There’s no place like home!

Good Evening everyone! This is Paul writing. We had another good day here in Pereira. This morning we went to an orchid farm. How incredible! They were beautiful. I’ve never seen that many orchids before. The orchid farm was at a home. The lady was the one who specialized in the orchids and the man of the house specialized in Bonsai trees. It was very nice of them to let us tour their home for a little while. It seems like Jose knows everyone around here, which is great for us. After that we went up to a restaurant in the mountains that overlooked Pereira. It was a great view of the city. The only problem was it was raining pretty good when we got up there so the pics probably won’t turn out as good as I would have liked.
Well, as you can tell by the subject, we are ready to go home. While it is nice to be in the tropics and enjoy a landscape that is almost a paradise, there is still no place like home! We miss our family and friends, and we are really looking forward to everyone meeting the girls. We are ready for a more stable environment too. It is difficult to have to rely on others around here for so much. I think one of the most frustrating things is the inconsistent meal times, especially at night. Some nights we might eat at 6pm others it’s 7:15. It makes getting a routine down very hard! Please don’t get me wrong, the people here are absolutely wonderful and I appreciate all they do. They work hard to keep us happy, it is just a different way of living down here, and we are ready for some good old Americana! I’m also really looking forward to speaking some English with someone. I actually watched a little bit of CNN yesterday just so I could hear some English.
Now let me talk a little bit about the country of Colombia a bit. When most Americans think of Colombia, the first words out of their mouths are …..cocaine….kidnappings…. if you come here you are taking your lives in your hands. Let me tell you this is absolutely false!!! I have never been to a place more beautiful and also the people here are absolutely wonderful. The people here are very hospitable, especially to strangers. Are there bad places in Colombia? Yeah, there are, but how many of us would stroll down the streets of downtown Kansas City, Kansas at night. There is no difference. If I had the opportunity again in the future, I would love to come back. There is a lot to see and do.
The lawyer stopped by tonight and I think he told me that our sentencia is on Thursday. He speaks absolutely no English so I had to figure out what he was saying in my broken Spanish. If that is true, we should be back in Bogota by next week, which means it is possible we could be home by the end of next week. I will hopefully know more here in a couple of days. I am going to have out translator call the lawyer tomorrow and have him repeat what he tried to tell me tonight so we know exactly what is going on. He also gave us a whole bunch more documents on the girls. At our integration meeting last week we asked for any documents that were in their files. We got them today!! That’s good, now we just need to get them translated so we know what’s in it.
Well, enough of my ramblings for one night. God bless you all back in the states, and again thanks for your prayers and kind comments! I’ll post more pics tomorrow.

Chris’s 2 Cents
The orchid house was beautiful. It was on a hill that overlooked the countryside. They had classical music playing in the background and we had a tour by the master herself. The entrance to this place is kind of like a little place to buy flowers and plants. We have driven past it a few times and I always wondered what kind of stuff they had. It was a nice surprise when Jose pulled in there. I saw more beautiful plants than I thought I would. They had a bonsai orange tree, about 3 feet tall and 3 feet in diameter, and it was bearing oranges about the size of tangerines. I was pretty impressed that that tiny tree could actually produce fruit.

I too want to let everyone know how much we really miss you. We talked to my family last night on Skype (video over the internet) and it made me really want to be home. We miss being able to call people or have people over. We really look forward to finding a new normal that involves everyone we hold so dear. I can’t wait for all of you to meet our daughters. They are anxious to meet you too.

Much love to all of you :)