

Still no sentencia but quite the celebration!

Still no word of when to expect sentencia but we feel the hand of the Lord very present in everything we do. AMEN! God has a very defined plan for us and we await His tender mercies! We are so thankful to be here in Colombia during the Christmas season. From what we've seen, Colombians do go all out for decorations and beautifully-colored lights. Rick's dad would love being here right now to view all the great light decorations and displays because that's Dave's thing -- Christmas lights and decorations -- oh yeah!! It's very fascinating and what a glorious time of the year to witness such sights. Thank you Jesus for all you do. You are the reason for the season and we are truly blessed to be here in Colombia at this time.





Yesterday was interesting. Little corrections had to be made and the day just happened to bring on many. We didn't set out to teach some lessons -- really -- however it just happened that way. There were a few very slight behaviors that we felt necessary to correct before they got too out of hand, and yesterday was the day when we were forced to put our foots down in order to let the children know we mean business. Granted these are all very mild behavior issues but it is our job as parents to show them the way. Anyways, long story short, their pool privileges were taken away for the day following many attempts to get them to conform to our wishes. So when it came time for the pool, only Marissa got to swim and they understood but didn't like that we followed through. Even more of a lesson, both Fabian and Karen had to sit and watch. As hard as it was to endure watching the sad twosome pouting a little as the watched from poolside all the while as Marissa swam, we have had much better behaviors coming from the both of them today. Hallelujah! In fact, this morning was a shocker when Karen got up and dressed with the first prompting from her dad. Fabian needs work on accepting responsibility as he blames others whenever he gets in trouble. Not really blames but it happens such as this... we'll say Fabian, no touching the baby, and he'll say in a very stern voice to his little sister, "Karen, no touching the baby!" Sort of a pass the buck type of deal, and he's not picky with passing the buck -- it usually gets passed on to the nearest person to him that he can turn to and repeat the corrective measures that were initially meant for him. He does it all the time so we figured we'd better get ahold of it and teach him a different way. Acceptance of responsibility! He does accept correction well and bounces right back and doesn't hold his anger. Karen can hold her anger for much longer and definitely knows how to pout to get her way. She's quickly learning to conform and we don't see the long outbursts of anger following the correction nowadays. Now Luis, even at 10 months old now, can hold onto his anger. He knows how to hold a grudge! Really! He has been so spoiled for so long and that's very clear, but he's learned that crying doesn't accomplish much. Don't get me wrong, he sure has tried to get his way by crying, but so far it hasn't worked much so he's giving up on that technique. He still has both his sisters trained for the "fetch" game when he wants them to keep picking up his toys as he drops them purposefully. Instead of crying to get his way he is now this super smily boy most all of the time now. What an absolute joy he is! Very gifted with natural charming abilities and just a happy-go-lucky kind of little guy! He doesn't like his siblings to invade his space and gets upset when they do so Mama and Papa have to run interference all the time for him.





There was a heartwarming speech I had to give yesterday to address to the children after we came back to the room after being at the pool. You could almost see it in their faces that they understood why they lost their pool privileges for the day, but they both had this look of concern that we must not love them anymore and possibly we were giving up on them. Rick and I have been very consistent whenever any corrective criticism is given to follow up with emphasizing how much we love them and how happy we are to all be family and trying to explain why we corrected them in the first place! I am so thankful that during this very crucial explanation following the pool visit yesterday that God placed the correct words in my mouth to get our point across! It really was amazing and Rick commented on how well it went and told me how amazed he was that I continued to rattle off Spanish. My Father above deserves ALL credit for gifting my tongue to speak to my children. What a heavenly experience and for it I am blessed! At that moment I had a TV program on a christian channel singing spanish songs when I noticed one we sing quite regularly in our church. It's a song by Israel Houghton and the new Breed, "Lord you are good and your mercy endureth forever, Lord you are good and your mercy endureth forever, People from every nation and tongue, from generation to generation, We worship You, Hallelujah, Hallelujah, We worship You for who You are ... and You are Good!" It was sung in spanish and it was so cool when the kids got up and started jumping around at the same exact moment as we did. What a blessed event! An outright expression of just exactly how awesome our God is! He let all of us know of His presence at that exact moment. Then we heard the loud fireworks being shot off from town and walked outside our hotel room to take in the beautiful fireworks display. See, the Colombians celebrate a holiday on Dec. 8th, but the festivities actually begin on Friday. It's Dia de la Imaculada Conception and it brings about many fireworks celebrations and the lighting of many Christmas displays. So cool to witness and left us with such overwhelming feelings. We had been told earlier in the week that Friday marked the day when people in Colombia lit candles outside but we had no idea of the exact significance of why they did this as a tradition. So on our trip to the store yesterday we picked up some candles and planned on participating. We almost scrapped our plans of lighting our candles and placing them outside our door because we didn't think anyone else in the hotel was going to, but then we saw the family next to us had lit candles marking their front entrance terrace, we decided we needed to also. The kids went nuts and jumped for joy as we lit the candles and placed them out in the front area. Definitely a treasured moment!!! Just this morning as I read another family's blog that are adopting and are now in Bogota, the Colombian people light the candles for the captives taken by guerilla forces. I knew when we lit them that it was truly a touch from God -- a very somber moment and one which will be forever preserved in my mind, but I had no idea at that time the importance or real significance of those lit candles!



Oh and by the way, there's a quick little story on the lit candles. Today as the maintenance guy went around to our front entrance way and as he scraped the dried candle wax left from our celebration, we felt compelled to leave him a tip. Rick and I opened the door to tell him of our appreciation for his services and he was so overwhelmed by our gesture. It was quite a humbling experience to know that the equivalent of $3 or $4 US dollars meant so much to him. He really didn't want to take the tip but we insisted. He didn't feel he was worthy of receiving it but it was so much of what God led us to do at that exact moment. I am sure he needed the money for something and God was providing for his need by working through us!





Well, I'll close now because it's very late and I need to get some sleep.



May God bless each and everyone!

Genece

Still waiting wanting word of Sentencia

We still await sentencia which we have no idea of when it will come. We remain hopeful that it will be this week. We are going to contact our agency in-country representative early this afternoon with hopes of finding out if there is any news or any clue of when it might happen. Our attorney an her husband and our interpreter came to the hotel to visit us on Monday night and she had no word of when to expect sentencia. We have no way of contacting anyone locally as we have neither our attorney's phone number or that number to reach our interpreter. We are literally just waiting here and are basically on our own. Please bear with me for a moment as I vent just a little frustration here... I'm sure if we were somewhat in the loop on what to expect we might not be experiencing the frustrations we are. We are just wishing the sentencia to be signed so that we can get rolling with the other documents so we can go home.

Poor little Karen got feeling sick to her stomach last night (actually had a bit of it all day but she didn't want to miss out on any food or pool time). She didn't really complain about it or feel real bad until after we came in from the pool. She laid down for a bit and was better by dinnertime. This morning she woke up very nicely considering she still was sick to her stomach. We didn't realize she wasn't feeling well until at breakfast when she wanted to lay her head down on the table and didn't want to eat anything. She's relaxed in bed most all morning but just got up to eat a snack of kiwi, a little of a pear, and now they are munching on a few chips which the kids refer to as Cheetos which cover any sort of chips... they're all called Cheetos. Sort of reminds me of living in the deep South and growing up in Tennessee when we'd be out at a restaurant and we'd order our drinks and say we wanted a Coke, then the waiter would ask which kind and we'd say Dr. Pepper or a 7-up... ya know, all sodas were referred to as Cokes.

Luis is quite the character. As a baby he sure is gifted with such great personality traits and is sleeping better each and every day. He may wake up in the middle of the night and whimper for about a minute but then he falls right back to sleep without needing any type of interaction. For the past 2 days in a row he's slept in until just past 8 am when I have to wake him up. What a great little baby he is! We all slept very good last night as it rained lots in the night and that always has a lulling effect.

Luis is eating so well nowadays too. He loves his eggs in the morning and he loves spaghetti which we had last night for dinner. He has learned to chomp on his crackers and now he just swiped a cookie from his brother when he wasn't paying attention. We tried to get it back but he laid claim to it right away so there was no taking Luis' cookie from him! He's just our little man!

Alright, a funny thing happened on the way to breakfast today. As we were walking there, Marissa stopped to wait for us under a tree and for some reason she looked up. About that time we saw these droppings which came down and landed on her arms. She started whining about how yucky it was that some bird had taken a poop on her. At least it only landed on her arms and not on her hair or on her clothes. She just had to wash up very well before breakfast but we all got a little giggle out of her unfortunate demise. And fortunate for her that it was from a bird because just yesterday we were noticing some iguana poop that had fallen from the trees and were commenting on how unfortunate it would be to be seated below an iguana at that moment. Aaaaahhhhh, the memories!

Well, more later hopefully.
Sending our love, the Hefty Family!

Bright and sunshiny morning for Karen...

As the title says, "Bright and sunshiny morning for Karen", well that's because the tooth fairy came and took her tooth and left her a US Dollar! She didn't wake right up for it but it was far better than we've been dealing with. Took her about 5 minutes to move around and finally open those eyes up... I wonder if she'll get the hang of this waking up thing before Christmas morning after Santa Claus has come. I've got predictions that she'll still be slow, but there's always hope -- yes indeed! Fabian is such a great morning person, wakes right up and is raring to go.

All of our kids have a loose tooth and we had been telling them to try to work their loose tooth out. Rick teased that he would pull the teeth for them which they all cringed and heavily guarded their mouths! Then when we explained to Karen about the tooth fairy and that if you leave the tooth overnight the tooth fairy would come and exchange the tooth for MONEY! Her eyes got super huge and a big smile across her face ensued! She said, "Aha, un minuto!" and off she ran to the bathroom to grab some tissue and she was focused on a mission to pull that tooth out. Actually it took her only 15 minutes to get it out & believe me that girl was determined! She wanted that money from the tooth fairy!

So this morning she awoke to a crisp $1 bill from the tooth fairy and she was so thrilled! Another funny thing about her is that she refers to Rick and I as millionaires. She thinks we are millionaires and when we explain to her that we are not -- that we're just normal people, she gets very upset and keeps saying, "No, mi mama y papa -- si, si millionaires!" The spanish accent marks aren't there but the gist is that she keeps repeating yes, yes, my mother and father are millionaires!

Well, I'll try to write more later. Finally, our internet is working but there's not really much for reception, Very low signal on the wireless.

I posted some more pictures yesterday to the picasa web album.

More later, and keep prayers up that we will receive sentencia soon (which is when the judge signs the adoption decree which then starts the process for completing the paperwork and being able to return home).

Genece

Writings from the past few days

Since our internet is very sporadic and we never know when we might have access, I’ve started titling the entries with the day they were written. Today is Sunday, November 2nd.
Hello again from sunny (and hot and humid) Cucuta!
The weather here is absolutely beautiful by the way. It will be quite the change when we go to Bogota which is a much colder climate than here. I am told that the children are from a town that is much cooler than here in Cucuta so I don’t worry so much about them being so cold when they are there. Just wait until they get to Alaska! A quick lesson in what cold really means is imminent! Actually they may experience this while we are visiting relatives in the lower 48 states even before we get to Alaska because it’s very warm temperatures lately in Alaska and much colder in Oregon and other parts of the lower 48 now (from what we are told). The CNN channel is about all Rick watches other than occasional movies we find in English. Otherwise the TV is on one of the kids’ cartoon channels. Marissa especially was so excited last night when she found that High School Musical 2 was just coming on. It was in Spanish but the songs were all in English so she thought it was super cool!
The kids are very excited to go to a cold climate and are looking forward to snow! Karen wants to build a snowman and Fabian is much more interested in having snowball fights! I’m sure there’ll be hurling white balls of cold, wet snow coming my way in the near future. Hearing that Fabian’s interest was mainly on snowballs is almost a no-brainer!!! He’s truly boy through and through! Karen and Fabian both want to learn how to snowboard and they say they can’t wait to go to Alaska.
Karen wasn’t so bad waking up this morning but it still took some prodding. I mean this girl just loses all senses when she sleeps and does not wake up well at all. She is one-with-the-bed and how dare anyone come along and pull her from it! She’s our little grumpy-in-the-morning princessa! A true sleeping beauty, of which we haven’t quite conquered what it takes to break the spell of her being so much of a booger to get out of bed. Any ideas are very much appreciated and welcomed so feel free to email us or comment on the blog!
Knowing her personality, a chocolate bar first thing in the morning would definitely do the trick and get her to conform, but unfortunately that’s always been one of our biggest no-no’s for the kiddos! Not first thing in the morning -- no way! Any ideas are very welcomed so if you have any to offer up we’d love to hear them.

In the early afternoon we decided to venture out on our own and go to the mall. We should have done this way before now. I think always before we were intimidated that our limited Spanish speaking abilities might inhibit our abilities to accomplish this successfully. Wow, were we wrong! The taxi to the mall which is just up the road only costs equivalent to about $2.50 for our family one way, and I was carrying on a conversation with the taxi driver most all of the way. Not bad at all! We got so excited the other day when we saw they had an El Corral in the mall. That night we had pizza which we had been craving so much and it was delicious! Today we had El Corral for lunch, then we went to another place for dinner in the food court there. It was great too! Rick and I had steak and chicken there and it was yummy! So much for losing weight here of which we both have taken off at least 20 lbs easily, but now we’ve found more of the real good food places to eat.While we were at the mall today we got some gifts and some souvenirs. The kids got a chance to go to the arcade and ride on the bumper cars again, and Fabian and Karen got to go in this huge play place for kids, then they all got to play some games and get their tickets cashed in (like Chuck E. Cheese). They had so much fun and we took some great pictures and filmed them doing all their fun stuff! Their elevator rides were much more calm today! There was only one time that they started their screaming and this elderly couple on there just cracked up laughing at them. Only when we were going down the baby started screaming. He still doesn’t like the feeling.

Today Karen learned some lessons, we hope. Fabian‘s so darn smart that he picks up on his sisters‘ mistakes and he so quickly learns our expectations so that helps us out. His sister is a bit more stubborn-minded. Anyways, back to Karen’s troubles… At mealtimes sometimes the kids slurp up their drinks and want more (quite like many kids I know), but sometimes they expect us to get them another one, and tonight was another round of this type of behavior from the both of them. They each enjoyed their juice box so much and wanted more. Marissa paced her drink through her dinner and I caught Karen sneaking a drink of her sister’s drink right before we were leaving. I let it go with only an explanation that we don’t accept that type of behavior, etc., and it didn’t stop there of course. When we got home we had snacks of cookies and Karen ate hers up and then grabbed one of her sister’s cookies and ate it up real quick. We had to quick explain again that it’s not acceptable to take items/food/anything, etc. from others. I think we might have taught a lesson with the repercussions from her inconsiderate acts when we made her go get her M&Ms she’d saved from her lunchtime treat at El Corral and give some to her sister Marissa with an apology also. This time the anger didn’t last as long and the pouting sessions are growing less and less in duration when she doesn’t get her way and has to follow the rules. Still all in all they are fabulous kids but just need a little practice in following the rules of our household. They need direction as every child does. We’ve been on Marissa a lot nowadays too. She’s learning how the rules equally apply to her as well and isn’t liking it at times, but her adjustment so far has been excellent. God has definitely prepared each member for their bonding and deserves so much credit for the smooth transitions we‘ve made! It‘s hard to remember what life was like without all my children around. The only rough times are just a little more prep time is necessary in the mornings, but that’s really nothing to worry about at all. We’re truly blessed in that each family member adds so much to this family. I am blessed to have a husband as helpful and eager to help out as Rick does! Together we make a great team!


ANOTHER DAY NOW --
Today is Monday, Nov. 3rd and as we were getting ready for breakfast this morning our interpreter stopped by. On both Thursday and Friday of last week she was going to come to take us to get the kids’ shots, but each day she wasn’t able to make it. This morning she came to look at their shot records which we only have the shot records for baby Luis. When we inquired at ICBF they told us the shot records of the older children were in their file. Perhaps the ICBF office was mislead to believe they were there in their records because for some reason our attorney thought we might have their paperwork. So it would appear they have to get several shots before they go. We asked how much longer they thought the process would be and any word on sentencia? There is no word yet on when to expect that and it didn’t sound hopeful to happen in the next day or so. We’ll take a welcome surprise any time now if that is in God’s will!!!!
Hey Sherri, perhaps we will share sentencia day also! Wouldn’t that be cool???!!!! For those of you who have no idea what (or who) I’m talking about, Sherri is a dear friend whom I met on a Monday night prayer group where a few of us who are adopting (or have adopted already) from Colombia. She and her family are in Bogota adopting a little boy named Isaac. For months now our families had been looking at similar timelines to be in Colombia for our adoptions, but we had no idea we would share both our “gotcha day” and our “integration day” as the same days for each of our families being brought together! Now we’ll try for sharing the same “Sentencia day”! I think when I read their blog lately they were predicting to hear something on Wednesday or Thursday of this week. That would be nice! Sherri and her family are keeping a blog and if you care to take a peek the link is at http://allglorybetogod.blogspot.com
It’s always a good read so enjoy, and add them to your prayer list as little Isaac could use a healing touch from above! We have witnessed God’s glory in our own little baby boy and wish that miraculous healing be extended to Isaac too. Please pray for them.

The girls are playing with their dolls on one of the beds right now and being quiet as the baby is napping. He doesn’t take much for naps nowadays so we grab them when they happen and try to get the other kids to remain quiet long enough to count as a nap. It’ll be nice when we’re not all crammed in a little 2-room hotel room and a routine can be more established. The kids will surely enjoy their space and being able to play alone with their toys instead of sharing them with everyone else at all times just because we’re in such close quarters.
Fabian got in a little trouble this morning after breakfast because I noticed some bite marks on the furniture he sleeps on. There are a few spots where the wood is worn down from his teeth biting at it. He has this thing about using his teeth for just about everything. They were probably his survival tool in doing so much before. I have to correct him several times daily about putting things in his mouth or trying to open things with his teeth. He has a tendency to not want to use his utensils for eating, and would much more prefer his fingers. Even for rice and things like that -- fingers are his preference. We just continue to give him guidance and correction at times, and follow it up with much love!!!
Oh, how the day unfolds… we just saw a commercial for some sort of castle with princesses and cats, and of course Karen told us she wanted that! I told her that was nice and told her sorry her papi didn’t much care for cats so a real cat was out of the question. Only dogs and she already has 2 of them. She got real bummed and kept begging for a cat. Now she’s a little bummed out, but just as I’ve wrote these few sentences she’s come around and is okay though she just rattled off to Rick that he needed to buy her 2 dolls at the store to make up for it. Just before the commercial came on they had planned to go to the store. Karen’s full of trying to get more at times but she is quickly learning our ways.
I do have to brag just a bit on another bit of huge progress and that is how giving thanks is coming more naturally nowadays. We are hearing “thank you” in English quite a bit nowadays and they are able to name the things they are thankful for and usually name them in English. It’s just awesome.
Oops, spoke too soon, I guess, on everyone getting ready for the store. Karen didn’t want to listen and obey just before they were walking out the door so she wasn’t able to go.. Right now she’s sulking with her hands covering her face as she lays on the bed. At least she’s not doing the crying bit. She still pouts but we will have her stubborn streak conquered sometime, I’m sure of it! You just have to stay firm on the rules for that little girl. She’s just like Marissa use to be so we’ve been down this road before and know firsthand how out-of-control things can get if we go lax on the rules.
It’s been 10 minutes now and she’s still angry that she didn’t get her way. I think sometimes she tries to act goofy and play around and we allow her to do that because it’s very much a part of her personality, but sometimes she tries to push it a bit and not listen when we are serious that she stop goofing off. She seems to know exactly when her dad is serious, but still tries to push it most times, but at least she acknowledges it. With me, she just tries to carry on as if nothing happened. She has much more respect for male figures than with women it seems. It’s really nothing outside of learning how and who they respond best to and that will come eventually. We’ve made great strides but still have little moments in the day where we have to stop and address whatever the issue is. Don’t all parents go through that? Nothing new here! We enjoy our children so much and I’m actually complimenting them in such a wonderful way by telling of just the very small issues which are all we’ve had to deal with thus far. It’s really nothing other than normal parenting. I’m just bored and running out of things to report on.
We’d love to go to the pool right now but there are little kids over there taking swim classes so I don’t dare go interrupt them. We’ll wait until later this afternoon to get the swim time in. We’re sort of hanging out in the room waiting for Alexandra to stop by to maybe accompany Rick to take the kids for their shots.
On a political front, we were very closely watching the outcome of the Venezuelan vote on the referendums yesterday and it looks as if the voters very narrowly defeated Chavez’ referendums which would have given him more power over various things in his country. So many of the cars here have Venezuelan plates on them however the people are truly Colombians. To license a car in Venezuela is much cheaper than to license through Colombia. Also, I’ve seen only 2 gas stations here in Cucuta which hardly get any customers. Yet there are individuals set up along the roadside with many gas cans and you just pull up and they’ll pump in whatever amount you request. Clearly it is an operation that works with several vehicles with larger gas tanks will move back and forth to Venezuela delivering gas to Colombian roadside entrepreneurs who siphon the gas out and sell it for a little more than they paid. Still a bargain from what we’re told but for the cheap gas everyone goes over to Venezuela.

Signing off for now but will try again later. Sending all our love and thank you for your comments. It really took faith in sending all of our pictures instead of picking through some of the best ones, but oh well... these are our memories even if I wasn't looking or feeling my best in a few of those pictures. Such is life! Ciao!

Yikes, as I type this poolside right now at 11am on Tuesday, a huge iguana just ran past my feet. No kidding! Crazy but what memories!

Try this link to pictures

Okay, not sure if this will work but I tried uploading some of the pictures from the beginning of our trip and gotcha day on Picasa. Sure hope it works. I can't tell much from my computer because it won't even bring most of the pictures in on my screen.

Sure hope you get to view them!

The web address is:

http://picasaweb.google.com/genece19

Again, internet intervals -- grab them while they're there!

It’s Saturday now and we’ve done our normal breakfast routine at the restaurant here. The staff all know us so well and are there to greet us each morning knowing exactly what we want. They know to bring over Rick’s hot sauce (not his normal Tabasco, but the closest he could find here which is Picante), and now they are delivering him 2 orange juices instead of one (since he’s had a cold for the past few days). There’s a lady who is always there at breakfast at the same time as us and we’ve said hello a few times, but just yesterday she offered us coffee and today she came to our table and talked to us. She lives at the hotel here and is a very nice lady. She did not realize we were adopting and thought maybe Rick might be Colombian. She spoke very good English and it was so great to have a conversation in English. Those very rarely happen here. The lady could not believe we were adopting the three children and commented on how well-behaved and mannerly they were. She said she’s seen many adoptive children here during their stay at the hotel and our children were by far the best she’s seen. She told us some horror stories of how unruly some of the other adoptive children have been and how their parents have reacted. She commented how each child even favored us in looks, which we told her we strongly believed that God had gone before us to prepare our family and had knit us completely together. She said how much it shows that God was in control which we see more and more of each day! Thank you so much Lord for the gifts you’ve given. Our God is so faithful and is the giver of good gifts!!!
The kids have been great so far. There have been a few times when they have gotten in trouble but for the most part, they are just being normal kids. Karen is not a morning person at all and is the very hard one to wake up and get going in the morning. She just refuses and wants to stay in bed. She does have a stubborn streak and every once in a while we’ve noticed she just reaches that very defiant point where she just wants to oppose whatever you desire her to do. She puts on the angry face and is noncompliant at that point, and we’ve had to correct her at times for this behavior. Like I indicated earlier, yesterday she refused to get up and get dressed and was just a grouchy girl for a good portion of the morning so she lost out on her privilege to go to the pool that day. She tried all day to pour on the charm with both her daddy and her mommy which we know were filled with hopeful intentions that we would cave in to our earlier decision to revoke her pool privileges for the day. When it did come time for the others to go swimming, she still thought she had a chance to go too, and when she was told she was not going because of her earlier behavior as we had reminded her all day of, she started bawling and jumped in her bed sulking. She even had to go over to sit poolside to see the others and that made her unhappy for a few minutes. She came around about 10 minutes later and was okay and said she wanted to be a good girl tomorrow.
This morning she woke up without us even having to go get her. She said she wanted to go in the pool today! She even had a smile this morning and got ready without any hassles. Wow, hope this holds out! What the heck will we do when we have no pool to barter with??? She really is a great little girl and has the most charming personality but it is apparent she just drags in the morning! We painted fingernails the other day and she loved that, and she absolutely loves fixing our hair. She loves pretending she’s the hairdresser and she does a great job of it. She loves putting on “la crema” lotion and always wants us to smell how good she smells with it on. She’s our little princess! And funny, she’s so funny with the cutest little charm. She likes to have fun and laugh and she fits so nicely in our family. She loves to cuddle too and favors daddy over her mommy, but with each day she draws closer to her mommy!
Fabian is all boy! He’s loud at times and loves to pick at his sisters! He’s very energetic and likes to have fun too. Sometimes he gets in trouble for bossing his sister. He likes to make faces at his little brother and they are usually really mean faces which make Luis cry. We have had to emphasize that Fabian (and Karen) must stay back from Luis at least one foot and not get in Luis’ face as they had been doing. He is picking up English at such a rapid rate. He does get scolded at times and when he does it’s almost funny. He does not like it at all! He either sits and listens to us explain why he got in trouble and all the time he’s shaking his head okay and his eyes get a bit watery (but he guards us from seeing that he’s almost about to tear up). He either has that reaction or sometimes he says, “Si Senora” and then goes off on singing very loudly about 2 bars of the first mariachi song that comes to mind. It’s cute. Only about 30 seconds of singing and he’s back to normal. His coping methods are just too cute!
Little Luis -- our little man! Poor little guy now has a rash all on his face mainly and we are suspecting it to be caused from the laundry detergent they use here at the hotel. It seems worse when he rises from his naps and from his sleep, or when he rubs his face on shirts we’ve had laundered here at the hotel. We’re hoping it gets better and it does seem to be doing better today, but poor baby looks pitiful.
We have witnessed so many firsts for him lately and prayers have definitely been answered! See, when we met the kids Luis had a fever and wasn’t feeling well for the next day or so. With medicine his fever broke and he’s been just fine since then. There are days that his teeth are bothering him and he does seem to be cutting more of them. He already has 4 on top and 2 on bottom. So back to when we got him… he had very poor muscle control and wasn’t very strong at all (or so we thought). I had been silently praying that God give him strength and bring him along in his maturity, and I remember how that second night Rick said to me, “Honey, why do you think Luis is so developmentally delayed? “ He was asking if I knew of any medical reasons why he wasn’t strong. I remember saying that his paperwork didn’t indicate any delays and that we should pray for him. (Little did Rick know that I too suspected something might be causing a delay and I too had been secretly praying for our young son’s health and strength). Almost within a day we witnessed miraculous turnarounds from Luis and he has now shown us so many of his new tricks. God just entered that boy’s body and strengthened him immensely! Of course, at the same time we stopped feeding him the all the baby food and he now gets to eat real food so I’m sure that helped! He loves his morning eggs and especially loves spaghetti noodles and meat sauce when we have that for dinner! He slurps his noodles up so cute and chews up really nicely. He’s just our little man!
Upon meeting Luis he would not even sit without assistance and his progression to that meeting the goal of sitting on his own looked to be at least another month or two away. That sure changed overnight! Thank you dear Jesus for your miraculous touch to our baby! He supports himself now and sits on his own with great balance. The next day he learned to stand and keep standing with assistance. The next day he learned to roll over and roll over. Now we have to let him wear himself out at night by just making ourselves the barricades on the bed and let him roll all around in the center. He loves it! He’s also learning to pull himself up and it won’t be long until he’s pulling to a stand. He’s beginning to crawl too. He can scoot backwards but hasn’t completely mastered the front ways action. He lunges toward sometime from a sitting stance if he wants something or wants to go to someone.
Each day brings a new achievement for Luis and he now smiles all the time. He really is a good-natured little baby and sleeps all through the night real well. He tends to not want to nap during the day. With his body strengthened we’ve noticed he doesn’t go down for long naps any more. I think he’s afraid he’ll miss out on anything or he’ll miss a meal maybe. Ahhh, the life of a baby. What joy!
He talks all the time nowadays too and has been doing that for the past few days. Each day he talks more. A real charmer he is -- even with his rash on his face, there were many other babies at the mall (mostly girl babies) that had their parents wheel them over to see Luis! And our little guy poured on the charm and made eyes at each of those little senoritas when they’d come over to meet him! I just wish my pictures were able to load on so you could see exactly what I mean! He’s just so cute and has the most beautiful eyes and a captivating smile.
Rick’s got a cold now and says it’s because he’s been without having his Tabasco on everything he eats. Right!!! Wink-wink… I’ve had it too but I think it’s more from having to leave the A/C on at night. It’s most worse at night and not bad during the day when we’re active.
The kids have really picked up on the blessing we say before the meals. They are just sponges for the English language and have really learned a lot so far. They are so cute when they say the prayer all by themselves nowadays. They’ve learned the one that goes: Come Lord Jesus Be Our Guest, Let This Food To Us Be Blessed! Amen!
We are so proud of their accomplishments and each day we thank God for His blessings! They are true little Colombian gems of children! I am uncertain how much they know or believe in God. At times we have had a christian television show on and they seemed to poke fun at the lady singing, and at that time I silently prayed that God anoint their souls and open their minds to receive His words instead of casting Him out of their lives or mocking those who believe. Our God works in ways unknown to us, but as I said that prayer for the children to be open to our christian beliefs, I was about to turn the channel because I wanted to avoid their unappreciative responses. The pastor was now speaking and had invited guests up to the stage for some powerful anointing for whatever ailed them, and I noticed our 2 older children were both turned with much interest in the TV. Thank you Lord for how You show me You are in control and even when doubt enters me You always make it clear You are in control! It’s just unbelievable at times how blessed we truly are and how well prepared our children were to join our family! We know God is at work and will continue to work with our family as He so desires!
The kids got to go to the pool a little earlier today because we planning a late afternoon at the mall with our interpreter Alexandra. We normally don’t let the kids swim until at least 3pm because the sun’s intensity isn’t so bad then as it is at mid-day. Today we broke with the rules and let the kids swim a little earlier. Wow did they get dark in that timeframe. Even with the 60 SPF on they certainly did dark.
Rick was out there with the kids in the pool and I was in here typing this blog entry for whenever we get the internet back up, and Luis was in here taking a nap when Marissa came banging on the door saying her dad wanted the camera right away. I didn’t know what to think, but then she explained there was a huge iguana in the trees over next to the pool. Actually there were 3 iguanas gathered right there at that time and one of them was very aggressive towards Rick and a few more of the braver guys. Of course our Fabian was right in there with his daddy. Got some great photos though! Maybe that many huge iguanas in the mango tree will stop him from climbing to pick fruit. He doesn’t really like those iguanas and one of the boys who was poolside with them told of how he’d been chased by an iguana who bit him in the butt before.
Well, better run along. Throughout the day I’ve come back to write a paragraph or two of this entry and we just got a phone call from the interpreter who cannot come today to accompany us to the mall. I’m not too disappointed but the kids sure are. The malls get very crowded on the weekends and I really didn’t want to be in that mix. The kids wanted to go to the arcade with tons of rides and fun stuff just for kids. They have a few rides there too and we have tickets already and they were able to do just a few things the other day when we were there. They even said they liked it better there and they would be willing to give up a day in the pool for a day there!
Speaking of the pool, I just have to comment on how well they swim now. Their first time ever in a pool was just under 2 weeks ago and for a week now both kids have been swimming. Fabian is far better a swimmer than his sister Karen but still, not bad for only one week in a pool and to swim in the deep end as he does. He even dives in. Again, not the best but we’ll work on his form. Karen likes to do flips under water and she loves to float on her back. They just amaze me at how quick they learn new things!

More later but for now I want to get this entry in because we haven't had internet all day until just now and it's almost 8pm Sat. night. Our love goes out to everyone and thank you so much for the comments on the blog. It's certainly a treat to read them and to know you're praying for us!

Internet's back up -- YEAH HOORAY!

Wow, survival without internet has been an interesting few days indeed. Almost a week without it -- how spoiled I now know I am! I can only see it as a sign from God to let me see the important things in life and right now it is my family who needs me more than ever! God only gives enough to us and only gives enough to sustain our direct needs and that's been so evident in this situation with the internet. We really needed to only check on 3 things although we would have loved to enter a blog about our happenings. But like I said, priority-wise we only needed the internet long enough to pay our electric bill before it went late, then pay a credit card, then check with our bank. Without internet for days we were a little worried whether or not these tasks would be able to be carried through, but then 2 days ago we had internet just for only 5 minutes -- just long enough to get the electric bill paid and to check our bank statement. The other task wasn't able to be accomplished in the time the internet was up, so we thanked God for the little window he opened for us to get the electric bill paid at least. Just today we were able to again connect and it seems to be operational now, and we were able to use Skype to pay the credit card (which I thought was late) and much to my surprise, it was due today. Again, a true representation of how God provides only just enough to sustain us through our needs.

We still have no word on our case but we hope to hear some good news soon. It could come at any time now and we are just waiting for the judge to sign the decree which is called the sentencia.

Last night we went to a mall that's almost brand new and has only been opened for about 2 months. We forgot that the children had probably never been on an elevator and when the doors shut we soon got the same reactions from the 2 older kids as if they were on the "Tower of Terror" ride at Disneyland. Of course it was one of the newer ones made of all glass and we were going up a few floors. They just went nuts jumping up and down and screaming so loud. Those other people on the elevator didn't know what to think of them. It was wild! Later when we were ready to take the elevator down our boy Fabian refused at first to go. We had to really coax him into going. Going down 3 floors was a little different and not as crazy as the first time. The baby even reacted to the trip down. His little eyes got so big and he appeared to be holding his breath out of fear for what was happening. These are just some of the firsts for our kids and it's been so neat to encounter these times with them.

I'll go for now so we can get the kids a snack. They are getting a little restless right now. More later. It's so good to be back in communication with everyone! Internet is a great thing! Thank you Lord for all the finer things in life! We are very grateful for His faithfulness!

Love, Genece

Conquering a little boredom

I thought I could bypass the sickness but it struck me hard during the night. I'm much better now after taking it easy most all of the day. My appetite still hasn't come back and luckily I didn't have the sickness as bad as poor Marissa. She was sick for almost 2 days and really bad sick. I'm so grateful to have Rick step in and take over as he does even though he himself was feeling ill too. He even took the kids out to the pool this afternoon for their 3 hours outing in the pool they've grown accustomed to. I was able to get some a little sleep while they were there and so I'm feeling a bit better now.

As both Rick and I were not at 100% this morning and dragging around, we noticed the kids were just completely bored and in almost an instant they began to start acting out, mostly out of sheer boredom. It was a little trying at first but then we both understood they were just bored and not understanding that both their parents were not completely on their gameplan as normal.

Needless to say we've seen some behaviors from it, but its only because they see an opportunity to act independently and some of it comes from not being entertained within our daily routine. There were times when they would get a little mad over not getting their way today and would go pout for a very short time, but each time they came around in no time flat so we can only be grateful to God for His hand in preparing the children for our ways and for the incredible bonding He has presented us. Even the baby is really coming around. He is very stubborn at times and is getting stronger and stronger each day from not getting everything he wants or getting his way. He gets mad and rares back his little body at times but in doing so his muscle control is growing tremendously from him exerting a little of his anger at times. We just changed his formula to Enfamil and he's been great today. He really seems to like it and it does him well. It's hard to believe that he's the same baby we met only 5 days ago. And he has changed so much even in that short time. It's just amazes me how fast they grow and change.

Marissa was proud of herself today for diving into the pool for the first time ever. Into the deep end! And the other 2 kiddos are just water bugs who are progressing so well in swimming and floating. They just took naturally to it.

Rick had the kids out at the playground yesterday and as he was pushing the girls on the swings he turned around to find Fabian was gone. It happened instantly and he just vanished just like that. Then Rick looked up in the tree and that boy had climbed that tree to pick some fruit for him and his sister. He's quick! Climbing fruit-bearing trees might have easily been his survival method in his earlier years. We still have to follow right behind him because he will try to give food to his little baby brother also and sometimes its things that aren't suitable for babies. No doubt about it though these are the children God paired exactly for us and it is so convincingly right. They're just little bundles of energy and fill us with such joy.

Well, off to spend some quality time before bedtime. We've learned they do best when we completely wind down after dinner. They are like all kids when it comes to using every excuse possible to stay up later. Last night Fabian even reminded us he needed his medicine for his cold that he absolutely despises begging to take it... of course we know it was a ploy to stay up for a little while longer. Kids are certainly the same despite the language barrier in that aspect. They always want to stay up like the big folks!

Thanks for your prayers. They are working and we should be all back to 100% in no time flat. We love it when you leave comments too, so feel free. It does mean so much here to hear from our friends and family.

Oh, fresh on my mind, if I had any advice to offer any others who are anticipating a trip to Colombia, I would say learn as much of the spanish language as possible. I'm so thankful for the 2 years of spanish instruction in high school. It has held us through here because we are in a location with only spanish speakers. We're fortunate that our son Fabian also took such an interest in learning english that upon hearing about us, he took some english lessons. He's progressing along at such a rapid rate too. Of course he and Karen had a great foster mother who really encouraged these children to do their best and we're mighty thankful for her guidance and love. The baby also had a wonderful foster mother!

Also, I'm thankful for my network of friends who have prayed for our family in ways that are now seen and experienced with the wonderful bonding impact. My yahoo girls who meet regularly online on Mondays have sure meant so much and the prayers have been answered not only with my case but with other families as they meet their children. What wonderful blessings found in a group of ladies so prayerfully connected!

Goodnight all!
Sending our love!
Genece

Another Good Day

Today was a good day even if my tummy said a little less. Both Rick and myself have been successfully riding this bug out and so far it has been tolerable, just causing a little nausea, but poor Marissa got hit hard. She did get to feeling better by mid-day today but she seemed to celebrate her feeling better a bit too fast and soon learned after a trip to the playground that she needed to get back in bed and was still a little sick. Poor little girl but we're glad she's so much better than yesterday. She had us a bit worried yesterday with how sick she was.

Despite nursing Marissa back to good health, we really couldn't be more blessed. Our children are bonding so well with us and we haven't really seen the meltdowns others talk about. There's a little sibling rivalry at times but nothing unexpected. They are learning our ways and our boundaries even though at times they try to push the envelope as all children would. They are overall very well-behaved children and are most always polite. I haven't taken them to the store yet but Rick says it's a trying experience because they touch everything and they ask for everything, which we both understand will take some time to work through. They love going to the store with their Papi because they always get to ride the little rides outside the store. I'm not sure if the bulldozer or the airplane is Fabian's favorite, but I sure know Karen's favorite is the little car because she says it goes "vroom, vroom Mami!" She has this petite little screechy voice and when she gets excited it gets faster and moves up in the very screechy range. She's cute with the emphasis she places on so many things we take for granted. Little things really mean alot to the children and it pleases our souls to see them as thankful as they are. They really do have great manners. Fabian is much more organized with his belongings and loves Mariachi-style music. He loves soccer too but we haven't seen so much of that. He'd pick watching either Power Rangers or cartoons over any sports from what we've witnessed. Also, yesterday we might have goofed by letting him control the remote for the TV. OOPS, we should have never done that... Marissa said, "Mom, please take that remote away --he's making us watch Power Rangers for the 7th straight time now!" It was hilarious! Karen is such a daddy's girl but every once in a while she'll warm up to me. She's a little shy at times and gets a little embarrassed at times. She winds up completely at night but is hard to get to wake up in the morning, sort of like her mami and Marissa. I mean, c'mon, las chicas like their beauty sleep! She loves Cheetos and she's so funny because she was asking her Papi yesterday for some chips and speaking english. She said, "Give me my cheetos! Give me my cheetos!" It sounded so melodic and sweet that how could Rick say no... She has him wrapped around her finger, definitely! She also loves dolls! So much!! Every commercial that comes on that has a doll advertised, she says she likes that one. Today Rick bought them a toy at the store and you guessed it, she got a doll. Fabian got a car that you can change the wheels on it.They love their sunglasses which we held off until yesterday to give them. They think they are movie stars or something, and they can't go anywhere outside of the room without their sunglasses! Styling kiddos! Probably the most struggle of all is keeping the kids from spoiling the baby. Okay, truth be known, he is spoiled! Really! But we are trying to keep the other children, mainly Fabian, focused on being a child and not having to feel responsible to tend to the baby. He has a natural tendency to keep the baby from crying. But we made some real headway l night when we let the baby cry to sleep and Fabian really had a hard time at first but he listened to me and found out that Mami knows what she's talking about when I say that the baby will cry himself to sleep and it's okay to do so. We have been easing into this and at the same time trying to tell the kids we love all of them and that they are our forever family, and we accept and love them unconditionally. This morning Fabian came out of the shower and baby Luis was crying away for no reason and where the boy just yesterday would have picked his little brother up without hestitation, he leaned over and started mimicking the crying. What a breakthrough! Well the kids and Rick are back from swimming so I'll sign off. Please keep our family in your prayers - For everyone's health be renewed and our process to move along within the courts.
May God bless you,
Much love, Genece

Trying for a Lazy Day

First off, Happy Thanksgiving! We certainly tried to have a lazy day and it started off that way. We were all prepared for a relaxing little day, but poor Marissa got real sick and has been feeling terrible all day. She's kept me busy all day with helping her out. Please pray that this bug work its way through and that her health be restored.

Well, just as I was about to report on how everything else is running smoothly and how fortunate we are for only one sick child, it would appear that I'm going to have to put Luis in another bath to clean him up. Just when I thought the coast was clear and there would be smooth sailing for the rest of the night... oh well, the things we mothers must endure for our children.

More later if I get a chance. We're hoping to get all in bed tonight for an early morning meeting with the ICBF regarding how we're bonding, and its set for the first thing in the morning so we want to be prepared.

Goodnight from beautiful Cucuta! Ciao! Genece

Still working through the photo issues

Hola,
Still having issues with the photo downloads that won't go through, but I will at least report on our day. We started off leisurely, which we should know by now is not the thing to do. As we were about to get ready to go to breakfast we got a call from Alexandra who said they would be coming for us at 9:45 for a 10am appointment with the notary. I'm guessing the call came in at no earlier than 9:20 or so, because once again we hurried to get ready. After we completed the notary business we got the kids' pictures done for their passports. They were so cute and so excited. We walked downtown for a little while and had lunch then came back to the hotel. Of course, the kids kept saying, "when can we go in the pool" which is their most popular question of the day and they repeat it over and over, no matter what answer you give. Definitely the highlight of their day! They're actually learning swimming techniques very well, but poor Papi who is the "pool ornament" with 3 little kiddos climbing on him and waiting their turn for him to throw them out of the water on the count of 3.

Today marked the day that Luis really opened up to Rick. The little guy is really feeling much better and we thank you for your prayers. Now if we could just get our oldest son well everyone would be in great health.

I hope to get those pictures for you soon. I really want to show off our wonderful children. They are so cute and they've bonded so well with us and it happened almost instantaneous. This was our interpreter's first time participating in an adoption and she continues to remark about how touching our "Gotcha day" was. She says it was pure love and so beautiful to witness such an event.

More later but I must get back to trying to download the photos. Keep our family lifted up!

May God bless you!
Love, Genece

Pictures from our first day together

I'm having a bit of a problem posting pictures but I'm bound and determined to accomplish my goal and get them up somehow. So I ask that you bear with me as I try to do this in between the few moments I have free. Seems our little one is nothing but a mama's boy, and recovering from a little sickness. He's had a fever ever since we go him but I just got it to break earlier in the day. We're suspecting it might be teething as a possible culprit, but even so, he's definitely a mama's boy. He's slowly warming up to Rick and after a few more spoonfuls of our daily intake of Colombia's out-of-this-world wonderful tasting ice cream, the baby will be all over his papi. It sure is a joy to hear the words "Mira Mami". Who knew what joy that would bring? These kiddos are just fearless in the pool. Almost a bit too much! But they are absolute joys and even with a scheduled power outage today of a few hours, they weren't too bored. That's to be expected though as soon as the new wears off, you know.

Well, I'd better go and try something else with this picture issue. Please pray that my children all recover from their slight illnesses. The older two with slight colds and the baby with his fever problems. Thanks for looking in and we appreciate your prayers so very much. Life is good hre in Colombia. Ciao! Genece

What Beautiful Treasures God Brings!

Real quick while I have a free moment I want to report that all went well with our very memorable "gotcha" day. So many memories to share and we will catch you up on them just as soon as there is some time, but in a nutshell we were set to meet at 2 pm so we leisurely went to breakfast with hopes to pass some of the time later getting ready for our afternoon meeting. As we were just wrapping up breakfast we were met by Alexandra, our interpreter, who said they were ready to meet us earlier, and that we needed to be there at 10AM. What a surprise to us, because this news came at 9:45am meaning we must hurry get ready. They called again as we were enroute to let us know the children had arrived and they were eager to meet us. The meeting went so well and when we met the children there was no doubt in our minds how much God's hands were there. We met also with the wonderful foster mothers who had taken such wonderful and loving care of our children, and I was very emotional and so very thankful for meeting with them and showing the appreciation they are so incredibly worthy of! We will eternally be grateful for the love and direction they have shown to the children! They are very good kids and just a joy to be around. Fabian is mastering the english language quite nicely. I will write more when I have a chance. We just got back from the pool (which they loved) and we are hungry. Pictures later, I promise!

Love to all and thanks for your prayers! God is so good!
Genece

We've arrived!

This will be a short post to let everyone know that we arrived safely in our travels to Cucuta today. We love it here and they weren't kidding when this place was described as HOT and HUMID. The real funny thing is that today they are experiencing the coldest of days here and sadly so it's in the 70s and it's considered cold outside.

I'll give more of an update tomorrow, but wanted to thank everyone for their prayers and there's no doubt about it, God has been leading the way for us and His wonderful presence surrounds us in such incredible ways! This has been shown in so many ways and through the many wonderful people who we've encountered along the way on this journey so far.

We love our hotel and Colombia is really a beautiful place. More tomorrow.... but until then may God bless you abundantly. He sure has done that for us and we're so close now to experiencing the many blessings He has in store for us. Hours from now... it's hard to perceive!

Love to all!

We made it to Oregon safely!

We are in Oregon and made it safely here. We are certainly exhausted as we are surviving on less than 2 hours sleep in the past almost 2 days, but we are hoping to rest for a few days before we pick up our next leg of the travel on our journey to Colombia. Our visas arrived here in Oregon today so we are cleared to go. So far the only item we left in Alaska is the laptop, but with the help of our great (and trusty) friends, the Reno family, we hope to receive that by way of Fedex either tomorrow or Wednesday. It is a much-needed item for our trip and I can't believe we left without it, but in our rush-enhanced state of mind we were so frantically racing in the midst a treacherous snowstorm to get to the airport. I'll explain in more detail a little later, but wanted to let you know we made it to Oregon! We've met some wonderful people as we're traveling whom we need to thank & we want to extend our thanks to them also.

The journey continues... and when I have a fresh mind I'll write more. We're counting our blessings and looking forward to the countdown as we are only days away now! Praise God!

Love, Genece

The date is set!

Alright, so much has transpired in the past few days, and complete chaos has ensued, but with great enthusiasm we report our date is set! We'll meet our children on Monday, November the 19th! How fitting that the 19th would be the date issued as our "Gotcha Day" because and for the past 2 months now faithfully every week I would check airfares and availability on flights over to Colombia, and ALWAYS kept with the same dates... and oddly so, it was always with the assumption we would receive our children on the 19th! Never once did I deviate from the thought of preparing for travel around the 19th. It just amazes me so. Looking back it's hard to believe now that all along I've had that particular date pinpointed for such a monumental event, and I'm learning to be thankful for and to discern the wisdom God places upon me! This one was clearly a sign from God on His perfect timing, but all along I didn't want to wait. So many times I wanted to hit the fast forward button, but hey I'm learning to be patient because I know of His faithfulness!

I'll write more tomorrow as I am just drained after staring at computer screens displaying flight possibilities and potential routes and fares for the past day and a half. I'm happy to say we've locked in our flights and I still have all limbs intact after paying -- but only barely... LOL! Really, it was a huge enlightenment process, and to think that for years I actually dreamed of being a travel agent! Just INSANE!! Wow, back in the day I really was a little jealous of so many of my friends who went on to "travel school". I can honestly say that after spending over one and a half days parked right in front of the computer searching for the best online deals, I'm wiped out! I could not imagine making a career of it.

I'll write more when I'm thinking more clearly.

Many Blessings,
Genece

Signed Acceptance

Today we sent off our official Acceptance Letter to Colombia stating how thrilled we are to accept the referral of our three children! We will hear back within the next few days when we are set to meet the children! The ICBF will coordinate a date for us to appear to meet the children and we must adhere to that date. We'll have to apply for and receive our visas before traveling, which we're hoping will go smoothly and very fast. Our visas are processed out of the San Francisco consulate's office and since we're in Alaska, this might be fun to arrange sending the documents back and forth. We fully expect the Colombian officials will set a quick travel date for us to appear due to several reasons. Mostly because we are approaching the holiday season and need to move on this so we are able to finish the adoption in time for a return to the U.S. before Christmas. We're so looking forward to having a wonderful Christmas this year with our children, so the rush we're prepared for is well worth it! We'll have so much more to celebrate as we honor Christ on His birthday!

It is worthy of noting that some of our online friends who are also adopting 3 children and turned their paperwork in just one week ago got issued their date and they gave them a presentation date of less than 2 weeks away! In that short timeframe of one and a half weeks they must make their travel preparations, apply for visas, arrange for lodging, etc., arrive in Colombia, and meet their children on that specific date. Amazingly QUICK!! We fully expect our timeframes to be quite similar! Approximately 2 weeks time to prepare -- YIKES!!! A bit overwhelming? Well definitely! But we know that God will help us through it and that through Him ALL things are possible!

As more info becomes available I'll try to get the word out. Keep the prayers going up as we are still in need of many! I could use more specific prayers for my own sanity to remain intact here in the final stretch! Feel free to intercede on my behalf as much as you wish to... I feel a great need for some help!

Thanks for your support and we'll write more when we have a free moment.

Love, Genece

We got their pictures!

Our agency sent pictures of the children and they are much more wonderful than we ever imagined! They’re just perfect in our eyes. Marissa stated they didn’t even look Colombian – as if Colombians had a certain look to uphold and couldn’t stray from having that particular look! Silly Marissa! I must admit, there’s clearly a resemblance between our new daughter, Karen, and her new sister, Marissa, so perhaps Marissa wasn’t expecting her new sister to look so much like her. The boy, Fabian, also resembles some of Rick’s side of the family members when they were younger. It’s just amazing how God weaves us together so intricately when He brings families together! Then there’s the baby – naturally precious just because all babies to me are like that. Make no mistake, he’s simply adorable! It reminds me of when Marissa was born and one of my most voiceful and opinionated friends remarked upon seeing her in the hospital nursery, “She’s actually beautiful and I’m not telling a lie like I normally do when I look at newborns. She really is a beautiful baby!.” She went into full explanation detailing the essence of cuteness that all babies naturally have, but most didn’t carry beauty… whatever that means! She was never the best of my friends, but presented a different take on things, for sure, and somewhere in that huge explanation I’m sure there was a compliment or two.

I wish I could post their pictures right now so you could see what I mean, but I have to wait a bit for that. For now you’ll have to take my word that they are very beautiful children and it’s clear to see why God chose them to become part of our family! God’s loving touch is so amazing and to witness His extravagant works has been magnificently rewarding!

We are expecting the information on the children to come on Monday. We’d love to see it earlier, like maybe today, so we could read it over the weekend! We are all so very excited to learn much more about the children, and more eager to get moving along with this adoption process. I know I’ll certainly rest a bit easier once they assign our presentation day (which is the day we’ll meet the kids), and we’re able to finalize our travel dates and make our reservations, etc. Great relief will come upon completion of that phase of this adoption, I just know it!

We thank everyone so much for the support and encouragement sent our way! It means everything to us! We ask that you continue to keep our family in your prayers as we embark upon this journey. Please pray specifically for God’s protection of our precious little Colombian children, Fabian, Karen, and Luis.

May God bless you all in many wonderful ways!

-genece-

Our REFERRAL Came!

Our apologies for not posting sooner about our referral coming, but I can attest firsthand how easily things move from a smooth/steady pace instantly to an out of control spin when the actual REFERRAL call comes in. Simply WILD!! At least that's what it seemed to do for us. We now have more of our composure intact and are able to more accurately depict the miraculous transformation God has been (and continues) making in our lives. My, my, my, what surprises Our Father brings! We are so grateful -- truly blessed in ways immeasurable!

Read on and you'll know what I'm referring to...

On Thursday late afternoon we got "the call" we'd been officially matched which brought a sense of elation beyond imagination! To hear those happy words that we'd been assigned a referral left me with joy filling my heart. As I peaked to a level of excitement that was almost scary, and as I hung on every word my case manager was saying, a little pause came followed by her speaking the word BUT which usually warrants a 180 degree turnaround of emotion. As she told of the referral, gave the children's ages and genders, then followed that with saying, " ...BUT, we as an agency don't recommend you take this referral!" I immediately went into tough-mama-bear-protecting-her-cubs mode! Honestly I couldn't believe how negative the agency was being then. Still, as the days pass they haven't swayed from their position still offering negativity and trying to discourage us from taking this referral. Nothing really new to encounter as we've certainly experienced much disappointment handed down from the agency thus far in the entire adoption proces. Our gratitude goes out to God for strengthening us in those troubling times we've endured! The turmoil we endured was painful at times but so necessary for the fight that was to come. We thank you God for stretching us and preparing us for our future!

Okay, back to the referral....sorry for getting off base, but had to give a little shout out for God's protection and guidance for all He's done for us! Our referral is one the agency finds to be extremely rare, from what they keep saying. Rick and I are as happy as happy can be and cannot wait to meet our children.

It's for a sibling group of 3 children (2 boys and one girl) -- the oldest who is a boy, age 9; then a girl, age 7; and then a baby boy, age 8 months. Yes, that's no typo... a baby boy! What awesome gifts from God!

We will receive their information in a few days as it is being translated right now which takes a few days. We will post more information as we learn more. We're excited to learn about their personalities and wondering what they will be like! As you can tell we are very anxious for those materials to get here. We know they were placed for us by God! There are too many instances in this process where God has lifted us up and opened our hearts in order to prepare ourselves for the infant and the other children we are about to receive! It's just amazing! So very humbling!

Thank you for your prayers. We need them!

So now we at least know who is waiting in Cucuta, which is a pure blessing -- 3 little blessings as a matter of fact! Luckily I even still have some baby things from when I was doing child care years back, and some even as far back as when Marissa was little. Rick had been hounding me for the past year even to part with all the baby/toddler toys & stuff we'd accumulated, but I wouldn't stand for it Crazy how that works!

As soon as more info comes in, I'll report it. I've been learning to stand firm with our agency as they continue to strongly advise us against taking these children as a referral, but with our trust firmly placed in the Lord, our Saviour, He will give us all the strength we need to fend off anything the enemy brings forth. Even though our agency doesn't back the decisions made for our family, WE DO, because we know God stands with us and He is the divine matchmaker! He makes NO mistakes! God works the many miracles in our lives -- HALLELUJAH! Your prayers, as always, are greatly appreciated! We thank you for your support!

Love, Genece & Rick

The Amazing 2 Pairs of Dockers

Wow! What an amazing shopping trek today! I figured I had less than an hour to waste so why not go to Sears and do a little looking around. I wasn't looking for anything in particular, just passing the time. Nothing really gathered my interest and there weren't really any good sales in the womens or the kids departments, but I couldn't help but notice that Men's Dockers dress slacks were on sale in many sizes and colors for only $9.99, and anyone who knows me, knows I can't pass up a bargain like that! So I thought I'd spring for 2 pairs for Rick since he's just lately finding he doesn't mind dressing up nice after all. (That revelation was long overdue!!!) With his new openness to wearing Dockers instead of his usual jeans style, I couldn't pass this bargain by. So off to the checkout I went. The checker seemed to be having problems getting the tags to ring into her computerized register, and fiddled and fiddled with it, all the time with this confused gaze on her face. She finally got one of the pairs of pants to ring in, and couldn't get the other one to process in. After many tries both of them finally rang in and I was about ready to swipe one of my cards. She bagged the garments up nicely and as I was just about to swipe the card through but noticed my screen wasn't lighting up to show me the price (as it normally does). When I asked about it, she said, that's because there's nothing to show. Then she handed me the bag and wished me a good day! I said, "But I need to pay for these!" She giggled a little as she was handing me my sales slip showing the item pricings were both zeroed out, which meant FREE. Immediately I gave a little thanks out to God, and she was obviously was a christian believer, because she remarked, "Yes, God can do awesome things, can't He? Now you have a wonderful day!" I almost felt completely embarrassed to leave without paying -- I'd never done that before! I was waiting for the "Candid Camera" people to come around the corner, but they didn't. No tricks being played.

Now Rick had better get some wear out of these pants specifically for some of the dressier occasions while in Colombia. When he wears them I'll forever be reminded of how God worked His amazement through 2 bargain-priced pairs of Dockers!

No word yet from the adoption referral. We've guessed all combos of what the children will be; whether they'll be all boys, all girls, or more girls, or more boys. Sure wish we'd hear something more definite. Keep our family in your prayers, even for our 3 children-to-be. Pray that God brings us together soon.

Moving Right Along... to a Regional office!!! YES!!

Alright, first PRAISE GOD!! This has been by far the most remarkable week in such a long time! Thank you Dear Savior!

Okay, I'm sure you're saying....hmmm???? Why is that map of Colombia marked with only one town, Cucuta? Well that's our regional assignment! CUCUTA -- YEAH!!!

On Monday we learned our dossier was approved by the ICBF, and by Wednesday we learned our dossier was sent to a regional ICBF office to the town of Cucuta in the Norte de Santander district. There in Cucuta, a border town next to Venezuela, the ICBF committee will make their recommendations on our dossier and match us with children. This is so exciting to know how close we truly are to meeting the children God has pre-destined to join our family! It is our understanding that our paperwork was sent with 3 specific children in mind for our family, but until official approval is granted, my agency won't part with any knowledge or information they may have. It would seem that our documents were sent to Cucuta because they had a sibling set in mind for us there. They hinted at a note put on the front of the paperwork asking to be matched to a certain set, but that's all the info they would give out. Nothing else. Not sure if it's girls, if it's boys, or if there's a mix. The agency's been super tight-lipped and won't answer any of my specific questions. Maybe they're afraid we won't be able to handle disppointment? HAAAA! They really should know better with all the ups and downs we've encountered throughout this process!

So for now we must be happy in knowing and trusting that God has a plan for our family. Heck we're just happy that if this is approved, we'll be spending most of our duration in Colombia in a super warm environment! Temperatures are in the 90s and might drop down into the 70s -- How nice!!! I'm told it's HOT & HUMID there -- but that just spells vacation weather to me!

I'll try to better explain what more our process entails so please bear with me. Within the next 3 weeks the ICBF will meet to make their recommendations of children they deem suitable to join our family. If we are approved and a match of a sibling set is agreed upon by the ICBF committee, we will be issued an official "referral" where our agency will release the pictures, the medical information, and all sorts of information about the 3 children they've selected for our family. We review it and are given 2 weeks to decide if they are to be our children, at which time we send an acceptance letter petitioning to adopt those selected children. After that, the in-country representative schedules for a presentation day (sometimes it's called "Gotcha" Day) which is the day when we'll meet with the social workers and review the children's history and case information, then (the most important part) we get to MEET the Children!! YIPPEE!!!! We just cannot wait!!

Travel to Colombia usually follows within 3 to 4 weeks of the referral date. It almost takes that time in order to process all the remaining paperwork like petitioning for Visas, re-doing fingerprint cards and other paperwork, and all the last minute stuff to get things in order for being out-of-country for the next month or two. Colombia uses this 3 to 4 weeks time before the family travels to Colombia to counsel and prepare the children by familiarizing and counseling them on their upcoming adoption. I must say that from the Colombia really does such a remarkable job in helping equip the children with knowledge & providing support throughout the entire adoption process.

From that moment we meet the children on Gotcha Day, they are ours and will remain in our custody from that point! Exciting huh? We sure think so! Usually one week after the initial meeting another meeting is scheduled as a follow-up on progress, on bonding, and to see if we're all blending as a family & are a good match. If so, the court process begins which might take another week, or 2, or maybe 3 (this is the phase that isn't easy to accurately pinpoint a timeframe because it can vary depending on location and which court you're assigned). After the court business is completed, a flight back over to Bogota (the capital city of Colombia) to finalize business with the U.S. Embassy, then we're cleared to come home.

Hopefully you get a better picture of what we are in store for. Like I said, we expect to have a referral any day now and could get "the call" we've been patiently waiting for at anytime! Oh it's so hard to concentrate nowadays!!! Wondering who might be waiting for us in Cucuta absorbs my every thought throughout the day. But the Lord is our strength and He carrys us through and Rick and I trust Him completely and follow His lead. God will lead us to the chosen ones He's selected for our family and we know to trust in Him with all our hearts! Just knowing there are 3 that patiently waiting in Cucuta, just as we 3 are patiently waiting here -- half a sky away, is such a pleasant daydream that may soon reveal itself in true life form! Hallelujah! Praise God!

Please pray for our family to be together soon!

Thank you, and may God bless you in the most wonderful of ways!

We're APPROVED for 3 children!!!

Okay, great news of an approval came today and upon hearing that, we all did the HAPPY DANCE, and that was so much fun. What a blast! What a special memory! Marissa is so funny with her rendition of her very own "happy dance". I don't have all the info but news came through a late afternoon email that we received our approval from the ICBF for 3 children under 10 years of age. I'll know more when the actual document is translated and sent to us, but this is what I learned today. We're excited to hear this news and it puts us one step closer! It was also said in the email that the normal timeline for an adoption of older children or sibling groups is averaging 2-8 months, however our program manager believes that the match will be made much sooner. How encouraging! FINALLY some optimism coming from my agency! I hope to find out much more tomorrow as I'm going to bombard them with my many questions.

We wanted to share the exciting news with you. Thanks for looking in on us! As always, keep those prayers a rolling!

Thanking our heavenly Father for His Faithfulness!
---genece & rick---

Quick Update

Yesterday we learned Rick's dad, Dave, was admitted to the hospital with a possible heart attack, and until the doctor's could monitor his situation and determine more of what had happened, it was a largely-stressful afternoon. By the evening we had learned he was stablized and still undergoing tests, etc., but Rick and Marissa were both able to talk to him over the phone.

This morning we learned he had a blockage which would require a stint. They seem to believe he'll be cleared to travel home to Oregon sometime in the next few days.

I'm purely amazed at how God knits us all together -- how He often places those individuals so skilled in helping out in our times of trouble and pairs us up to soften each others' hurts or problems. This is a classic example of how God chose the right timing for Dave's medical condition to happen, and placed an individual near him that was both skilled and courageous enough to step up and offer assistance and get him help before it led to worse conditions. Thanks Randy (and Cathe)! There's not a lot of people out there in the world that Dave would even let step in like that, which is another example of how God works. (If you're reading between the lines, yes, my father-in-law does have a little of a stubborn side and probably never would have gone to a hospital without some big-time coaxing.)

The great news is that they've diagnosed the problem areas and are well on their way to fixing them. Thank you Lord for watching over Dave as you have! Thank you everyone for your prayers, also! Still no word back from the adoption agency but we're still hoping for great news to come real soon!

~~genece~~

God's Amazing Displays

With the adoption paperwork all turned in and now we're back into the waiting phase, I'm hoping to use some of this time to catch you up on a few happenings in the past few weeks. Here's a beautiful picture that Rick took while he was on his way home from work one day a few weeks back. Not too sure if you can tell from the picture (because all he had charged up and available to use was his PALM), but it is a photo of a double rainbow. They're magnificent to view if you've ever seen one! We live in Alaska and are very grateful for God's amazing displays of beauty all around us. We've been witness to several double rainbows this year and I'm hoping there's great footage on our movie recorder from the one I filmed while we were leaving the Alaska State Fair last month. It'd be neat to send that in the footage with our movie introduction of our family.

Gotta run an errand real quick but there's lots to share so please stay tuned.... There's much more to come.



Real quick, we could definitely use your prayers and have a specific prayer request for Rick's father, whom we learned earlier today suffered a heart attack. We're still awaiting more detailed information but we know that he is in the hospital and doctors are monitoring him and working to stablize his condition. This news came to us only 3 hours ago. Rick's parents are over in Colorado now and for the past month have been trekking with their RV across country. Luckily they were in Colorado visiting family when it happened. Apparently Rick talked to his dad this morning and he was complaining of hurting, and was explaining just a few of the symptoms, but nobody thought "heart attack" symptoms just then. An hour later when he complained his pain had increasingly become worse, Rick's cousin became worried it might be a heart attack (his cousin had suffered a heart attack only 3 years ago or so and remembered how his symptoms came on.) We ask that you please keep Rick's father, Dave, in your prayers. From our hearts we sincerely thank you and will post more information as it becomes available.

WAITING again...

With our documents back in Colombia now, again we wait! To wait is such a hard thing to do. I find myself drifting off wondering when we'll get our referral, wondering which area of Colombia we'll travel to, what the children will be like, and whether or not this will even happen this year! For some time now my favorite pastime has been to check blogs of other adopting families to track their progress. It's really therapeutic and very addicting! I'm also on a few Colombian adoption lists and regularly check their discussion forums. I also participate in a chat room praying specifically for Colombian adoptions and through that group have grown such awesome relationships with those others who regularly participate in the prayer group.

I know I need to do so many things in order to prepare for the joy that is to come, and I hope that next week will bring much more productive energy my way. I pray that God will again put me on the right track and keep me focused and able to do other things that are needing done! In the meantime I just wanted to update you that we are WAITING again...

Thanks for your prayers! We feel them and we're mighty grateful for them!

Many Blessings!
---genece---

Prayers Answered and Doors Opened!! YEAH!!!!

First of all, thank you so much for the prayers! We feel their great presence and my how they are working!!!! After weeks of pleading with Catholic Social Services offices, and having no luck, I was finally able to get the receptionist to patch me through to someone this Monday afternoon. As I explained the many struggles we’d encountered, she assured me she would look into it and have some sort of solid answer for the delay by tomorrow. I felt a little more confident after she explained that as of today she was in charge of the entire adoption services department. Just as promised, her assistant called me the following morning to let me know my paperwork was waiting for pick-up in their office. YEAH!!!! That’s what we’ve been needing, and now I could drive to Anchorage to get it. At that time I thought to myself, "Wow, sure wish Rick could take some time off from work and drive into Anchorage with me (because by week’s end we need to drive again to Anchorage to have our fingerprints redone with USCIS -- ours were set to expire on Aug. 31st)." We’d planned to drive into Anchorage later in the week because right now his construction project is so involved and at such a critical point right now and he couldn’t possibly break away until later in the week. Even so, I couldn’t help but wish there was some way to bypass making another trip to Anchorage later in the week. That’s when God opened the doors WIDE OPEN!! At that very instant, Rick called to report he’d unexpectedly hit a stopping point at his jobsite! One of Rick’s workers had been complaining of feeling sick all morning, and the other helper just amazingly remembered he had a doctor’s appointment in which he was about to miss if he didn’t leave right then. So Rick gave them the day off, but being the work-a-holic that he is, he tried to busy himself with other little tasks for the remainder of the day. When he called to let me know what was going on, he told of how weird it was that at that same moment both of the guys needed to go, but instead of being frazzled about their job being halted, he had a wave of calmness just blanket him. Then I told him, "Rick, I think God’s telling us it’s time!! We need to travel to Anchorage to pick up the document and then go to the USCIS for fingerprints while we’re there too. God just miraculously created an opportunity for us to move forward with this adoption! We’ve been patiently waiting by the door awaiting our Lord’s instruction and now the doors are flinging WIDE OPEN and we have to act now – it’s God’s perfect timing!"
Experiencing God’s amazing way of taking control is just pure joy! Thank you so much everyone for your prayers! Please know how much your prayers are moving our process along in such a mighty way! The documents are scheduled to arrive in Colombia early next week, where they will be translated which takes another week. By my calculations, we should still have 4 weeks or so from that point in which we might receive a referral, then travel, complete the adoption and be home in the U.S. with our new additions to the family before Christmas If a referral doesn’t get issued within the next 5 weeks, it is likely we will not receive the children before Christmas, and we would not be able to travel to meet them until next year. Taking into consideration that the ICBF closes their offices from approx. Dec. 15th to Jan. 15th, they try to finalize all adoptions by that month-long holiday so that no families have to stay an extra month’s time in Colombia. I sure hope that made sense! We continue to keep the window of optimism open and place all our trust in God to see it through. Please pray alongside with us for the paperwork & referrals to process through at lightning speeds! Continue to pray that those Colombian officials reach a speedy decision in matching our children with us, and also in matching children to the other waiting families awaiting referrals from Colombia.