Maria's first manicure! (Given by sweet Camilla who's seven and lives at the hotel with her mom who's the manager.)
We went to the Bogota Botanical Gardens on Friday (I think - the days are getting all mixed up in my head!)with two other American adoptive families (the Kerns and the Follands) who are staying at Hotel Paris, and for awhile there we were the main attraction! There was a group of elderly people who surrounded us and touched us and talked to us and this woman in the picture gave blessings and kisses to all of our children.
They also took photos with/of us! All of them were so sweet!
About ten minutes later another large group of Colombian adults stopped and stared at us. A few lingered very close and watched us intensely. Phyllis tried to engage them in conversation and after a few more minutes of staring at us they obliged. We felt like we were under a microscope!
We then went into the green houses and wow, were they beautiful!
Carlos got to see a turtle, so he was very happy!
There were many groups of school children at the gardens as well. The little ones were so cute! All of the school childen wear matching outing uniforms when they go on a field trip. (They wear more traditional uniforms to school.) This group of kids were pretending to be mariposas (butterflies) while walking to the butterfly exhibit.
Aren't they sweet?!
On Saturday we walked to UniCentro, the mall, with the Housemans and Thompsons. There is a great path that we can take to avoid the main roads, which also has playgrounds every so often which Carlos and Jacob enjoyed:
After walking around for an hour we stopped to have some icecream.
They even had sorbet, so I could enjoy a cone along with everyone else! Yeah!
This is the last photo we have of the boys together. The Housemans left early this morning to go back home to Michigan. We will miss them around here, but are so happy for them! Thank you Houseman family for your friendship!
Sunday was election day, so we were told that we should stay at the hotel and not go walking around as there will be a lot of people on the streets, maybe some protestors and demonstrators. So Rachel Thompson and I talked on Saturday about all of the activities we could do at the hotel to keep ourselves and our little ones entertained all day! But then on Sunday morning, Dave Houseman said that Katya (the owner of Hotel Paris) said it would be fine to walk to the market. So, Rachel and I jumped at that chance and left the hotel with Mom and Dad K. and the kids at 9:30 a.m.!
The walk is over a mile along a very busy exhaust-filled road and is partly up hill. It's always a tiring walk, but the market is enjoyable so it's worth it. Well, unbeknownst to us, the market was closed because of election day! It was a bummer, but there is a mall close by that is partly outdoors and they have a nice little playground, so that's where we spent a good part of our morning before heading back to the hotel just in time for lunch. It was not the morning we were planning on, but it always feels good to get out of the hotel for a bit!
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