WE ARE OUT OF PGN AND COMING HOME!!

Hallelujah!! Blake's adoption was FINALLY approved on Friday, Dec.28 at PGN. He is officially our son and we will be coming home to Washington at the end of January or first of February. We are still in shock that this actually happened AND happened 3 weeks earlier than expected. This is what happened. Chris, Blake and I were getting ready to go to the city for our monthly formula and diaper run when we received a phone call from our agency. Apparently, Barrios' secretary had called them asking them to call me to come to PGN to meet with Barrios. This is usually unheard of so of course, we thought the worst. We did however, submit the "special consideration" letter before Christmas so we wondered if it had something to do with it. So we rushed to PGN and went right into his office upon arrival. He sat us down and was very nice (compared to last time) and had our file with the letter attached on the table. He also brought in an interpretor for Chris which we thought was a nice gesture. He wanted to know if we had indeed written the letter ourselves first of all. We said "yes" of course and I told him that we had it translated by a translator to ensure the letter was written in Spanish correctly. He then proceeded to say that he was giving our case an exception and approving our case 3 weeks early. The letter worked!! We were amazed and thanked him up and down. Can you believe I actually hugged the guy?!! What was I thinking? We plan to write him a letter thanking him again and asking him to please consider other families that write letters in similar situations. He told us he loved children and reached out to hold Blake who immediately screamed (I had to laugh inside) and reached back for me! Our agency representatives Lourdes and Alex met us at PGN shortly after and physically came to pick up the file. I asked (of course) to see the approval letter with Barrios' signature just to be sure. It was there!! There is no way we can go back into PGN ANYMORE! The file is OUT OF THE BUILDING!
The next steps will be: Wednesday, January 2 (after everything opens again) the adoption decree will be picked up at Civil Registry in the city.
Thursday or Friday our birth certificate will get picked up (as we were told it would only be a day to obtain which is VERY lucky as some cases take 3 weeks to obtain), and then the following Monday we will get Blake's Passport and 2nd DNA test. We should be submitted to the embassy by the 2nd week of January and have our Visa appt hopefully 2 weeks later. Our agency swears we will be going home by the end of the month, although we're estimating the first of February around Blake's first birthday as one month usually ends up being longer here. We feel so lucky to be out of PGN now and this will save us a whole month. It's a miracle!! Get ready for one of the biggest welcome home parties you've ever seen when we return to town!! You are ALL invited!!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!! DADDY IS HERE!

Happy Holidays friends and family! We hope you are all enjoying some much needed relaxation with your family. We hear it has been just beautiful in Washington with crisp cold frosty days. The fireplace next year at Christmas is going to feel so good - I miss it so much. Chris arrived at 1:00 am on Thursday and we've been busy ever since! It only took Blake a couple of days to remember who his Daddy was. He thinks he is the most hilarious person in the world. The pictures I'm posting today prove it. Chris makes funny noises and faces and Blake just cracks up. I've never had myself in tears quite this much from laughing at the two of them. They are quite the pair. Yesterday we went to Hotel Antigua and went swimming! Blake loves the water and he had a great time eating cheese puffs with his new friend Jordan who is also being adopted (they've been in PGN since May with 2 previos - can you believe it?) Jordan was so sweet sharing his bag of puffs with everyone at the pool.

Antigua is SO alive with Christmas spirit! We have seen a parade of floats with Santa and his reindeer, children singing, fireworks (nonstop), families coming into town to visit, white lights on every tree in the park, and lines of children lined up to receive toys at a local church. It is quite an experience being here. Chris is enjoying every second as we all are and every day there is something new to see. On Friday, Chris and I splurged a little bit and purchased a gorgeous Talavera (hand-painted pottery) sink for our Mexican style bathroom. It's been on our list for awhile and now that we're here and found one at an excellent price, we got it!! I'll have to take a picture later on to post. Chris plans to redo the countertop and whole sink area when he returns. It will remind of us this Christmas in Guatemala every time we see it.

Let's see...what else is new? Blake is growing like a weed. He looks like he's a year old and he's only going on 11 months. He has 8 full teeth now (4 on top and 4 on the bottom) and a full head of hair. In fact, we may get hair cut number 2 today! I wrote a list of everything he is doing now and it amazes me. We cannot wait to watch the list grow as he grows.

There is a possibility that I may be moving again before the end of the month. Our new apartment has bad mold and dust and after taking Blake to a lung specialist in the city last week (he has had lower respiratory problems since birth), the doctor took x-rays and concluded that although his lungs look healthy, he does have allergies to several different things. So, we are on a house hunt again. We may go look at one on Monday. The problem is it's pretty difficult to find housing here without mold and dust. It's the climate. We may have to grin and bear it until we go home.

Still no change in our adoption status at this point. Right now we're still hanging on for the 8-week mark of January 17th to have our adoption finalized. We PRAY we have no other kick outs in the meantime. There is a possibility we could get signed at 6 weeks which would be around January 3.

The adoption law passed here which is good and bad. It is good because all adoptions will continue between the US and Guatemala. Pending cases such as ours, have been "grandfathered" in and will continue as well, however as of January 1, 2008, our case (one of 3700 cases) will have to be registered at a place that has not been designated yet. Hmm...this could be interesting and to us, it sounds like another 3-4 week delay. Cases that are not in PGN yet, will have to abide by the new rules which will go into effect on January 1. These rules will be a bit stricter and therefore take families, once again, more time to be approved. At least all adoptions will continue and the past problems of illegal adoptions will stop ( with abducted/stolen children for example). What a relief for all adoptive families here. Families were quite scared they would stop them all from continuing and they would lose their children. Thank you, God for this not having this occur. We have so many pictures to post right now so I'll do my best to do as many as possible! Happy happy holidays!!! We'll see you in 2008!!

BLAKE'S NEW FAVORITE FOOD -WATERMELON AND SWEET RAGMUFFINS AT THE MARKET

So not only is the tongue thing back (see pictures), but Blake has discovered that he loves watermelon. He will sit for about 20 minutes gnawing on the smallest piece. It is so funny. He tries every angle. The other pictures were taken in the local market the other day. We saw these adorable children (sons/daughters of vendors) and paid them 5 quetzales to get their picture (so worth every quetzal). I just wanted to take them home and bathe them. They were so dirty, but still the cutest things ever!

Dia de la Virgin de Guadalupe - December 12, 2007

LAKE ATITLAN AND BLAKE IN SANTA COSTUME

I have so many pictures this time to share with you that I don't know how I'm ever going to get them all on this post! My mom just left this morning (tear) and it was hard to say goodbye. We had an amazing time together and saw so many beautiful sights. She was such a help with Blake and after about 2 days, he warmed right up to her greeting her every morning with one of his big handsome smiles. Of course, she melted every time! I mentioned that we spent two nights in Lake Atitlan on my last post and I wanted to post these pictures first. We were able to take a small boat (Blake's first boat ride) to another bordering lake town called San Pedro. There, we found a hotel with the most beautiful lake view for I'm not kidding, $13.00 for both of us. Yes the shower pipe was sticking out of bricks in the bathroom and there was no mirror or clean toilet, but with the view we had, all we needed was a bed! The next day we took the boat back to Panahachel (where we came from) and stayed a night there. For $60.00 that night, we were very comfortable in a little more upscale hotel. See the picture of the yellow hotel "Paradise Inn." We were room 6 up in the right hand corner. Funny though, our view in the $13.00 hotel was 10 times better! We shopped, got sunburned, made friends with some local boys (Juan and Juan - see picture) and probably purchased a little too much! We had a blast. I HIGHLY recommend traveling to Atitlan if you ever come to Guatemala. It was so peaceful and nice to get away from Antigua for awhile.

My mom brought a darling Santa outfit for Blake which he wore all over town once we returned from the lake. The locals all said, "Mira, Santa Claus! Que regalos tiene?" This means, "Look, it's Santa Claus! What gifts do you have?" It was really cute. We joked and said we'd bring them next time.

Today was the second celebration of the holiday season, the day of "Virgin de Guadalupe." Day of the Devil was on the 7th. At a local church, all the children come dressed up in their traditional Guatemalan dress. The boys wear a beige shirt and pants with a red belt and hat. They also paint a mustach on to look like men. The girls do their hair in beautiful braids with ribbons and wear makeup and traditional costumes as well. A big casket looking thing with the Virgin on top then leads a procession in the streets of Antigua and all the children with their parents follow behind. It was really a neat thing to experience. Blake is so busy and will not hold still long enough to let me change his diaper! He climbs stairs and into suitcases as well as crawls all over the place. He has stood up two times now by himself, but only for about 3 seconds. He laughs out loud and does this little flirty thing with the women in the streets that talk to him by smiling and then looking away. What have we got ourselves into?!! More pictures to come. They are never ending!