Sunday, March 30, 2008
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Gato!
I just thought I'd post an update to let everyone know we are alive and well! Gabby continues to amaze us and fill our lives with joy. She is growing like a little weed, eating us out of house and home, and motoring around the house like she's been crawling all her life. She is also, for the most part (fingers crossed), sleeping very well.
So, the word of the week is GATO!
Many of you probably know that "gato" is "cat" in spanish. Gabby is apparently obsessed with cats, as she has begun pointing at everything and exclaiming "gato!" She does occasionally say other things, such as "dedo" (finger), "dog," "good," "caballo" (horse), and a few things we can't quite make out, but her standby is definitely "gato."
We have a very cool cat named Oscar, who could only be more mellow if he were dead. He is absolutely unflappable. One day shortly before we left for Colombia, I came upon one of our dogs dragging Oscar around the living room by his head. I shouted "No!" in horror, to which the dog responded by letting go, looking very startled by my outburst. However, Oscar simply looked at me and blinked, rolled over on his back, and swatted the dog playfully.
So, as you can imagine, Oscar is good with kids and has become Gabby's favorite playmate. She crawls around behind him, and upon catching him, usually performs a full-body tackle. Sometimes she pulls out chunks of his hair or painfully (at least it looks painful to us) yanks on his ears. When he is really "annoyed," he'll move about three inches out of her reach and flick his tail.
One day I was reflecting on what a nice 2-hour nap Gabby was taking when I heard some chattering coming from her room. I opened the door to find Gabby and Oscar playing in her crib. I don't know if she took a 1 hour and 50 minute nap and played with Oscar for 10 minutes or if she took a 10 minute nap and played with Oscar for 1 hour and 50 minutes. I suspect it won't be long before Gabby is outfitting Oscar in dresses and matching bonnets and pushing him around in a stroller.
I will post pictures soon of Oscar and Gabby at play. Every day I think "I should get a picture of that!" and then remember that the camera battery is dead. Why don't we simply charge it, you ask? Because we have a 10-month old! Some days I feel lucky if I simply make it out of the house with matching shoes on!
So, the word of the week is GATO!
Many of you probably know that "gato" is "cat" in spanish. Gabby is apparently obsessed with cats, as she has begun pointing at everything and exclaiming "gato!" She does occasionally say other things, such as "dedo" (finger), "dog," "good," "caballo" (horse), and a few things we can't quite make out, but her standby is definitely "gato."
We have a very cool cat named Oscar, who could only be more mellow if he were dead. He is absolutely unflappable. One day shortly before we left for Colombia, I came upon one of our dogs dragging Oscar around the living room by his head. I shouted "No!" in horror, to which the dog responded by letting go, looking very startled by my outburst. However, Oscar simply looked at me and blinked, rolled over on his back, and swatted the dog playfully.
So, as you can imagine, Oscar is good with kids and has become Gabby's favorite playmate. She crawls around behind him, and upon catching him, usually performs a full-body tackle. Sometimes she pulls out chunks of his hair or painfully (at least it looks painful to us) yanks on his ears. When he is really "annoyed," he'll move about three inches out of her reach and flick his tail.
One day I was reflecting on what a nice 2-hour nap Gabby was taking when I heard some chattering coming from her room. I opened the door to find Gabby and Oscar playing in her crib. I don't know if she took a 1 hour and 50 minute nap and played with Oscar for 10 minutes or if she took a 10 minute nap and played with Oscar for 1 hour and 50 minutes. I suspect it won't be long before Gabby is outfitting Oscar in dresses and matching bonnets and pushing him around in a stroller.
I will post pictures soon of Oscar and Gabby at play. Every day I think "I should get a picture of that!" and then remember that the camera battery is dead. Why don't we simply charge it, you ask? Because we have a 10-month old! Some days I feel lucky if I simply make it out of the house with matching shoes on!
For now, I will post a picture of our first Christmas as a family of three. Since Gabby couldn't be with us on Christmas, my family decided to leave the Christmas tree up and leave Gabby's presents wrapped until we got home. So, we celebrated Christmas in March!
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Two weeks home!
We have been home now for two weeks and things are going pretty well. Gabby has been making the rounds meeting friends and family and is quite the little social butterfly - I'm pretty sure that everyone that has met her has agreed that she is, in fact, the cutest baby ever!
The biggest news I have to share is that Gabby is officially crawling! She has been somewhat mobile as long as she's been with us, but until the last few days she was doing the caterpillar crawl (on her tummy). She still does that, but now she also crawls on her hands and knees. She's not very fast just yet, but we suspect we won't be able to say that for long!
We have been working very hard to get Gabby on a schedule and thought we had succeeded until the last couple of days. Apparently, Gabby decided that her bedtime is not 7:00 as we had thought, but rather 9:00. In hindsight, we are pretty sure she told us this, but we are quite dumb and all we understood was "Dat bwoh doh blah doo goh."
I promised before that I would post pictures of Gabby's AWESOME bedroom - thanks Jen, Kevin, and Dad!
Saturday, March 1, 2008
Home at last!
Hi all!
We finally made it home on Thursday night!
Our week in Bogota was busy but good. We went to the embassy Monday morning and applied for Gabriela's visa. We were told to pick it up Tuesday afternoon at 3:30. We were on the other side of Bogota on Tuesday afternoon having lunch with an aunt and uncle and left at 2:30 so we'd have "plenty of time." We should have known better! First, we got stuck in a traffic jam that didn't move for almost 30 minutes, which we found out on the evening news was caused by a bus that was hanging half-suspended over a canal. Then, just as we turned off to take a detour, we were informed by a passerby that we had a flat tire. Miraculously, we were literally feet from the entrance to a car repair shop, and they happened to have an empty bay, and they had us in and out of there in 15 minutes. While we were having the tire changed I called the embassy and was told that we had until 4:00 and then the gates would be closed. At a couple of minutes to 4:00 we were just a few blocks out so I called again and was told to hurry up and they would let me in. I literally had to sprint up to the embassy gate - it was just like the scene in the movie "The Saint." Except nobody was chasing me. And I wasn't screaming "I'm an American!" But otherwise, it was just like that scene! Anyway, when I got to the gate the guard initially refused to let me in because it was 4:02. I had to explain in broken spanish that I had just talked to Marcela and she said I could come in! He finally let me in and I left with Gabriela's visa in hand.
The trip home was long but Gabriela was a trooper. On the first leg of the trip (Bogota to Miami) she hammed it up for most of the trip and then slept for about an hour. We had grand plans to feed her, change her diaper, re-stock the diaper bag, eat lunch, and relax a bit during our layover of three hours. Instead, we spent most of it in a Homeland Security "inspection room." Daniel always raises flags when we travel, but this was absurd. When we asked them when we'd be able to leave we were told "not until we get the call back from Washington." No kidding! When they finally "released" him, we had less than an hour to make our connection and we still had to get our bags, go through customs, re-check our bags, go through security, and get to our gate. We were running through the airport with four large suitcases, four carry-ons, and one 9-month-old child. Gabby was literally tucked under my arm at one point as we RAN through the terminal to our gate. We made it just in time. When we explained to the gentleman seated in our row what had happened, and that Gabby hadn't eaten or had her diaper changed for several hours, he wisely chose to relocate to an empty seat in another row. Surprisingly, though, she settled right down, ate a bottle, and slept on me for almost the entire 4 hour flight.
Ah, home sweet home! We arrived home to balloons, a big "Welcome Home Rojas Family" sign, a stocked fridge, a frame of some of our favorite pictures of Gabby, and, best of all, my sister and her husband had hand-painted the walls of Gabby's room to match her bedding. I will post pictures of that soon - it looks awesome! Thanks to everyone!
And now, a few photos!
Love,
Leslie, Daniel, and Gabriela
We finally made it home on Thursday night!
Our week in Bogota was busy but good. We went to the embassy Monday morning and applied for Gabriela's visa. We were told to pick it up Tuesday afternoon at 3:30. We were on the other side of Bogota on Tuesday afternoon having lunch with an aunt and uncle and left at 2:30 so we'd have "plenty of time." We should have known better! First, we got stuck in a traffic jam that didn't move for almost 30 minutes, which we found out on the evening news was caused by a bus that was hanging half-suspended over a canal. Then, just as we turned off to take a detour, we were informed by a passerby that we had a flat tire. Miraculously, we were literally feet from the entrance to a car repair shop, and they happened to have an empty bay, and they had us in and out of there in 15 minutes. While we were having the tire changed I called the embassy and was told that we had until 4:00 and then the gates would be closed. At a couple of minutes to 4:00 we were just a few blocks out so I called again and was told to hurry up and they would let me in. I literally had to sprint up to the embassy gate - it was just like the scene in the movie "The Saint." Except nobody was chasing me. And I wasn't screaming "I'm an American!" But otherwise, it was just like that scene! Anyway, when I got to the gate the guard initially refused to let me in because it was 4:02. I had to explain in broken spanish that I had just talked to Marcela and she said I could come in! He finally let me in and I left with Gabriela's visa in hand.
The trip home was long but Gabriela was a trooper. On the first leg of the trip (Bogota to Miami) she hammed it up for most of the trip and then slept for about an hour. We had grand plans to feed her, change her diaper, re-stock the diaper bag, eat lunch, and relax a bit during our layover of three hours. Instead, we spent most of it in a Homeland Security "inspection room." Daniel always raises flags when we travel, but this was absurd. When we asked them when we'd be able to leave we were told "not until we get the call back from Washington." No kidding! When they finally "released" him, we had less than an hour to make our connection and we still had to get our bags, go through customs, re-check our bags, go through security, and get to our gate. We were running through the airport with four large suitcases, four carry-ons, and one 9-month-old child. Gabby was literally tucked under my arm at one point as we RAN through the terminal to our gate. We made it just in time. When we explained to the gentleman seated in our row what had happened, and that Gabby hadn't eaten or had her diaper changed for several hours, he wisely chose to relocate to an empty seat in another row. Surprisingly, though, she settled right down, ate a bottle, and slept on me for almost the entire 4 hour flight.
Ah, home sweet home! We arrived home to balloons, a big "Welcome Home Rojas Family" sign, a stocked fridge, a frame of some of our favorite pictures of Gabby, and, best of all, my sister and her husband had hand-painted the walls of Gabby's room to match her bedding. I will post pictures of that soon - it looks awesome! Thanks to everyone!
And now, a few photos!
Love,
Leslie, Daniel, and Gabriela
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