Samuel's sweet smile!

This is the first picture we saw of Samuel, he looks so much younger to me in this picture because it was probably taken at the beginning of the year.  He still has that sweet smile that we love so much!  I can not believe how blessed we are to have this little boy as our son.  I always looked for the waiting child section of the Colombian newsletters first, before I read them.  Usually that section was empty, but in March I was so excited to see there was a waiting child!  I was hoping all along for a waiting child and really had just about accepted the fact it may not happen, but when I saw this little boy named Samuel David words can not express how excited I was.  When I sent our social worker an e-mail saying we were interested I was told to wait two days to see if someone else that had waited longer came forward.  Those were two sleepless nights.  I knew there was hope since she said we were the first to come forward and I didn't hear from her until the 2 days when I decided to call her (I just couldn't wait for her to call me first) and that's when she said we could request to be matched with Samuel.  As many of you know it was a long wait to be matched (Colombia takes a long time to process everything), but once we were things moved fast and when we got our travel date it was only 3 weeks away on November 5th! 

 Samuel playing with his cars.

 Samuel waving and saying "chau"; one of his favorite things to do.  Today he saw a lady on a balcony when we were outside playing and he waved to her over and over saying "hola"!  She waved at him too and smiled, when she left he started waving again saying "chau".

 Samuel clapping, another of his favorite things to do.

 Hanging out at Casa Lanthana!  I know these are not the best pictures, but he does not usually cooperate for pictures and I know Amelia and Dalton want to see pictures of their little brother!  Also, we are hoping to take him for a hair cut tomorrow; his hair grows very fast and in one direction up...lol!   

This morning Samuel got his chest x-rays, it was not fun.  We basically had to hold his arms and waist and press him against the white board thing so she could take the picture, it took a few tries. When I went to pick the results up at the dr. office they were not there yet, so we have to go back Monday morning.  That was frustrating because we need the results with the dr. signature to get his Visa, so they better be there Monday morning.  Atleast the taxi ride was not a waste since I was able to do some shopping.  I was able to get Samuel a Mr. Potato head to play with, that we will keep here for future kids that come to Casa Lanthana.  I also bought me a warm sweater.  Services like taxis are very inexpensive, but clothing and retail items at the mall are very expensive.  After the mall I went outside to the booths for souveniers where everything is homemade and less expensive, however the same items were cheaper in Monteria.  Lucia's son David is an artist that makes sculptures and his wife makes beautiful jewelry, I bought a few things to bring home as gifts.

The St. Louis friends we made are going home on the 1am flight tonight that we originally had booked too.  Although we were disappointed not to be leaving on it, we were happy for them.  Especially since they have been here over 6 weeks now!  It's neat seeing the French family here with their baby, they are first time parents and are so happy!   Their son even looks like them and when I mentioned it they said I wasn't the first one to say that.  I need to ask them how long their wait was, because I'm sure they've waited years for their baby and he is adorable, so happy for them!

Bad news from Bogota

We got Samuel's results  and he needs to have a chest x-ray tomorrow.  This means we can't get his Visa until Monday afternoon and travel on Tuesday.  This is very disappointong because we were really hoping to see Amelia and Dalton Saturday.  We miss them so much and I know they are sad that they can't see us until Tuesday.  I wish we could have had them here with us this past week in Bogota.  The hardest part is being away from them for so long.

Samuel also had a doctor's apt today and we waited an hour for it, but atleast he took a nap.  The doctor was very nice and he said he learned English when he was a foreign exchange student in Sedalia, Missouri 20 years ago, what a small word!  He thanked Jeff and I for adopting Samuel and said he was very emotional seeing families like us.  We assured him we were blessed to have Samuel as our son!  He seemed surprised we had 2 other children too.  Samuel was so good partly because he was sleepy from just waking up.    After that we had to wait another 30 minutes for shots, poor Samuel had a shot in each arm.  It was sore at first, but thankfully we had children's tylenol to give him and he's fine now.

He's just relaxing now and watching Mickey Mouse.  He is such a good little boy, we've been on the go apt after apt this week, including one this morning we didn't know about until 10 minutes before David came to pick up around 9am, and he has been so good!
We got to the dr. today around 2:30pm and didn't leave until 5:30pm!  The only time he cried was for the 2 shots and it was brief.

The French family is very friendly, but it is challenging to communicate since we know about as much French as they do English.  Jeff is from Northern Maine so he grew up around some French speaking people, so he does okay.  It has been interesting being around  Spanish, French and English this week.  It's amazing to see Lucia, her son David and niece Leena speak all 3 languages!   Lucia the first day kept speaking to us in French...lol.  Everyone is very nice and I'm working on my Spanish with some of the staff that speak no English at all, but I think it's good for me to practice.

Jeff made his daily trip to the atm, we have to pay for just about everything in pesos here!  Jeff thinks we've spent around $200 on transaction fees alone!   I know that's crazy, but we had to even pay our hotel fee here in pesos.  Another reason it would have been better to leave Saturday.   And one more reason to not want to stay longer, Casa Lanthana is COLD!  Bogota does not get as cold as St. Louis, but it is cool this time of year, especially in the mornings and evenings.  Since they do not have a heater and I prefer being warm I'm thinking of buying a very warm sweater tomorrow, the ones I packed are to thin to keep  me warm.  Jeff on the other hand is comfortable in his t-shirt...lol.

Friends in Bogota

Today we picked up Samuel's passport and he though it was pretty neat that it had his picture in it.  Today we said good-bye to the French family and their two kids;  Samuel was sad to see his friends Ana and Afel leave.  He really enjoyed playing with them!  They are 3 and 5 years old and they are so cute!  Tonight another French family arrived with their 13 month old baby boy and he is pretty cute too.  We had dinner tonight with a family from Lake Saint Louis that adopted an eleven year old girl here in Bogota.  We met them the first day we stayed here before going to Monteria and were surprised they have not gone back home yet.  They plan to leave on the same flight as us on Saturday if all goes well.  They have been here for six weeks now.  They have 3 boys at home that they also adopted from Colombia several years ago.  They said they were only here 3 weeks when they adopted their sons and that short of time is almost unheard of here, so they were much more fortunate then.  Their daughter is very sweet and really nice to Samuel.  She is excited to go home to St. Louis with her brothers!  It was very nice to visit with some people that live pretty close to us back home and they are so nice.  We plan to keep in touch and it's neat our children at home are close in age too.  It has been a neat experience watching the other families adopting and seeing them bond like we have with Samuel. 

 Samuel checking out his passport, he thought it was pretty cool with his picture in it.

 Samuel learned to go on the slide by himself.

 Samuel playing with his friends Afel and Ana before they left to their new home in France!

Samuel is laughing while Afel pokes him with his little toy. 

Below Samuel is playing on the outside patio with Afel's toy Spiderman motorcycle, or as Afel calls him "Speederman".  He was very friendly and had a lot of energy, I'm sure he'll keep his parents busy!

There's a first time for everything...

Yesterday was Samuel's first time in an airplane, first time in Bogota and his first time wearing a jacket (the weather is cool in Bogota and Monteria is warm year round).  He is used to running around without socks and shoes, let alone wearing a jacket.  He didn't like it either, but he finally decided to keep it on.  It's still a struggle to keep his shoes and socks on too, so today we compromised and he just wore socks (Jeff pretty much carried him around when we went somewhere anyway).

When we got to Casa Lanthana yesterday we were happy to see the French family we met back in Monteria at Hotel Sinu.  They were celebrating there daughter's 3rd birthday and they shared her cake with us which was nice.  Samuel was so excited to have two little friends to play with!  The mother speaks some English so we are able to speak some with her.  They adopted their 3 year old daughter and 5 year old son in Monteria and it is their first time being parents.  They seem to be wonderful with them and the kids seem so happy.  They said they waited 6 years!  Can't figure out why the wait is longer for French families, but she said they wanted two children, so they wouldn't have the long wait again and do the whole process again.  I can totally understand that and we are very happy for them.  Casa Lanthana is a nice bed and breakfast for families adopting in Colombia and the people are very friendly and love the kids. 

Today we got Samuel's picture for his passport and we pick his passport up in the morning.  This afternoon he had his TB test and Thursday we go back for the results.  Please pray for the results to be accurate, because it is common for the tests to come back as false positives and then they have a chest x-ray done.  Basically if it comes back good we should be able to get his Visa Friday and Travel Saturday.  If he needs the chest x-ray that means we will have to wait until Monday to get his Visa and will travel on Tuesday.  We can't complain much though because the French family has a longer waiting period for their Visas for their children and they have been in Colombia for 6 weeks now and another family we saw today with their 10 year old daughter have been here for 7 weeks.  They were effected by the judicial strike, so we are very fortunate things have gone so smoothly for us!  So far we really like Bogota, it's much better here than Monteria.  We have been busy and it's more comfortable here with the common area and the other family.  Everyone is very nice and I actually think this week will go by fast, especially if we come home Saturday!

 Samuel played with the seat belt when we first got on the plane and then he insisted on it being off!

 He really enjoyed playing with the tray in front of him...up and down over and over!

 Samuel made some new friends!

Samuel watching cartoons.

Good bye Monteria!

Our bags are packed and we are sooo ready to go!  Just to give you an idea of how long the days seem to us everytime we look at the clock it feels like it should be several hours later.  I'm glad time has gone by faster for the kids being at home with my parents, I feel like it's been so long since we've seen them, I can't believe I've been away from them for 3 weeks and hopefully we will be back in less than a week from today!  The reason we initially were not sure about Colombia to adopt was the long stay and although we miss the kids very much, it's obvious the child for us was in Colombia.  Samuel acts as if he has been with us forever, the way he gives us hugs and kisses and it's amazing how he has bonded with us almost immediately.  Jeff and I think his foster mother must have done a good job showing him the family book we made and talking to him about what was happening, because he did accept us with open arms just like I prayed in my journal.  His foster mother is a Christian and I feel like God not only answered our prayers, but hers too.  She and her husband loved him very much, but they wanted him to find a loving family. 

We are leaving in the morning to Lorica to get Samuel's birth certificate since we were not able to Friday.  We are planning to go straight to the airport after getting the birth certificate, so hopefully all will go smoothly so we can catch the 2:30pm flight to Bogota.  We bought the tickets on Saturday and hope it all goes smoothly so we don't have to wait until the next flight at 6:30pm and if that happens we also have to pay extra.  We hope to get everything done in Bogota this upcoming week (Dr. appointment, Samuel's passport and visa) so we can come home by Saturday, that would be good for many reasons.  Here are a couple, first we are very anxious to see Amelia and Dalton because we miss them so much and second if we get home on Friday or Saturday we will have the weekend to spend with them and they can play with their new little brother!  It will be so exciting to see them and for them to see Samuel!  My parents of course are anxious to meet their new grandson too!

                                       

  Waiting for breakfast this morning.

Playing with his bear on the blanket Aunt Susan made for him.

  Running out of things to do in the hotel room, so let's play on the phone!

 "It's for you!"

 Samuel and Jeff by the Christmas tree outside the mall.

Samuel was starting to get a little sleepy at the mall, but still did not take a nap today.  Atleast he went to bed at 8:30pm, much better than the 11pm he has stayed up til the past two nights!

Samuel David McKinney Langley

Sentencia! Sentencia! Sentencia! OK, I am sure some of you are wondering - what is this Sentencia  thing you speak of and why are you so happy?

 Let me start with the “what is the Sentencia” first. Sentencia, is a final decree, or ruling, from the Republic of Colombia Judicial system (or at least that is my interpretation). In our specific circumstance this is where we “legally” became the parents of Samuel in the eyes the Republic of Colombia! As part of this process Samuel is given new last names. That is correct, names with an “s”. In Colombia there are two surnames, the mother’s maiden name and the family name. So Samuel’s name is now Samuel David McKinney Langley and will remain so until the adoption is finalized in the United States and he becomes an American citizen (with a single surname).

Now as for the “why are you so happy” part. Well, the first obvious reason is because the adoption is “official”, Samuel is officially our son!  Second, this means we are one step closer to coming home and uniting Samuel with our friends and family whom we miss so, so very much. Skyping with the kids is nice, but it is just not the same as being there with them.

Let me give you a quick recap of the day. Samuel got up around 7:00 AM after a great night of sleep. We all got ready and went downstairs to eat breakfast. We have a “breakfast routine” where we all eat the same things day in and day out, make small talk with the hotel staff, try to trick Samuel into eating eggs, pickup said eggs that Samuel spits out followed by an exit where Samuel vigorously waves goodbye to the hotel staff while the says “Chao” repeatedly.

After breakfast we went back to our room where I put in a half day of work and Mary Ann and Samuel played. Then at 12:45 we met our interpreter, Maribel. She picked us up and we went to the home of our attorney, Anna Marria, to pick her up. Then we embarked on the 1-hour journey to Lorica, where Samuel was born, so we could finalize the adoption paperwork. You may be asking, how can a 1-hour car ride be considered a journey? Well, if you have driven in Colombia you know precisely what I mean. If you have not driven in Colombia I can only compare it to bumper cars at Six Flags, but with people, bicycles, fruit stands, motorcycles (carrying families of 3 or 4 people) and an occasional stray dog in the mix.  I will miss some things about Colombia, such as the extremely friendly people, but I absolutely will not miss the being in a car on the road, being a pedestrian or listening to the constant honking of car horns… Anyway, enough about the driving.

After we arrived in Lorica we met with the Judge and some of her staff to complete the paperwork. Typically it takes three business days after signing the paperwork before a new birth certificate can be issued, but we totally lucked out! As it turned out one of the attorneys had taken a couple days to sign, which delayed the Sentencia a little bit. The attorney was so kind to backdate his signature, so we did not have to abide by the three day waiting period. The Judge (who was also very kind)allowed us to proceed with getting a new birth certificate today. This was awesome news! So after we got everything signed, which took about 2 ½ hours due to some errors in the documents (which were fortunately identified before we tried to obtain Samuel’s passport in Bogota) we headed straight to the office to get a new birth certificate for Samuel with our names on it. We need this to get the passport issued and complete the adoption process in Colombia. Well, our luck turned for the worse as we arrived at the office just prior to 4:30 PM and the person who issues birth certificates had gone home for the day (even though they should have still been at the office). This was somewhat of a blow to us as we were really  looking forward to getting to Bogota on Saturday and wrapping up next week. Now we need to travel back to Lorica first thing Monday morning to obtain the new birth certificate. We hope to be able to fly to Bogota Monday afternoon. Through all of this driving and waiting around today Samuel was just as perfect as could be. Everyone we were with just complimented on how well he behaved.

We got back to the Hotel around 6:00 PM and decided to go to dinner at El Porton, which is a decent restaurant that is close by. Samuel shared some bean soup with Mary Ann and ate some of the fries that came with her meal. After dinner Mary Ann was not feeling well at all (we suspect the chicken), but I pray she will be better tomorrow to enjoy our last weekend in Monteria (and possibly our last weekend in Colombia, if all goes well). Also, Samuel was awake until after 11:00 PM. Not sure why he did not go to sleep, especially since he woke up at 7:00 AM this morning and only had about a 45-minute nap. Well it is 1:15 AM and everyone is asleep. Looks like it is time to call it a night. Before I go, I would like to once again thank everyone for their prayers. We have seen God at work throughout our weeks in Colombia as a result of your prayers. Please continue to pray for our health, safety and prompt return home.

Love,

Jeff, Mary Ann and Samuel

Sorry, no pictures/videos for today. We will add some on the next update.

Happy Thanksgiving from Colombia

Hope everyone back home is having a wonderful Thanksgiving!  We haven't had much to blog these past couple of days, because we are just waiting on the next step which is to go to Lorica to sign papers.  Last we heard they are waiting on one more signiture before we can go and that was two days ago.  We are frustrated knowing this should not take this long, but I know most families that come here go through the same thing.  We spoke with a French family that got here before us and they left to Bogota yesterday and they said they were here for 5 weeks, so that was disappointing to hear how long they've been here.  They may have been effected by the judicial strike that just ended here over a week ago, but we are not sure.  Please pray for the process to get moving faster, as Jeff, myself and Samuel are very ready to come home!

The good thing is we will have him home with us for Christmas, which a few months ago we were not sure if we would have to wait and travel in January.  Amelia and Dalton are doing wonderful with my parents and today my brother, sister-in-law and niece and nephew came to our house for Thanksgiving.  I'm thankful for a wonderful family to take care of my kids while we are here.  Part of me wanted to take them because I knew I would miss them, but now that we are here I know we made the right decision.  The kids would have been bored being here and I know that because Jeff and I feel that way after being here for almost 3 weeks now.  The days are slow and we are just waiting to bring Samuel home.  Hopefully next time we blog we will have good news on a better time frame of when we will go to Bogota and then home!

Happy Thanksgiving and God Bless!

I opened the bathroom door so Samuel could throw away a plastic cup and when I came to check on him 10 seconds later this is what I saw....lol.  Fortunately he can not open the door on his own, so I will make sure this doesn't happen again.  Atleast he was trying to put it back where it came from:)

 He looks like he's thinking, wow I'm a lucky boy my mom takes pictures and laughs at me even when I'm causing trouble...lol.  For those of you with toddlers know it's only funny the first time!

Samuel's wearing the Beatles shirt Amelia and Dalton picked out for him, I think cousin Alex will appreciate this one too:) 

Samuel just cracks up laughing while watching Kipper the dog and it's helped a lot that he likes cartoons since we've been stuck in a hotel room so long!

Pictures and Random Stuff



Gerry got Samuel this ball in Venezuela and he fell asleep with it the night he got it.

 







Tolu

Look closely and you can see a man climbing the palm tree, he was getting coconuts down.

 Horse pulling a wagon with a cooler in Tolu.

The town of Tolu

We have only been back at Hotel Sinu for a day now and are already very bored.  I think even Samuel is getting bored at this point.  We went for our morning walk to the park and then went to the hotel room to hang out for the day.  We were running low on clean clothes so I was able to wash some today.    Samuel ran around playing and watched a couple cartoons to pass the time.  He took a late afternoon nap, so I finished a book I was reading and Jeff caught up on some work stuff.  Sundays are pretty quite around here since most places are closed. 

Since our day was very boring, I'll say some things about our little boy Samuel.  He is very affectionate and he is also very expressive in his facial expressions.  He does not talk very much yet, but he is a character!  He has a lot of mannerisms that are pretty funny.  He shakes his hand real fast when he is excited or likes something and he laughs a lot.  He loves music and to dance.  He had us fooled on the first day because sometimes in the afternoon he will lay his head down and close his eyes like he's sleeping, but it's just an act he does not go to sleep that easily.  He has Jeff wrapped around his finger, he makes him carry him everywhere when we leave the hotel.  Considering his late development I wasn't sure how well he would be getting around, but he both walks and runs very well!  He loves to brush his teeth, turn the television off while we are watching it and he also loves to turn the lights on and off.  I also see a lot of trips to the barber with him, he already needs a haircut and he hasn't even been with us two weeks yet:)

Cavenas Beach

                                                              

We had a nice time in Cavenas, but it was not your typical vacation.  Although we are enjoying our bonding time with Samuel, we do not necessarily feel as if we are on vacation.  I guess you could say it's an experience we will never forget.  Today we had another adventure coming back to Monteria with the same taxi driver that brought us to Cavenas on Wednesday, he is very nice but still drives crazy as ever!  There are motorcycles everywhere around here, and it is so dangerous.  Today we sadly witnessed a motorcycle accident, we are not sure how it happened but we saw a man that had fallen off the back of the motorcycle and some people helped him up off the street.  He did have a head injury, but hopefully he will be okay.  It was sad to witness, but unfortunaely that happens a lot here and I fear for all the people walking and bicycling on the roads, especially in the area we drove through today.  I was so happy to get out of the taxi and be back at Hotel Sinu.  I think Samuel thinks Hotel Sinu is his new home and I'm not kidding.  I think our little boy would be happy just about anywhere, but our hotel room in Cavenas was pretty tiny so he is happy to have room to run around in our hotel room again :)  He still stays up pretty late, but hopefully we can get him on a better routine.

Once we put our luggage in the room, we went out to lunch with my brother.  He just left this afternoon to Bogota and tomorrow he is heading home.  I think he is ready to go home to his family.  He has a bad back and I think the hard beds and bad roads/crazy driving have really been hard on it.  I pray his back will get better once he is home.  Samuel is watching Kipper the dog right now and he just cracks up watching that show, it's very comical to see!  We are unpacking some of our things since we will most likely be here most, if not all of next week.  We did get to skype with Amelia and Dalton today so that was nice, since we were not able to in Cavenas.  They seem to be doing great with my parents and looking forward to their Thanksgiving break from school.  Below are some pictures we took in Cavenas.  The area was definately not for tourists, but the view was very pretty and so was the view in Tolu.  We were awoken every morning by very loud birds and roosters that you could see outside the gate of our Hotel just walking along the dirt road (yes our Hotel was right off a very bad dirt road). 

 One of the hotel staff chopped these down from a palm tree and gave them too us...coconut milk

Samuel loved the pool!

Cavenas Beach

Samuel got some shades from a local vendor in Tolu. 

He loved taking them on and off, more than actually wearing them.

The roosters that woke us up every morning!

Giving uncle Gerry a big hug good-bye.