Explora Park and Aquarium

Yesterday we went to Explora Park and Aquarium with Gloria and two other families who are here adopting. The one family is from Rochester, NY and they have a 2 1/2 year old daughter (Nina) and are here adopting a 7 month old little boy (Apollo) and the other family is from Denmark and they are here with their 3 year old son (Magnus) and are adopting a 6 month old boy (Tobias).

The park was a lot of fun, especially for Joey, Nina and Magnus. Outside the aquarium there were science exhibits which were mostly geared toward older kids... maybe 12 and older but the aquarium was perfect for the younger kids. Sam slept through almost the whole thing but Joey loved looking at all the different types of fish. They also had another exhibit which had snakes, spiders, lizards, frogs... not really my favorite part of the tour but as you can imagine, Joey thought it was pretty cool.

Joey and Nina

I tried to snap some photos of the fish but we weren't allowed to use a flash and it was pretty dark so the pictures didn't turn out the greatest but here are a couple of the better ones...

This frog was really cool... it was about the size of my thumb and I wouldn't normally describe a frog as cute but this one was cute so I just had to get a picture.

After we were done with the aquarium, we stopped for some refreshments...

Back at the hotel...

I don't think it will be long before Sam is walking. His legs are very strong and he's able to stand on his own for a short amount of time. I think at this point he just figures he can get from Point A to Point B alot faster by crawling.

Sam loves his daddy!!

It's crazy to think that we have already been here 10 days... the time has gone by so fast and we have really enjoyed Medellin so far. We have a list of things we want to see and do and have only managed to get through half of them so far. Sightseeing with 2 little kids definitely takes a lot of planning, flexibility and patience so we try to take at least 1 day in between outings so the boys can get their regular naps and try to keep them on some sort of schedule.

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Many people have asked how Joey is adjusting to everything and I have to say he's doing very well considering the circumstances. Not only does he have a new brother who gets lots of attention from mom and dad but he's also in a different country where everyone speaks funny, the food tastes different and it's just not the same watching Playhouse Disney in Spanish. He's been a little more sensitive than normal but otherwise has been really good. Josh and I have been trying to each spend some individual time with him whether it's taking him to the park, swimming or playing a game of Uno and I think that has helped. Joey is also starting to pick up a little Spanish and greets everyone in the morning with Hola or Buenos Dias and loves telling the waitress Gracias when she takes his plate. At home he's usually pretty shy around new people but for some reason he's not as shy with people here but the staff at the hotel gives him a lot of attention so that might be part of the reason.

ICBF Meeting at Casa de Maria

This morning we went back to Casa de Maria to meet with the ICBF Minor Defender to discuss the bonding process. Other people present at the meeting were a social worker and another employee from Casa de Maria as well as Gloria who was there to translate. They started off the meeting by asking us how everyone is adjusting. Then they went on to ask us what we have done to prepare for another child and how we have prepared Joey for becoming a big brother. They wanted Joey to tell them what he thinks about having a brother but he was being a little shy so they didn't push it. Sam was starting to get fussy so we took out his bottle and right away Joey wanted to help feed him. They seemed to really like the fact that Joey was so willing to help. Then they explained that the reason they have this meeting is to make sure the family is transitioning well and to provide assistance if necessary. All 3 people were very friendly and it was obvious that they truly care about the children and want what's best for them. Then they told us congratulations and that was about it. The whole meeting lasted about 10 or 15 minutes. Gloria's English is limited so the most difficult part was trying to keep our phrases short and simple so she could translate what we were saying. Sometimes it was hard to get our point across but everything must have translated okay because they seemed pleased with our answers and the ICBF official said he would write a favorable opinion and give it to our attorney to present to the court today. So now we just sit back, relax (yeah right) and wait...


After the meeting we were able to take a tour of the orphanage. We first went to the room Sam was in and met some of the caretakers and saw the crib he slept in. He seemed very happy to see everyone again and right away wanted to get down to play with his friends. It was so nice to see where he's been living the past year and to have pictures to show him as he gets older. After that, Gloria took us to see the lunchroom and kitchen where they make all their baby food from scratch. It was all very nice. Then we walked by the 1-3 year old room and all the little boys and girls came running up to greet us... they were so sweet but it was hard to see so many children without a family and I pray that they are all united with their forever families very soon.

Here is a picture of us with the ICBF official...

This was Sam's crib...

Outside play area...

Here are some pictures from the outside of the building...

Quick update on court

Gloria just called to inform us that we have been submitted to court #4, which our attorney says is good news. YAY!!! Now we are off to celebrate by going out to dinner with another family we met at the airport who is adopting a little boy from the same orphanage.

Medellin Zoo and El Tesoro

Today Gloria took us to the Medellin Zoo and El Tesoro Mall. Besides the fact that a few of the animals were a little on the skinny side, the zoo was pretty nice and had a wide variety of animals. Joey had an absolute blast and Sam enjoyed the stoller ride and even took a short nap. After the zoo, we stopped at one of the malls. It was really nice to get out of the hotel for the afternoon and see a bit more of the city. Tomorrow Gloria is going to take us to buy some souveniers and on Wednesday we go back to Casa de Maria to meet with ICBF officials to discuss how the bonding process is going. Then our attorney will have all of the legal documents needed to finalize the judicial process in court. Once everything has been submitted to court, we just sit back and wait for the judge to sign off. It could take a week or more... it just depends on how quickly the judge gets through all the documents. There are 13 family courts in Medellin and we were told by our agency that courts #2 and #9 have new judges and have been taking a lot longer to sign off so we are praying we do not get either of the new judges. We should find out which court has our paperwork either today or tomorrow. Once the judge has signed off, we will go to court to sign the final adoption decree and Sam will legally be our child! Then we will get a new birth certificate and passport. At that point, we will travel to Bogota, which is about a 1 hour flight from Medellin and visit the US Embassy doctor and apply for Sam's visa. The visa will be ready 24 hours later and then we are free to come home!!! The past week has gone by very quickly so we are hoping the rest of the time here goes by just as fast.

Here are some photos from the zoo...

The mall was very nice... much nicer than any mall in ND but most of the stores were high-end and very expensive so we just did some window shopping.

This was the view of Medellin from the upper floor of the mall.

Passing the time...

The past few days have been going pretty well. Sam is sleeping better and we're seeing more of his personality as he gets more comfortable with us. He's still not eating the greatest but each day we seem to find something new that he likes so I think it will just take a little bit of time and some trial and error. He absolutely loves papaya so we load up on it during breakfast (the hotel has a breakfast buffet that's included with our room). They also have a soup on the buffet that has chicken and vegetables and sometimes he'll eat that but otherwise he's not too crazy about meat or vegetables. He likes going for walks in the stroller and loves playing in the pool. We brought along an inflatable beach ball and that has given us hours of entertainment in the hotel room. We roll it across the room and he crawls after it... over and over and over! Here are a few pics from the past couple of days...

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Joey and Sam in their matching Buzz Lightyear pj's

Blowing kisses

All smiles


Joey is loving the pool as well. The hotel has a really nice kids pool as well as a larger pool. The first couple days he played in the kiddie pool but then yesterday he decided that that pool was for babies and he's a big boy so he needs to go to the big pool. With his floaties and noodle he will swim the width of the pool over and over and will also jump in. It's crazy considering he used to be afraid of the water.


We bought this inflatable car at the gift shop in our hotel and Sam just loves it. He spashes all over the place and isn't afraid to get his face wet.

Encuentro

On Wednesday, Gloria (our guide and translator), picked us up at about 10:00 am to bring us to Casa de Maria to meet Sam. Once we got there, we met with Raquel who is the director of the orphanage and she went over all of his medical information, personality traits, schedule and things like that. Then she left the room and a few minutes later walked in with Sam. He was much bigger than I was expecting, chubby and just plain adorable. It was an amazing moment and one that we will never forget.

Joey is so proud of his "big brother" status and enjoys introducing everyone to "his baby Sam." Sam is also very fond of Joey. He thinks he's hilarious and follows him everywhere. It's so fun to see them playing together and getting along so well... we are trying to enjoy the moment while it lasts!!

Here is the first picture of the new Belzer family of 4...

Joey couldn't wait to hold his little brother... even though his brother's not so little.

Daddy with his boys...

Joey kept giving Sam hugs and kisses... it was very sweet.

Our first night was a little rough. Sam was really restless and fussy and woke up about every 1-2 hours. He's been through so much already so I am not surprised at all that he had trouble sleeping but I also think he might be teething. We are hoping that tonight goes better. On the bright side, it's not like we have to go to work or anything so we have plenty of time to nap during the day.

We have arrived!!

We arrived in Medellin at about 1:30 this afternoon and our driver was waiting for us at the airport. It took about 40 minutes to get from the airport to our hotel and the drive was very scenic (but a little scary). We were driving down a mountain on a very narrow road with cars passing each other even though they had no idea if there was another car coming around the corner... like I said, a little scary but we made it. Medellin is absolutely beautiful... everything is very green and the views are spectacular! Our hotel is also very nice... they have a normal pool, a kid's pool, small playground, tennis courts, nice gym, spa, and a few different restaurants. Best of all the staff is extremely friendly and most speak pretty good English.

We met with our attorney this evening to go over everything and our guide will be picking us up at the hotel tomorrow morning to bring us to the orphanage. We will first meet with the director of the orphanage and she will go over all of Sam's information with us and then we will get to meet our little guy!! It's so weird to think that this time tomorrow night we will have another baby. We are so excited to meet him!!!

Our Chicago Adventure

We left for Chicago early Thursday morning and arrived at about 9:00 pm that evening. It was a very looooong drive and it didn't help that we ran into massive traffic and then got lost... hence the title of this post... Our Chicago Adventure. Even though we spent a lot of time in the car, things went pretty well. Joey was perfectly content watching his movies and Josh and I managed to stay in good spirits and had quite a few good laughs along the way.

Our appointment with the Consulate was at 10:00 Friday morning so we arrived there around 9:30. They called us up shortly after 10:00, looked at our paperwork, asked us to go make a few additional copies of some documents and then told us to come back around noon. So we walked around Chicago for a little while, stopped for a coffee and headed back to the Consulate around 11:30. While we were waiting in the waiting room we noticed 3 priests standing behind the glass with the employees and kind of wondered what was going on. Then one priest came out and started speaking in Spanish (from what we could understand he was asking whether everyone was Catholic). Then the other 2 priests came out and they started praying and blessed everyone with holy water. Come to find out, the Consulate recently moved to a new office (in the same building) and they were blessing the new office (and all of us in it). It was actually pretty cool... and hopefully a good sign!

Once we were done at the Consulate, we headed back to Minneapolis. We got to our hotel in Minneapolis around 7:30, grabbed something to eat and let Joey go swimming for awhile. Then we headed home on Saturday only to unpack... and then start packing again.

Crazy to think in just 9 hours we will officially begin our journey to Colombia to meet our little Sam!!

Lots of Updates!

We have so many updates... I'm not sure where to start! The Embassy issued our Article 5 on Thursday which means we are approved to travel. Problem is... Josh and I still need to obtain our visitor's visa from the Colombian Consulate in Chicago. We initially thought we'd be able to apply for the visas through the mail but were recently told that they require an interview in person so we made an appointment for next Friday, April 16 (with the assumption that the Article 5 would be approved next week). So when Raul, our travel coordinator/case worker told us it was approved a week early and we would need to travel to Colombia on April 17, we had to brainstorm a bit to come up with a way to get our visas and still get to Colombia on the 17th. So we decided we would fly to Chicago next Thursday, go to our visa appointment on Friday and fly to Colombia on Saturday. I spoke with the travel agent to line up our flights and just as we were about to book our tickets, Raul emailed saying the casa informed him that they now will only schedule "encuentro dates" on Wednesdays or Thursdays (something about an ICBF official needing to be present and those are the only days ICBF is available). Anyways, it's a good thing we hadn't purchased our tickets yet because we would've been sitting in Colombia for 3 days before meeting Sam... and that would've been a LONG 3 days!! So, obviously we are a little disappointed that our travel has been delayed but we've been waiting this long, what's an extra few days, right? That's what I try to keep telling myself...

As it turns out, I think this all happened for a reason. Josh spoke with his boss and he and Joey are now planning to stay the entire time in Colombia (rather than coming home after 2 weeks)... so needless to say, I am very happy and look forward to our time in Colombia as a family of four!! So now the plan is to travel to Chicago next Thursday, go to our visa appointment on Friday, travel back to Fargo on Saturday and leave for Colombia the following Monday. Hopefully we will all be home in time to watch Josh run his first marathon in the Fargo Marathon on May 22nd!!

Happy 1st Birthday!!

Today is Sam's 1st birthday and we really wish we could be in Colombia right now to help him celebrate his special day. HAPPY BIRTHDAY SAM!! We love you so much and can't wait to meet you and give you lots of hugs and kisses!!

I-800 Approved!!

We found out that our I-800 was approved yesterday and the National Visa Center (NVC) will have our file by tomorrow. YAY!! Next the NVC will create an electronic file and notify the embassy in Bogota. The embassy will request a form (DS-230) from our representative in Colombia and then review our file to ensure the process was completed in accordance with the Hague Convention. Once everything has been reviewed, they will issue the Article 5. At that point the casa will set up our appointment to meet Sam and we will be able to make our travel arrangements. Travel dates are still tentative but we're thinking we will travel Saturday, April 24 and meet our little guy on Monday, April 26!! We are getting so close... and sooooo excited!! As the days go on, the waiting gets harder and harder. We are hoping to get new pictures soon and may even be able to do a video conference with Sam and the orphanage director. How cool would that be?