Lawyer Stuff Yesterday, Swimming Trip Today

Yesterday was yet another adventure (seeing a pattern here?). Our interpreter showed up around 3 and we went to Exito and picked up some groceries and two pairs of pants. Most of the food was very inexpensive but the shorts were around $20USD each. Nothing special, just shorts. The clothing at Exito in Bogotá wasn't nearly that expensive. In fact, we thought the prices on the non-food stuff in Bogotá was close to the stuff in the States.

After that, we sat and waited with our interpreter for the lawyer to call... nothing after an hour. So we all took a walk toward her office and through the park. Elkin fell asleep on me as he did on our last park visit (must be exhausting for him). We finally met up with her about three hours after our scheduled time! Colombians are never in a hurry we're told... and are seeing!

At this "meeting" with the lawyer, we gave her power to represent us legally through our adoption here in Colombia. The office was right next to the courthouse (it was part of it I think) so we walked right by the judicial system strikers and their big banner. It was really surreal doing that - all the reading about it in these "foreign" newspapers and here we were, 12 inches from it. Bizarre.

The office that we needed that power-of-attorney document made up was locked and showing participation with the strike. However, our lawyer said they were willing to do this for us. Believe it or not, the whole thing was done through a window open about 6 inches. In went our passports, out came our completed document and our passports. It was crazy. Not the normal way this goes but they had to show they were supporting the strike even though they were willing to do this for us.

We asked our lawyer about how the strike would effect the rest of this process since a judge is involved in the rest. She said (with the help of our interpreter of course) that it would not effect us AT ALL because our legal proceedings will be in the nearby very small town that Elkin was born in. We thought that our judicial stuff would be done in the capitol of the region (Montería) where the strike was taking place an arm-length away. So that was the best news we could possibly hear. We're told that we have about 12 to 15 more days (give or take) before we're done here and can finish up our few days in Bogotá.

Last night was SO much better than the night before. He slept almost the entire night through. He only woke up once or twice. We all felt much better this morning than yesterday. He's still very much on a bottle and we got exactly what he's been used to while we were at Exito yesterday so he's eating and feeling better. His cold is only bothering him a lot at night and when he wakes up from his naps but other than that it's OK.

We went swimming this morning - what a blast!!! He had SOOOO much fun.



He likes to jump in and he thinks he can swim but he's not real good at it - it's more of a sink-and-ask-for-help move. He'll jump in, get water in his nose, laugh super-hard and then choke, cough it out, laugh some more, and repeat. Over and over and over. Apparently it's all worth it to him. We did that a thousand times. He wouldn't pee in the pool either (?? that's the best place!) - like I've said a bunch already, the kid is very, very clean. Pee goes in toilets I guess.

He took a nap as soon as we got back for a good hour or so. He's so cute when he's sleeping... we'll try to take a picture for everyone soon. He often puts both his hands under his head before finally falling asleep!

We're going to try to grab some lunch, hit the park and the grocery store again.

We're not publicly uploading pictures to Flickr that have us all in it until we get home but we are going to upload several (and some video) that family and friends can see but you'll need to sign up for a Flickr account first. After you sign up or if you already have one, email me at fishertimj [at] gmail.com with the email you signed up with and I'll add you as a friend/family user and you can see the other stuff too.