City Business & Fun

Earlier this week, we spent three days and two nights in Guatemala City. The purpose of our "mini-vaca" was for adoption business, but we were able to enjoy some family fun.

On Monday, we left Antigua early, around 9 am. We had some business at the US Embassy to take care of. This was my first time to actually enter the Embassy, and it was interesting. Security was pretty high, as I suspect it is normally, and we knew ahead of time to leave our cell phones, cameras, etc. in the taxi with our trusted driver. After about a 45-minute wait, we were able to get a document notarized. The good thing about paying $30 for an Embassy-notarized document is we don't have to send it to Austin for authentication.

We got checked into the hotel and contacted our attorney. We had several Guatemalan documents requiring translations. I took the kids to the hotel pool while Victor went to the attorney's office. We were praying that the translator could get everything finished in time for Victor to go to the Embassy on Wednesday.

On Tuesday, we had a free day, as our only adoption "task" was to get our translated documents back. We decided to take the kids to the La Aurora Zoo. We have been to the zoo twice before, and it's a great zoo! I realized I took a lot of pictures of the animals but not too many of the kids!! I'll spare you the pictures of the hippos, giraffes, bears, monkeys, etc. since I know y'all know what they look like! But I can't help but post a picture of a family favorite, the Jaguar....



In the "Pediatria" there was a baby lion, and she was sooooo cute.....



While we were at the zoo, Victor called our attorney to check on the documents. It was here, in front of the guacamayas, that we got the news that our case had finally gone to Family Court!!!! We were elated!!!!



Later, we enjoyed a train ride:





The documents were couriered over to the hotel that afternoon, so we were all set Wednesday morning for Victor to go to the Embassy. It was exciting that we were able to make so much progress on the case during Victor's trip. He flew home Wednesday afternoon. It was hard to say goodbye again, but we were all still on our "Family Court" high.

We were told on Thursday that our case will be handled by Court #3, and we pray that the judge finds our case favorable without requiring additional documents or changes. We are so tempted to guess what this means with a time frame going home, but we just don't know. What we know for sure is that we are one step closer!!!