Divercity (a.k.a. Disaster City)

***SPOILER ALERT: For anyone looking for a post on the bright, sunny joys of adopting and parenting and parenting adopted kids, you might want to skip this post! There won't be any sugar coating today!***

Oh and this is going to be a long one because it has been a long (and I stress long) couple of days!

So, we are in Bogotá and we are definitely feeling in between homes. We miss Charlotte of course, but we miss the comfort and friendly faces of Pereira too. Don't get me wrong, we are glad to be on the last leg of our trip, it would just be great if we could have accomplished everything in the comfort of our El Cortijo home with our familiar friends and food (yes, this one will involve my weird food issues). I spent most of yesterday crying, I think from exhaustion and hunger. The food here at Halifax is just plain different, and if you like everything just plain (like me), then you are simply out of luck. Troy has had a splitting headache today due in part to the fact that his brain is about to explode from constantly having to think in two languages. So this trip is starting to take its toll on us.

Friday
Yesterday morning (pre-crying spells) we went exploring. There is a parque just a few blocks from the hotel that is surrounded by restaurants, so we took the boys for a walk to get out some of their energy and let them play on the playground. It is such a treat to have a park so close by. We also have this at home and I now know how valuable it is going to be.

The day ended horribly though with the worst bath night in the history of bath nights. We don't have a bath tub here, so we had to shower the boys with a hand-held nozzle which they are not used to. I made Daniel go first, which was so stupid on my part because he freaks out easily, but I thought Luis would be far worse. He screamed the entire time and since I was already pretty much on edge I ended up getting really upset with him which upset him more. He wouldn't let me get the shampoo out of his hair and after much commotion, constant screaming on his part, I finally just covered his eyes and turned the nozzle on his head. Needless to say, the poor boy was completely panicked, freaked out, upset, confused, etc... He was still crying hysterically ten minutes later when I put Luis Angel in the shower who was also crying by this point. However, within two minutes Luis was splashing around having a grand old time. Samuel even asked Troy if he could take another "bath" when he was done. The whole time I felt completely horrible because I was not only mad at my child for being afraid and crying, but then I made him more afraid than he already was. To add salt to my wounds (and this is why I don't deserve to be a mom) when I sat down on the bed near Daniel after Luis' bath, he got up and gave me a big hug!

Saturday
This morning the boys woke up at the crack of dawn and we could hear them just giggling away in the other room. They clearly think that being able to wake up without Mama and Papa is a hoot. I would think so too if their ruckus didn't wake me up!

After breakfast, Jaime came to get us to take us to Divercity. What is Divercity, you ask? Well, it is this really brilliant concept where kids can go and "work" and earn "money". There are something like 60 types of jobs they can try out - including firefighter, construction worker, cashier, detective, and more. They get costumes at each station and when they have completed their task, they get paid, then they can take that money and buy prizes with what they have earned. Sounds awesome, right? I thought so when I read about it on the Boyachek's blog. Well, we got there around 11:00 AM only to find out that they were having a special party for the newspaper (who is a sponsor) and that they wouldn't be open to the public until 1:30 PM. So we decided that we would return to the hotel, get some lunch and come back.

For lunch we went to Archie's (sorry Brian and Penny, I have been dying to go to an Archie's for weeks now). The kids got to make their own pizzas which was so adorable. They got chef hats and aprons and were covered in flour. It was just too cute! The service wasn't great, but the pizza tasted divine! We made it back to the hotel just in time to meet Jaime again for the second time to go back to Divercity. Troy asked "Are you sure you want to skip naptime?" Of course, it's Divercity, it is going to be awesome!

So, we get to Divercity and the line doesn't look too bad until a man in a "construction outfit" points out that it is broken in half and wraps all the way around the little glass wall in the mall...Well, we waited for about 45 minutes just to get to the cashier. Then we were directed to another line that was about 4 times the length of the pay line (how is that possible!?) to get into the actual park. Luckily, that line moved very quickly, and Daniel only threw one fit in which he refused to move and I had to carry him kicking and screaming ("no big deal, he'll be fine once we are inside"). Once inside though, it was full on chaos! Kids running everywhere, some scary looking wolf thing nearly made the twins cry, and for the first time I started to admit maybe this isn't going to be awesome...

I could go on and on, but to make a long story short, I will say this: Divercity is really a place where you go and stand in line for hours on end...well your kids stand in line and parents aren't allowed to stand with them even if they are four, are criers, and are terrified of everything - which we didn't know until we had already paid. It is a place that is really cool in concept, but a little off in execution. There is nothing to do for the smaller kids. Samuel had a blast, but he only got to be a fireman because the line was so long we didn't have time for anything else. The twins were just too afraid to even try anything and they were exhausted from all the walking. At one point, they were laying on the astroturf in this fake park across from the fire station. I knew someone would probably step on them, but I didn't feel like fighting them on it so I just let them lay there for a while. In short, Divercity was a bit of a disaster for us.

That being said, I take every single day here as learning experience, from baths where my son is begging me to bathe his brothers first to family outings that fall way short of fun. Our children have not been exposed to a whole lot of stuff, including having to stand in line by themselves for an hour in order to be firefighters for five minutes. Every day brings mini-victories and to me that's what counts, that is what I take with me.


When we first got to the park the boys were more excited about the sand than anything else. What will they do when they get to go to the beach for the first time?


Playing with the kids has been the biggest treat. I think I like pushing Luis on the swing more than he likes swinging.


Me and Daniel looking at each other through this bubbly thing. He makes some pretty funny faces, but mostly he just needs to know you are there.


Samuel is so brave. He will try any of the equipment just to see what it does. That means one of us needs to be nearby!


In order to get Daniel out of the sand and up onto the playground equipment, we had to tell him that this tunnel was a cave. He immediately started yelling for his brothers, "Carlito, Luis Angel! Venga! Una cueva! Una cueva! Venga aqui!" I told Troy that it is all about how you market it!


The hermanos enjoying the cueva! Isn't my spanglish awesome opposum!


Yay! Comfort food! We treated the boys to ice cream and the twins didn't really eat theirs. Very weird! Maybe they have weird food issues too!


At Archie's making pizza! It is just so fun to watch the little chefs.








At Divercity, Troy was actually able to get Daniel to pose in one of those head cut-out things. How cute is he?!


Samuel makes a very handsome firefighter!


This picture pretty much sums up Divercity. Here Samuel and I are waiting in line to take "money" out of the ATM to go spend it on little prizes.

We're Still Celebrating!

***WARNING: This one is going to be a long one, so you might want to grab a cup of café (Colombian brew of course) or té before you settle down to read this post.***

I am adding a ton of pictures to this post because really whatever I say can't do our adventures justice. The past 30 or so hours have just been fun. Plain and simple. Oh except for the fact that Troy now has a fever. He has taken some medicine, so hopefully it won't develop into anything more serious. It seems to be the same virus I had prior to my bronchitis and what Samuel developed earlier this week.

Last night we celebrated our familia with this incredible chocolate cake that we bought at a bakery downtown. It was "que rica" as the boys like to say. I know they don't know why we are celebrating, but they appreciated the cake all the same. We also learned the hard way that giving them chocolate cake about an hour before bed time is not really that great of an idea, especially when they have missed their naps. Daniel + Chocolate Cake - naptime = one crazy kid. It took a while to wind them down and stop the giggling.

Today we went on a walking tour of downtown Pereira with José. He took us to Bolívar Square (almost every city in Colombia has a Bolívar Square), a beautiful cathedral, one of the oldest buildings in Pereira where we stopped for beverages, souvenir shops, and another plaza. It was good to get out and see the city (without running errands). While we were out the most bizarre thing happened. This woman came up to Luis and was trying to talk to him and he was shying away from her. I didn't think much of it because people are always asking if they are twins or patting the boys on the heads and such. Normally the boys walk around saying "Hola!" to everyone they meet. Then as she passed José, Troy and the other boys she greeted them and got into a brief conversation with José. It turns out she is the sister of their foster mother. According to Wikipedia, there are nearly 600,000 people in Pereira and we just happened to run into someone who knows the boys. How crazy is that? And Samuel was like "Oh yeah, that was Jenny." Weird! And then Luis kind of bolted up the street like he was going to follow her. Fortunately, it didn't seem to upset them, negatively effect them or make them homesick in anyway that I could see. We went back to normal within minutes. It just struck us as odd that we would run into someone who knows them. José seemed to think it was good that she got to see the boys out and about and happy so she could let her sister know that they are doing well. I think he is right.

OK, enough blabbering. On to the photos, including photos of this evening's fiesta!


We had pasta last night for dinner. Troy and I could do an entire post just on mealtime with the boys. It is the funniest, most frustrating time. No meal passes in a timely, stress-free manner. It is always long and there is a lot of pleading. The best though is when the boys tell each other to "EAT!" and they still have food on their own plates.


This is the cake we bought. Yummy!


"This cake is so yummy it requires a fork and a spoon!"


"More cake please!"


The fam at the "Bolívar Desnudo" statue.


I just love this picture! I can't tell you how long it took me to get this shot!


The building where we stopped to get something to drink is one of the few buildings that is original to the city. The building itself was very beautiful. Here José is helping Daniel with his Pineapple juice. Poor boy does not really understand how to drink from a straw.


Luis is trying to mimic José, but he doesn't understand that you have to create a vacuum on the one end so all he is getting is foam.


Samuel is of course brilliant...and the oldest!


Throwing leaves into the fountain at the Lake Plaza. Boy was Daniel mad when we had to leave. Although, I am still not sure if he was really mad or if it was a genius ploy to get me to carry him...Regardless, Hannah, if you are reading this, I need to go to Pilates or Yoga or something, my core is too weak to carry these four year olds around!


Our last stop was a restaurant at the top of this mountain where you can see the whole city. It was so beautiful.


The best part of any trip is when the kids fall asleep in the car!


Rosario threw us a fiesta to celebrate our Sentencia, and let me tell you, she knows how to throw a party. The entire downstairs was decorated. We had appetizers, drinks, the whole nine yards. She even gave each of the boys these adorable traditional Colombian bus sculptures (I will take a pic and upload) with their names painted on front. Here the boys are admiring the decorations, mostly just ooohing and aaahing over the balloons.


We ate Mexican tacos and nachos. And I cannot say it enough - I wish that I could take Alba and Betty home with us to cook for us every day! The food here is so delicious. And they even make stuff plain just for me! Mauricio is the guy at the far end of the table and Hector's wife, I am pretty sure her name is Alba too, is in the middle.


Our lawyer Hector and his daughter Pilar (who is Mauricio's girlfriend). The kids love her and she says fun stuff like "super-bueno!"


Troy and Hector Fabio. I think that Hector looks just how I would picture our lawyer. I don't know why, but he looks like a lawyer to me!

A Day In Paradise...Not Really

Okay, I admit I didn't go into today with the best attitude. I am still coughing and sniffling a bit, so when I found out that we were going to go swimming AGAIN, I was more than a bit disappointed. I have become a little bit tired of standing on the sidelines, taking all the pictures while the boys have all the fun. That being said, today was a mess!

We went to Termales Santa Rosa de Cabal which is a national park outside the city of the same name that has hot springs and waterfalls that you can swim in. To say that it is beautiful is an understatement. It is more like Eden. Troy kept saying, "How can we be stressed in a place like this?" It is lush and green, and they have basically built this resort with several pools of hot water where the mist just rises. It is incredible. So how could we be stressed in a place like that?

Well, for starters, the boys didn't like that the water was "caliente" despite the fact that every other pool has been too cold for them. Samuel was the worst. He spent the entire time pouting. We had no idea what was going on with him, only to find out that he was coveting this water spout that other kids were playing in - when it became available for him, he didn't want to play in it. Then lunch was a disaster in that Troy ordered a hamburger for me, it came with everything on it, he took it back, they said they would fix it, they brought it back plain, I bit into lettuce and nearly threw up, so I was pretty much done for and Troy felt awful. The boys were still not into swimming into the hot water, but were cold because the air was chilly. At this point Mama and Papa were both in a bad mood, so we thought "Let's try taking them up to the cascades, those are cold water." We put on their sandals (that we made a special stop to buy just for this purpose) and headed up to the cascades. It was a no go, they didn't want to follow Papa into the water. And then...the sky opened up and it poured.

It has just been that sort of day. As I write this, we have already put Daniel in time out and now Samuel is out there in the "boring chair". We have totally lost track of how many times each kid has been out there (Luis has the least because he actually listens and doesn't hit, kick or shove his brothers). I think we are both exhausted from refereeing. And whoever said that girls create more drama have not met our kids yet! Oh, and the food for me was especially a big deal today because I have been in a foreign country for over two weeks and I have not been eating well and I am just longing for food that I can eat - a hamburger seemed like a safe bet.

Here are some pics from today:


Luis enjoying the view of coffee country, Dosquebradas, Pereira and beyond.


The fam preparing for the hike up the hill to the park. Don't I look enthusiastic? Let me tell you, things go so much slower with two four year olds in tow, especially Luis who is slower than a snail...


Daniel enjoying the hike along the falls. He would point out stuff like leaves and rocks. He's such a boy!


The view of the falls from the hike. It really was amazing.


A view of the falls from the pool area. The rest of the world still has not gotten the memo that speedos aren't that attractive no matter who you are, but they sure wear them with pride...no matter how big or how hairy!


Samuel was so not into the pool today. He just sat there eyeing the water spout.


He did love the cooler water fall that Papa took him to though! Much better. I don't know what it is about being pelted with water. He is going to love the giant mushroom at the UCY Waterpark.


Daniel doesn't really get into the water anyway, so today was just another day at the pool for him. Hot or cold - it doesn't matter much to him.


This picture of Luis pretty much sums up how everyone felt today.


Bonus Pic: I need to do a whole post on why twins are awesome, but mostly why dressing twins is awesome. How cute are they in their matching, but not matching outfits?! Love it!!!