Adoption Day!!!

Today we heard the glorious news that the Guatemalan Family Court judge signed the approval of our adoption! Remarkably, our file was in family court for less than two weeks! Victor and I are thrilled to now be Luis' parents in the official legal way - although we believed Luis was our son from the moment we were selected by Casa Para Ninos - on August 9, 2007.

Luis and I will have smiles that won't come off for a long, long time. Here we are:



Same goes for Chris and Caroline. Boy, are they excited!!!



It's been a remarkable journey for our family so tonight we celebrate God's faithfulness and sovereignty. (Which by the way for us means ordering Domino's, watching a movie and staying up late)

Our minds are spinning as we consider the next steps and the new timeline. A return date to the USA won't be known for awhile (it depends on the US Embassy) but my mind is in full gear for leaving Guatemala. We are praying to be home by mid-March.

Keep praying that these last steps move quickly and that no additional obstacles get in the way. Thank you for your prayers!!

It's A Wonderful Life

One reason that I don't update our blog more often is that I think there might not be anything interesting to report. What I mean is, most of the time, life in Antigua seems rather routine. Church on Sundays, school at home Mondays through Friday. Luis continues to adjust well, learn English, etc. etc.

But I would be remiss not to recognize treasures in the mundane. Earlier in the week, we made dinner and dessert for a neighbor with a new baby. Luis and I sat in front of the hot oven (with the oven light on) and watched butter melt in my casserole dish. He learned words like "gooey" and "melty", and after we finished making a layered cookie dessert, he said "yummy"! It's been a long time since I had time in my schedule to watch butter melt.

And on another night, after his bath, Luis and I watched the colored water going down the drain. He learned the word, "Whirlpool"!! How fun!

Tonight, Luis asked Chris to a "sleepover" - so here they are enjoying being brothers.



Before they went to bed, we watched another Saturday night Antigua fireworks show. I thought even the fireworks have become a routine occurrence!

But then I realized, how can seeing our dreams of Luis becoming part of our family ever become routine and mundane? How can watching miracles and experiencing answered prayers ever grow old?

So I quickly snapped a shot of the kids, caught off guard, but reminding me that firework shows aren't limited to Disney World and special holidays. Each day is worth celebrating.

Land of Eternal Spring

In my last post, I mentioned several things we miss about Texas. Today, I'll share our list of things we will miss about Antigua.

We'll miss:
Eating at Pollo Campero
The Weather - it is the "Land of Eternal Spring"
Beautiful scenery
Tuk Tuk rides
Singing "Eres Todo Poderoso" at church

I will NOT miss shopping at La Bodegona. Hopefully the picture I took the other day of La Bodegona will be last time I have to shop there.



For school, we've been having fun, as usual. We enjoyed making patterns with Chocolate Teddy Grahams (quite the find) and M&M's:



The kids and I are enjoying our new friends. Today the kids played soccer with the other family while I had some time (gasp!) by myself in the apartment. I did a little cleaning and organizing as I am starting to pare down our stuff in preparation of leaving. Although we have no idea when we'll leave, I'm definitely in the "getting ready to go" mindset. Hopefully it won't be too much longer!! Please continue to pray for our case in Family Court.

Enjoy your weekend!! We will!

Things We Miss about Texas....

We are really looking forward to being home with Victor, at some point. The best thing about February is we feel confident saying "We should be home NEXT MONTH!" Keep praying about Family Court #3, that we would have favor with the court and move to the next step quickly. Also pray for accuracy with the court so we can avoid common errors. Lastly, pray for our ability to continue in our patience! We are all ready to come home!

Here is a short list of the things we miss about Texas:
Obviously, we miss being home with Daddy
Friends & Family
All things TWUMC!!
One-stop shopping at Kroger
freedom that comes with having a car
speaking English and being fairly well understood*

* I compliment Guatemalans in their overall willingness to try to understand my very broken Spanish....I've never been given a "Welcome to Guatemala. Press 1 for Spanish, all others go home" treatment. I am grateful for that.

We've started our 3rd quarter of "Fettes Christian Academy" - which includes a unit on "Space" for science. We are having a lot of fun with that already. I have enjoyed home-schooling so much and will be sad when it is time to return the kids to traditional school. A favorite part of home-schooling is starting at 8:15, or 9:30, or 10:00 - basically when breakfast is done, kids are dressed, and I feel like starting class!! I know we will get our work done for the day....and I love the freedom of working at our own pace and time. Wow....waking up to a 6:30 A.M. alarm clock will be quite the adjustment for us!!! (I know, you all are rolling your eyes right now..)

Again, please continue to pray over our case and for favor. THANK YOU!!

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!!!

Daddy Returns

After attending our Verizon Wireless kickoff meetings in Mobile, AL and New Orleans, I flew out form New Orleans to Guatemala, arrving at 8:30pm on Thursday. After clearing immigration and customs I found out the shuttle to Antigua does not run that late and had to catch a cab. If you are even in need of a racing cab in Guatemala, Sabian is your guy. We raced through the streets and up the mountain. I am not usually nervous, but he was taking the mountian curves at sixty five mph and in Guatemala you never know when a goat carrying firewood will be crossing the road around the next curve. But I arrived at the apartment safe and in record time.

Friday we headed back into the city to get Luis' bloodwork redone (the old blood work expired) and meet with the CNA. After getting blood drawn we stopped at the panaderia and got the kids donuts. Always good to sugar them up before heading to the CNA. Here is Luis with his donut.....


At the CNA we hoped to hear the document we needed to move to family court was ready, but we got told it would not be ready until Wednesday. So we will be returning to the CNA then. After the CNA it was off to Burger King for lunch and then up to the lab to pick up the results of the blood work (all good). We also stopped and bought each of the kids a book at the book store that was in the little mall. A guilt purchase if I have ever seen one.

So with the blood test in hand we only needed the original certificate of abandonment and adoptability amendment to have everything we would need to get preapproval with the US Embassy. We have been trying to get the document, but with no luck. So I called Casa Para Ninos on the way back to Antigua to see if we could stop by and get a copy so we could start the translation on Monday and if the document came in by Wednesday go and get preapproval. They said they got notification the document was ready and would have it at Casa after 3:30. It meant another trip, but I went up to Casa at 3:30 and had the document in hand by 4pm. Yes!!! Now all we need to do is get the document translated on Monday and we will be all set to visit the Embassy for preapproval before I leave.

We finished out the day with the usual Friday night Movie and Pizza night. We ordered Telepizza and Pollo Campero and the kids watched Mighty Machines. After the show it was an early night for all of us. I really enjoyed putting all the kids to bed and getting lots of snuggle time with them.

This morning we played around the apartment and just relaxed. After lunch we decided to go down to the San Francisco Church and ruins. We enjoyed walking around the church and had a blast climbing all over the ruins. Jenny and I had visited the ruins when we were in Guatemala for our mission trip five years ago. The kids enjoyed seeing the ruins and we got some good pictures.






After San Francisco, we headed to the market. We picked up what we were looking for there and then stopped at Pollo Campero for ice cream before catching a tuk-tuk back to the apartment. Tonight, Jenny and I are going to put the kids down early and have a date night. Tomorrow we have to get ready to head into the city on Monday. We will be staying in the city until Wednesday when I fly out. Hopefully we will get the document needed to get into family court and get preapproval by then.

Grammy and Grampy Visit

We were so excited that my mom and dad - "Grammy" and "Grampy" to the kids - were able to come for a visit last week! This was Grammy's second trip to Guatemala but Grampy's first. We wanted them to feel welcome right away:



It didn't take very long for Grammy and Grampy to get settled in. Thanks to our video skyping, Luis was pretty familiar with his new grandparents, so he jumped into the fun right along with Caroline and Christopher. The kids and I wanted to show them around beautiful Antigua while enjoying some quality family time. The weather during the trip was ideal, warm and sunny during the day, cooler at night. We spent a lot of time playing outside. As you can see, Grampy was quite the good sport, letting the kids climb all over him:



We also did a lot of exploring around Antigua. We walked down the popular "Avenida Del Arco" or "Arch Street" as I call it. We continued to the Central Plaza and checked out the old Spanish college. The architecture and gardens were just amazing. Here we are in one of the courtyards:



On one occasion of sight-seeing around Antigua, we stopped at the Casa Del Jade, which is a Jade Factory and store. We learned about the jade found in Guatemala, and how it is turned into jewelry and other things. Mom picked out a few things, and the sales people gave each kiddo a little piece of unfinished jade. Chris was curious about how much it was worth, and how much more if it were polished. The manager indulged us by allowing Grampy into the work area to polish one side of Chris' jade. It was really cool!



Before Grammy and Grampy left, they spent a day with Kimberli, a young lady they sponsor at Casa Aleluya. They picked her up from the home and took her back to Antigua to treat her to some time "off-campus."



While we were busy getting school work done, they toured the Cross on the Hill (Cerro de La Cruz) and had lunch. We met up with them at the Cathedral by Central Plaza. We had not yet toured the Cathedral, which had collapsed during a big earthquake in 1773. Some of the it was still intact, but the ruins were really interesting.



After touring the Cathedral, we walked to Las Capuchinas, another big church that was destroyed in the Earthquake of 1773. It's in the process of being renovated, and is actually quite breathtaking. I can see why it's a popular location for weddings.

Grammy and Grampy treated the kids and I to a delicious dinner at Monoloco. It was the first time we'd eaten there, and it was somewhat reminiscent of an American restaurant (it had ESPN on two giant TV's). The food was good and we're definitely taking Vic there next time he visits.



It's always sad when visits come to an end, but we sure did have a lot of fun! Thanks, Grammy and Grampy, for coming to see us!! Can't wait to see you again in the States!!!