We’re back in Minnesota! Home sweet home!

Sorry for the lack of updates but it has been a whirlwind! A few updates on how it all went down.

August 8. Fort building. Anyone else remember these times? I like to say that I was an awesome fort builder back in the day. Santi enjoyed and introduced peanut to the greatness of fort building.

Every fort I’ve ever built has a hair brush in it too.  Don’t judge!

Clau and I had a meeting regarding our property. I’m not going to give great details but since I keep referring to meetings, here’s a brief breakdown. Hey, have any of you had experience with the “power of prayer”? Well, we had firsthand experience with this today. Synopsis: the lot we purchased several years ago was estimated to be a certain size. This measurement was stomata’s by satellite imagery. When we were required to bring in a topographer to measure the lot for future projects, the lot size was only about 2/3 the estimated size. That’s substantial! We had city documents stating and showing essentially the shape of our lot and an estimated area that were provided with our sale documents. But during our initial tour of the lot, the previous owner gave us rough points showing the property boundaries. Our theory was that the owners boundaries he showed us were incorrect. Well, this is a business man we were dealing with and he has a reputation (as we learned later) of being hard to deal with. Every meeting we had with him was unbending and he would delay getting back with us on anything. The government offices in the area were useless and provided no help. Our only real hope was reaching out to this business man’s business partner. The partner we had heard was an easier man to deal with so we requested a meeting to discuss 3 separate issues with him. To ensure transparency, we requested the meeting with both men. Let me tell you that God is so amazingly awesome. Not only did the partner agree with us on our theory about the boundaries of our lot giving us the missing 1/3rd our the property, but he also agreed to our other 2 proposals as well. It was awkward watching the two partners get into a “argument “ over it. They were civil but …yes it was a disagreement between the two of them. We walked out of that meeting and looked at each other and said “did that just happen?“. Then essentially ran away before they changed their minds. God is so wonderful! I joked with Claudia “we should go back and ask for more! Maybe we didn’t ask enough!”.

Enough about that!

August 9. Termales one last time. Again, this is one of our favorite things to do in our visits. This time we brought Mercedes, the old caretaker Claudia grew up with. She has been staying with us up in Santa Rosa and has bee Instrumental in us attending these awful meetings we’ve been running around with. No USS Peanut at the pool this time. We were told it wasn’t safe. I’ll be honest, I rolled my eyes hearing that because it’s not like I was launching the peanut solo across the pool. There were always two hands on the “boat” at all times but I suppose that the guy was just doing his job. It was a gorgeous day to be there for sure but of course it did rain which sounds bad but in that hot water, it is so refreshing.

Poor Nani.  It’s like a shark attacked her ice cream cone!

August 10 Saturday-Adri & Herman visited. Great friends that we didn’t spend enough time with this trip. They brought desert and we enjoyed some conversations and went for a long walk. Lots of fun.

Someone is in a hurry to learn how to walk.  The big leg kick you see here is really popular with my 9-month old.  We’ve told him the the shoes he is wearing combined with his leg kick are for “hormigas”…ants.  To be clear, I do not encourage him stomping on ants.  It’s only a joke.

Aug 11…celebrating Hernando’s birthday. My father in-law’s birthday is actually the 12th but we celebrated it a day early. We invited only a couple friends over but Mercedes did a ton of work in the kitchen and I manned the grill for some ribs, chorizos, and flank steak. Good stuff and good times with the friends that we happen to know pretty well ourselves. No pictures from the party but a cute one from visiting a nursery afterwards

Big boy with big smiles!

August 12, Monday. We made our way to Pereira today and took Hernando out for lunch followed by haircuts for everyone but papi who is rebelling against rules. Even peanut got his first haircut. No pictures since the main picture taker was redirected to be the peanut restraining device. Overall, little dude did well…not great but well.

Manicures are so cheap here but had to coerce my 14-year old to get it done.  I recommended she do her school colors and that was the trick!

I got a bit bored watching manicures so walked over to the cathedral for a bit of prayer time.  Santi came with to hang out.  Such a good man!

August 13, Tuesday-packing day- Nothing great today other than last minute shopping

August 14 - travel day- early morning wake-up call. Said our goodbyes to Aminta but dad helped us get to the airport. We still needed an Uber. Successfully checked bags and got through security.

Quick picture before boarding.

Getting a preflight briefing from big brother 

The brother in the background heard me talking to Santi about a necklace he was wearing with an icon / medal of St. Christopher.  He ended up giving Santi a handful of medals/ icon of St. Joseph.  Oh the irony of how much I believe St. Joseph has been an advocate for our family…so much so that Andre’s middle name is what?  Yup, Joseph!

Keeping him entertained was no easy feat.  First half of the day was great but he turned into a handful from Orlando to Minneapolis.  Lots of screaming (happy playful but loud and frequent) and tons of squirming restlessness.

Not nearly enough of this on the evening flight.

It was an interesting day. The airlines kept losing our stroller. You know you can keep it all the way to the gate. Well our stroller has a protective travel case which I used. Problem with that is that it more resembles a set of golf clubs than it does a stroller. They kept sending it to baggage claim which made for a lot of carrying the peanut. Then, in Minneapolis, the lost it all together. We did get it back the next day but again, carrying Andre through the airport was an epic pain.

Our Uber ride home almost ok a tragic turn. Only a couple miles from the airport on highway 494, a car came zipping by us traveling in the wrong direction on the highway . Passed us in the lane next to us. Kind of freaked me out personally.

Home sweet home.  Everyone is exhausted.  

Everyone slept so soundly. Up around 8 am I suppose.

Goofing off on the floor n the morning.

First Family breakfast at home. So awesome!

it’s been an adventure for sure.  We’re so grateful to the Lord for creating this beautiful and amazing family.  We are so blessed.  Andre has adjusted so well.  He has put on weight and crawling.  We have definitely bonded as a family.  Andre is thriving.  We will now end this blog and print it out into a book to pass on to Andre about how our journey started with him joining our family.  Our family has been blessed in ways unimaginable.  Jesus, you’ve blessed us through adoption and chosen us.  We fervently desire to do your will and love you dearly.  Amen