I emailed the girls' defender today as well as the Kidsave contact at ICBF to ask again about being allowed to communicate with the girls, and the defender wrote me back immediately to say that she had authorized us to call and email! YAY!!! We were particularly concerned because tomorrow is Fer's birthday, and we were so hoping to be able to talk to her as she turns 10. And now we can!
And, for those of you who would like a glimpse of the fundacion where the girls are (San Mauricio in Bogota), here is a link to a recent video on YouTube to raise awareness of the godparent (sponsor) program there. You can see both girls at the end of the clip in the group of children.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfvjWftZLUQ
Monday, August 31, 2009
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Big Decision: We're Moving Forward!
We have had the chance to share our happy news with many of you, but we wanted to make it "official": we have decided to move forward with applying to adopt Fernanda and Wendy! We had an incredible summer with them and we are very hopeful that our paperwork will proceed smoothly and that they will be home soon. That said, this could take awhile. We filed our Letter of Intent with ICBF (the Colombia child welfare authority) on August 12, and completed the paperwork for our dossier on August 14. It went down to Colombia to be translated by our agency's representative in Bogota on August 17. So, now we are waiting to hear back from ICBF that we can submit a formal application, and ideally by then our dossier will be translated and ready to hand in.
We are also waiting to talk to the girls again on the phone!! We had the chance to call them on August 5 (the day after they went back) and it was amazing to hear their voices, though they did sound very far away. We are now waiting for permission to call again, and we hope that itwill be very soon. Fer's birthday is next Tuesday, and it would be wonderful if we could call on that day.
We are very grateful for the outpouring of enthusiasm and support for our plans -- thank you all! We will update here with news (though probably not as frequently as we did this summer), so check back if you want to follow along.
We are also waiting to talk to the girls again on the phone!! We had the chance to call them on August 5 (the day after they went back) and it was amazing to hear their voices, though they did sound very far away. We are now waiting for permission to call again, and we hope that itwill be very soon. Fer's birthday is next Tuesday, and it would be wonderful if we could call on that day.
We are very grateful for the outpouring of enthusiasm and support for our plans -- thank you all! We will update here with news (though probably not as frequently as we did this summer), so check back if you want to follow along.
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Farewell . . .
We had a really nice last day (Monday) with Fernanda and Wendy. After spending some time at Christine's house with her and Jack, we went over to Sengstack to say goodbye to Gigi and Grandad. Then we came back to the city to pack their bags and get ready. Thankfully, everything fit in their suitcases! I had been thinking it might be hard to have to decide what to leave behind, but no need.
We let the girls stay up late so they would go to sleep more easily, which meant we had time for some ESL videos (they really got interested in learning more English in the last week of their visit), tacos for dinner, a walk to the library, and a drive over to the other side of the parkway to pick up the last set of photos and to get some groceries. Chris asked me to wait outside and the girls helped him pick out some flowers as a surprise. They were so excited to give them to me! When we got back we went for a swim and then watched Kitty as we finished their photo albums.
Then yesterday, though it was 4:45 in the morning, they got up immediately and got ready and we made it out to the airport on time. We were able to go through the first set of gates with them right up the security gate, and then we had to say good-bye. It was very hard to see them go . . .
It has been a little more than a day now since they left, and the house is so different without them. We have a lot of thinking to do, and we ask your patience for a little while longer as we take some time to reflect and sort out our next steps. We will definitely let you all know when we have anything to announce.
We let the girls stay up late so they would go to sleep more easily, which meant we had time for some ESL videos (they really got interested in learning more English in the last week of their visit), tacos for dinner, a walk to the library, and a drive over to the other side of the parkway to pick up the last set of photos and to get some groceries. Chris asked me to wait outside and the girls helped him pick out some flowers as a surprise. They were so excited to give them to me! When we got back we went for a swim and then watched Kitty as we finished their photo albums.
Then yesterday, though it was 4:45 in the morning, they got up immediately and got ready and we made it out to the airport on time. We were able to go through the first set of gates with them right up the security gate, and then we had to say good-bye. It was very hard to see them go . . .
It has been a little more than a day now since they left, and the house is so different without them. We have a lot of thinking to do, and we ask your patience for a little while longer as we take some time to reflect and sort out our next steps. We will definitely let you all know when we have anything to announce.We had a wonderful time and we feel so lucky that we got to be with the girls for the 5 weeks. We also are so grateful for the support of all of our family and friends as we went through this incredible experience. Thank you all!
Monday, August 3, 2009
The Last Weekend
We took a few pictures in Riverdale on Friday before going up to Tivoli:
Wendy took this one:
The girls got really interested in learning more English and began writing words in notebooks that Valentina, a new friend, gave them:
On Saturday we went over to Christine and Matt's house for Jack's first birthday. The girls had never been there and had a great time playing.
Sunday we spent a little time at Sengstack and said goodbye to Amy and Aaron, Henry and the twins.
Fernanda hadn't shown much interest in the dogs, but in the last week she really started to enjoy walking Lucky, and Chris certainly enjoyed having his helpers go with him on the walks!
Wendy took this one:
The girls got really interested in learning more English and began writing words in notebooks that Valentina, a new friend, gave them:
On Saturday we went over to Christine and Matt's house for Jack's first birthday. The girls had never been there and had a great time playing.
Sunday we spent a little time at Sengstack and said goodbye to Amy and Aaron, Henry and the twins.
Fernanda hadn't shown much interest in the dogs, but in the last week she really started to enjoy walking Lucky, and Chris certainly enjoyed having his helpers go with him on the walks!
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