'Rents Night

My trip to the American Embassy was quick and easy today. Helena and I were in and out of there in 15 minutes. Mariana is officially cleared for take off. Entirely. We are done with the paperwork. DONE!!!! I can't believe it actually so i have to keep writing it. But there it is in her passport:an American travel visa, a highly coveted thing down here and not something given out easily. We met an American guy at the Embassy yesterday who had been waiting there 8 hrs and still wasn't sure if they would give his Colombian wife a travel visa. They give priority to adopted children so we just breezed up there and left while the hordes waited anxiously to see if they would be rejected. I felt a little guilty and grateful at the same time.

Last night we had an adults only fiesta downstairs in the side lobby. Hilary organized it of course, always the planner. We had wine and chocolate that we brought from home. It was a great time. I think it was the first time since we're here that we stayed up past 11:00. Wackiness I know. Hanging with the other parents was interesting because we're all going through the same stuff. Here we were, people from Holland, Sweden, Norway and the USA and we all the common bond of having Colombian children. It was nice to share some of the stories of where we screwed things up (like for instance, whoops it's been 6 hours and we forgot to feed the baby, yikes!) because each of has had similar offenses and the baby was fine. Resilient little buggers those babies.

I put in some shots of the hotel and staff so y'all can get an idea of what it looks like here. Our room is at the top of the stairs on the right. The picture below is of Mariana with 3 of her Colombian Tia's: (left to right) Blanca, Luz, and Berta.

Hilary "loving" the latest hot doggy invention in this photo.








And another shot of the cuteness that is... Mariana Josephine Verni - it's official now, she's a Verni!