packing day...

Jayden watching Michigan Out Of Doors online with Lucy and Hunter Easton's bear that he accidentally left here!  Luisa is giving Hunter lots of love for you Easton.

Everything comes in bags here.  The jam, milk, oj, water, yogurt.  Which is fine when you buy it and then stay home, but when you have to move with a bag of opened milk (the jam is the only one with a nifty top on it all the rest you have to put in a separate container) it requires a little more thought.

Almost all packed up and ready to go.  I had forgotten about 2 year old behavior, she was taking stuff out as fast as I was putting it in, and turning on and off the lights, and climbing onto things and touching EVERYTHING that she shouldn't....But, she is a sweet baby and we managed to get it all done despite her 2 year old behavior!

I bribed the boys with a chocolate milkshake at El Corral if they worked hard for me today.  Which of course they did, I am so glad I have my guys here!

It was raining tonight, we made it back from the mall just in time.

We had a good day again today, although packing up was sad.  I found a few items left by the kids and I teared up, and I am a tad nervous to go to our new neighborhood.  I love this one, but I need to move to save some major money, however, the new neighborhood looks very nice.  It is like moving from the suburbs to downtown.  So it will probably be louder, but who knows, and we won't have access to the pool after this week.  I hope to get our internet up and running so I can continue to update the blog!  It was great to be able to Skype with the family today, they finally made it home, safe and sound.  There was a boatload of groceries there waiting for them!  Thank you to everyone who is taking such great care of us, we really do appreciate you!

Casa de Campo...

First of all, Ryan and the kids finally made it safely to Chicago late tonight.  They will be home tomorrow.

Secondly, sorry for the bad pictures, we no longer have our photographer with us.  We miss you Mary Ellen!

Lucy being goofy while we waited for the van to take us to the

Spencer took this picture of the palm tree at the club.

In the van ready to go, we thought it was just going to be the 3 of us. But we stopped and picked up several more people and the van was packed by the time we got there!

She likes to sit by the window, and whom ever is closest to the window.

Casa de Campo is a country like setting in a mountainous area with a small lake and water sports and a restaurant.  We were able to catch a ride there through the club, it is a members only type place I think and I am glad we went and were able to check it out.

It is hard to see but there were mountains in the back ground.  It was a beautiful setting, too bad it sprinkled on and off all day long.

Luisa copying her brothers.  Silly girl.  They got a huge kick out of the dogs that were running around playing all day.

Luisa loved jumping on the trampoline with the boys, she is a wild child just like her sister!

The boys had fun with the water on the tramploine

Luisa was not too sure about swinging so high.

We left the house this morning at around 9 and didn't get back until 7pm!  It was a good day even with the rain.  We sat around a bit, but we had a good time laughing at Luisa when she ate dirt, ate bubbles, and got totally freaked out when the speed boats would take off pulling someone on water skis.  We met several very friendly people there today, we also saw one of our drivers, and the lady who owns this apartment too!  It was comforting to know they were there as I was very nervous about my Spanish up there.  I feel like God just places these people right there when I need them and it is so incredibly awesome!  But I did have a small conversation with a man entirely in Spanish.  I probably sounded like a 2 year old trying to talk, but at least I tried!  It is amazing how being put in the situation helps it to come back to your mind, that, and Mary Ellen's Spanish dictionary helped a ton too!  {Thanks Mary Ellen!}  I looked up a few words before I approached the life guard to ask if the boys could jump on the water trampoline.

Well, it is late, I have been Skyping with my family, it is so good to see their faces!  Thank you Lord for Skype!  Tomorrow we will be packing up this apartment and getting ready to leave for the new one on Tuesday.  Thanks for praying and checking in on us.  Your words of encouragement are a blessing, thanks for the comments!

This is for the birds...

 No, literally, we have had our windows open the entire 2 weeks we were here and never had a bird inside, then all of a sudden today, these guys show up!  It was kinda cool, but I wanted to make sure they flew back out and not further into the house!  That would have been creepy.

 Since we are on the subject of birds, here are the quail eggs that they say Luisa likes to eat! 

 they are cute little bite size things, we saw someone eating them from a street vendor too, so they must be popular.

 Yes, she likes them!

But what is for the birds is being separated from the rest of our family!

 

They are giving their sad faces.  We really did cry too much today, we are hoping tomorrow is better and that by Monday we will be able to actually talk to and see Ryan via skype and things should get better by then.  We know that each day is a gift and we are going to try to enjoy our time here.  We think we are going to try to go to the club tomorrow as they take a bus to the 'country' and there is a lake and water sports, fishing, kayaking for us to do.  We are not going to be here at this apartment much longer so we decided to try to take advantage of the club while we can, plus we will be gone all day and hopefully that will get our mind off the fact that we miss the rest of the family so much!  Of course it did not help that I have such a sweet husband and eldest son.  We found notes all around the house for us today!  Here are a few...

 We watched a movie in Spanish!  Wishing I took more movies along!

The night ended with the lady who owns the apartment stopping by to give us the receipt for paying rent and a (still warm) spice cake.  I cried again.  They are just too darn sweet here!  She just wanted to check on us and said I could call her at anytime for anything! 



"Thank you Lord for loving us and giving me encouragement when I needed it the most!  Please help us to enjoy our time in Colombia and bring us back together again...SOON!"

*UPDATE* Ryan, the kids and Mary Ellen are staying in the same hotel that we stayed at in Bogota.  They are being treated well, they got 2 rooms and all meals (Ryan got a steak!) paid for by the airline.  They should leave Bogota tomorrow morning at 10:30 and should arrive in Chicago at 5:25pm.  Thanks for praying.

Sad...

We are all very sad to be separated from each other! This is the part we all have been dreading, pretty much from the beginning. But we know that we are here for a very good reason, and trust God to help us through! Will post more later, just wanted to give a quick update. Ryan, Dylan, Easton, Anaya and Mary Ellen are all stuck in Bogota. Their flight out of Bucaramanga was canceled this morning, so they missed their flight out of Bogota. Last I heard, they were flying out tomorrow morning! We are really bummed we couldn't have spent this day together!

Lots of tears were shed this morning when 1/2 of the family left!  It is just not right!

Luis was wondering what was going on!

Here are a few happier shots we got last night before they left!

Please pray this process goes fast so we can be together again! 

Chichamocha Canyon...

Yes, he is on cloud 9 that she wanted to sit on his lap!

We headed out in Alvaro's van this morning at around 9am

We stopped at a 'toll road' of sorts and the boys bought some fried ants to take home for their cousins to eat!

We were told there was a zoo, but in fact there were only goats!  Good thing my kids LOVE goats!!!

I do not know what I will do with my other half leaving soon!  Dreading it!

Love this cheese-ball, so glad he is staying with me!

Will miss this one!

There was this weird big huge monument thing that was on a steep curve, these pictures show a tad bit of the depth, it was freakishly high!

The flowers were gorgeous!

This is the park on the top of the mountain, the monument is the weird thing at the top of the hill.

 

Cool tree

We tried...but to no avail to get everyone looking and smiling at the same time.

The view was amazing!

Back to the weird monument with the weird kids!

Mary Ellen and I enjoying some Colombian coffee.

These trees were so awesome.

There were several of these truck wash places, which we found kind of strange, in the middle of pretty much nowhere, on the curvy mountain roads.

Passing on double yellow lines!  And guess what, we were right behind doing the same thing!  Aye!

It was about an hour and a half drive up the mountain, we did a lot of walking around then drove back down the mountain and we were all very sleepy on the way back home!

There was a cable car that you could ride across the canyon, which would be amazing I am sure, but we decided to just take in the view from the top of the mountain!  What an absolutely beautiful creation, we have an amazing God!  So glad we had the opportunity to see more of this beautiful country today.