8 months old!!!

We had an amazing day on Monday!  It marks 3 weeks of being here!!  We were up early and had the girls call a cab for us to set off to the botanical gardens.  Isaac was excited as he has never rode in a taxi cab!! The driver was very nice and was impressed that Isaac could speak some Spanish!! It was about a 25 minute ride and cost about 6$ to get to the garden.  Much cheaper than any taxi in the US.  Traffic was its usual crazy self as the lanes, traffic rules, etc are merely just suggestions.  Taxis weave in and out of other cars.  It was a bit nerve wrecking but was totally worth the ride once we arrived!!

The gardens are beautiful and we walked around for a few hours.  We also walked through the amazing greenhouse that featured different plants from all the different regions in Colombia.  Many cactus plants, tropical flowers and a very cool tree that Isaac thought looked like a snake.  I took many pictures of all the different flowers and could have spent a lot more time there.   It was nice to not feel as if you were in the city.  It was just a few dollars for all of us to get in and we would love to go back again depending on how much time we are here.  There was a large group of school age children (maybe kindergartners) that were also there on a field trip and they were so adorable! 

When we looked on a map it showed us that the largest park in Bogota, Simon Bolivar was not far from the gardens.  We decided to walk to the park from here and see a part of it.  This park is enormous and much like Central park.   We discovered a HUGE play area and several walking paths.  It was beautiful.  There was also a small lake with a sand type beach.  It was not too busy with people as it was Monday so we would love to come back here on the weekend.  Isaac had a ball running from one play structure to the next. 

After about an hour and a half we decided to start heading back north.  We hailed a cab from the street and we were off.  We had the cab drop us off at Jacques for a late lunch.  They have amazing crepes and sandwiches.  Delicious!  While we were there they were filming some sort of Television show in the back of the restaurant.  They told us it was El Capo being filmed, we were not sure what this was so decided we had to look it up once we got back to the hotel.  Check out this website: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_capo 

We made it home just in time for a huge thunderstorm.  It rained very hard in a very short time.  We felt really bad as the rain flooded the room that Juanita and Valeria stay in here.  There was ankle deep water on the floor as there was a leak in the bathroom.  Katya said that she has not had any issues with flooding in more than 10 years.  They spent hours mopping it up and we felt a bit helpless they would not let us help them. 

On Tuesday baby A turned 8 months old!!!!  We met our precious girl 3 weeks ago.  She is doing really well and seems to be adjusting to being with us very well.  She is smiley and happy most of the time and continues to discover her voice.   At times it seems so surreal that she is actually here with us!

It was a bit low key once again as we were planning on going to the private casa to pick up some paperwork we need to have to be able to take baby A out of the city this next weekend.  We were all ready to go around 10 and we got a call that the director could not meet with us as a kiddo at the casa was sick and she needed to take them to the doctor.  The meeting is rescheduled for 3pm Wednesday.  So we decided to go for a long walk and hit up Juan Valdez coffee shop on the way back.  Isaac loves the mango smoothies there!  Juanita made spaghetti for lunch so we ate at the hotel and took naps in the afternoon.   We ventured out to a little market in the afternoon to stock up on some snacks to bring a long with us for the weekend. 

Once again here are a few pictures! 

The tree that Isaac thought looked like a snake!!

one of the play structures at Simon Bolivar

Beautiful park!

Always be joyful. (1 Thessalonians 5:16 NLT)